Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake & Desserts

I love this theme!! The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, is such a fun and colourful children's story book. It's still one of my kids' favourite bedtime story books. "On Monday the caterpillar ate 1 apple...". Nom Nom Nom. And the book they have is the finger puppet version, so it always makes them laugh like crazy when I make the caterpillar tickle their tummies instead of eat the fruit!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar desserts

For Sage's first birthday party, I got to make all the desserts on the dessert table, including the birthday cake & smash cake, cookies, cupcakes, cake pops, jelly cups and macarons! The little Caterpillar was very hungry indeed!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar cookie set

I really had so much fun making these cookies! They were my favourite item on the table. Usually, I use fondant to decorate my sugar cookies, but because this set had so many different designs, and I didn't have special cookie cutters for each shape, royal icing was a better choice. Can't imagine having to cut all these special shapes out of fondant, and in all the different colours too!

the little caterpillar ate so much!

I had to improvise on many of the shapes and re-purpose my cookie cutters, combining a few to get the shapes I needed (for example, I used a balloon cookie cutter for the oranges, a teardrop-shaped cutter for the strawberries with the stem cut out using the balloon cutter, and a cloud cookie cutter combined with the back of a piping tip and a square cutter for the cupcake!) Really had to put my thinking cap on to get all these shapes. Luckily, I do have a caterpillar and a butterfly cookie cutter :D

colourful royal icing

Because I'm "lazy", I used a single-consistency (15-second) royal icing to both outline and flood the cookies. Had to split a large batch into many small bowls to get all the colours needed for these cookies! I am a "tipless" cookie-decorator, so I don't use piping tips to decorate (less to wash!). I just cut the ends of the piping bags small enough accordingly. I'm so happy with how they turned out!

Colourful Very Hungry Caterpillar cookies!

I also got to make Caterpillar cake pops again: chocolate cake swirled with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, and dipped in coloured white chocolate. I used rainbow nonpareils for the "hair" on the body segments, and fondant for the antennae on the "heads". The eyes and mouth were drawn on using chocolate and a toothpick!

Hungry Caterpillar Cake Pops

The cupcakes were red velvet cupcakes, with a cloud of vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. The cupcake wrappers were provided by the birthday boy's mummy. I also made a variety of "hole-bitten" fruit and food items as fondant toppers, which were placed on the cupcakes at the venue so that they wouldn't slide off during transport.

Hungry Caterpillar Cupcakes

fun customized cupcake wrappers

The main birthday cake was the ever-popular Devil's food cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. I made lots of different fruits, veggies and food items, like zucchini, a pizza slice and a strawberry to go all around the bottom tier. Of course, they all had holes in them cuz the caterpillar was very hungry! Colourful dots bordered both tiers, as well as the birthday boy's name on the top tier. 

lots of half-eaten fruits and veggies on the cake!

the cake from all angles

The cake topper was, of course, the very Hungry caterpillar himself! I rolled balls of green fondant and stuck them together using a little bit of water, and then stuck on his red head. To help support the caterpillar on the cake, I used two BBQ skewers running through two segments (extending into the head). 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar cake topper

All these fun & colourful desserts were arranged on this fantastic The Very Hungry Caterpillar dessert table, DIY'd by the birthday boy's mummy!! She did such an AWESOME job! I love all the little details, the wooden cake pedestals and especially the candy-shaped balloons! The whole family even had matching customized T-shirts! So special! Thanks so much to Sage's mummy for sharing these professional pictures from the party. Totally makes my bakes look so much better!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Dessert Table

artistic shot of the cake!

like the fun strawberry under the candle?

I also got to make red and blue Jell-O jars for the party. The mummy provided the nice glass jars, and tied the ribbons and put on the "Eat Me" toppers herself. Good try to those of you who made a guess on the theme on my Instagram post! Because the party was in an air-conditioned venue, we didn't have any melting issues with the jelly :)

red and blue jelly jars

Eat Me!

I also got to make the "electric" green and yellow macarons, filled with dark chocolate ganache and smoked salted caramel. Here they are together with the Hungry Caterpillar cookies and the fun, half-eaten-food-topped cupcakes!

colourful cookies, macarons & cupcakes!

"hole-bitten"-food-topped cupcakes!

a couple of Very Hungry Caterpillar cake pops

love the full set-up, including the candy & fruit balloons!

The smash cake was vanilla butter cake, frosted with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream and decorated with the same colourful dots as on the main cake. The smash cake was topped with a tinier (yet, still very hungry!) Hungry Little Caterpillar. Baby Sage is so adorable with all the cream all over his hands and face! Happy 1st Birthday, little one!

Happy 1st Birthday, cutie Sage!