Gravity-defying m&m's Cake & Cookie Pops

I got to make another gravity-defying m&m's cake, this time for a little girl celebrating her 4th birthday at school. I've learned my lessons after making this cake for my brother-in-law last year, so this time was a lot easier! I got to make some m&m cookie pops as well, for the birthday girl to give to her classmates to take home. 

gravity-defying m&m cake

The cake is 5 layers of vanilla butter cake, dyed in the colours of the rainbow, filled with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. I actually had to trim the layers because the cake was too tall, taller than the kit-kats surrounding the cake! 

view from the top

Now, the trick to getting the m&m's packet to "float" is simply just a chopstick, stabbed right in the middle of the cake! I puffed the packet up by blowing some air into it, and then attached it onto the chopstick with royal icing. 

never-ending pack of m&m's

The m&m's on top of the cake simply stuck to the buttercream crumb coat on the cake. But the ones that are "falling" out of the m&m's packet and making a nice mound were stuck on using thicker consistency royal icing. I prefer using royal icing over ganache because it dries much faster and has a much stronger hold. 

The m&m's cookies were made a little more special by turning them into cookie pops! I stabbed popsicle sticks into the mounds of cookie dough before baking and boom, cookie pops! The cookies already have m&m's folded into the batter, but to make sure that each cookie surface had enough brightly coloured m&m's on it, I stuck more m&m's on just before baking. 

cute customized gift tag

The cute customised m&m's-themed gift tags were done up by One and Only Gallery. Again, I got lots of ribbon-tying practice individually packaging these m&m's cookie pops! 

lots of m&m's cookie pops

Here are some shots of the cake at school, taken by the birthday girl's mummy. The lighting was a bit of a challenge, so that's why the colour is a bit off, but i'm glad she was able to share these pics with me! I'm so happy to hear that the cake and cookies were well-received. The kids definitely loved the fun colours and the "gravity-defying" effect! Happy 4th Birthday, Isha! 

Happy 4th Birthday, Isha!