Chinese New Year - 1st Birthday Cake & Cupcakes

Chinese New Year is upon us! Lots of good food, feasting with family and friends, visiting relatives, all to celebrate the turn from the horse year to the goat year. Lucky baby Sophie got to celebrate her 1st birthday on the second day of the new year, with a lovely Chinese New Year-themed birthday party, featuring a 3-tiered cake and lots of special cupcakes! I love the unique theme, and all the bright red and gold colours. 

Chinese New Year - 1st Birthday Cake & Cupcakes

All the cake toppers were made in advance so that they would dry nice and hard before placing them on the cake. The little Chinese doll figurine turned out so cute. I added the golden details on her qipao using an edible gold marker. 

Cake Toppers

Chinese Doll Fondant Topper

The dimples on the oranges were made by lightly pressing a small ball tool on the surface of the fondant. To add more detail, I used some cloves for the tops of the oranges. The longevity buns were painted with shimmery pink edible lustre dust to make them more realistic.

Pair of lucky oranges

Longevity Peach Buns

The cake was assembled at the party venue since it's safer than transporting a fully put-together 3-tiered cake! Didn't want to risk anything toppling over or any of the details falling off. The top tier of the cake is a strawberry cake, filled with strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream. Along with the Chinese doll and the golden fancy number one, there is a string of red firecrackers draped on the side of the cake. Pink daisies were attached all around the cake using some royal icing. It would've been better though, if I had a cherry blossom cutter and they were cherry blossoms instead. 

Top tier of the cake

The middle tier of the cake was a rum and raisin cake, filled with rum Swiss meringue buttercream. At the centre of the tier is Sophie's Chinese name, 偲俨, framed in red and written using red royal icing. The pair of oranges and longevity peach buns were nice details to place on the sides of the cake.

Fondant details

The bottom tier was a vanilla butter cake, filled with vanilla bean Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. To make the Sophie's name pop and add more Chinese detail, I placed each letter on a red lantern. The red tassels on the bottom of each lantern add a nice little detail. 

Sophie's Chinese name

To make sure there was enough for all the guests, Sophie's mummy requested for cupcakes as well. Half were lime cupcakes, frosted with lime Swiss meringue buttercream. The rest were double vanilla bean cupcakes, frosted with vanilla bean Swiss meringue buttercream. I frosted each cupcake with a rose swirl so that the fondant toppers will lay flat. I'm sure the party guests were not bored of the cakes, since there were so many flavours to choose from! 

refreshingly tart Lime Cupcakes

Double Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

To top the cupcakes were golden number ones, longevity peach buns and golden Chinese coins. I placed them on a red square of fondant to tie them into the Chinese New Year theme. The longevity peach buns were brushed with shimmery pink edible lustre dust, just like the bigger longevity buns on the cake. A pair of green leaves were added to the sides of each bun for more colour. The tiny little pink daisies on each topper were little details that took a lot of work, even with the help of a small daisy cutter! Three little pink daisies, on each of the 56 cupcakes. That's a lot of daisies! Everything was attached using royal icing. 

CNY-1st birthday themed cupcake toppers

golden number ones

longevity peach buns

golden Chinese coins

cupcake army

The cake table looked really nice with all the cupcakes laid out in front of the tall celebration cake. It was indeed a very special Chinese New Year-themed 1st birthday party for little baby Sophie! 

Happy 1st Birthday, Sophie!