Applejack Pony Rainbow Party

I was pretty happy to be able to do this Applejack Pony Rainbow party. I love anything rainbow. Such bright happy colours. Originally, the birthday girl's mummy just wanted a "generic" pony and not a My Little Pony party, but then she decided generic ponies aren't really cute. Hehe. So, she chose Applejack pony, which is unique, since most people choose Rainbow Dash (it is a rainbow theme, after all). 

Applejack Pony Rainbow Cake

I was given the opportunity to make all the baked goods featured on the Applejack Pony Rainbow dessert table styled by Sugarena, including the cake, macarons, cupcakes, cake pops, cookies, and chocolate-covered Oreos, and everything was in bright, happy, rainbow colours!

rainbow cake in bright colours

The top tier of the cake was a 7-layer vanilla butter cake, with each layer dyed a different colour of the rainbow. After filling with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, this was one pretty tall cake! The bottom tier was Devil's Food Cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. 

tall rainbow cake tier

The cake was covered with a layer of white fondant. I'm finding the store-brand fondant that I'm using a challenge to work with, as I often experience cracking on the edges almost immediately after laying the rolled fondant over the cake. Even after kneading in some shortening, the fondant is still on the dry side. So it takes quite a bit of manoeuvring and a couple of tries before I can get a decent cover on the cake. I added pastel rainbow stripes around the bottom tier, a large hand-cut pink fondant heart with a number one in the middle of the top tier and a Happy Birthday fondant message, with the birthday girl's name cut out of rainbow colours. 

The buttercream border along the top-tier wasn't part of the original cake design. Because I stacked the cakes at the venue, it was only then that I realised there was a gap in between the two tiers. What happened was I had cut the support dowels in the bottom tier a few millimetres to thick, resulting in the gap. I only had off-white coloured vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream with me (from frosting the mini cupcakes) and I had no choice but to use this to cover the gap.  Lesson learned: measure and cut the support dowels more accurately! and bring more royal icing just in case. Sigh. 

Applejack pony, side-view

To top the cake, I sculpted Applejack pony out of fondant. I built her up, starting with her four legs, with toothpicks running through each leg. I attached her body on top of her legs, and then let that dry a bit, before adding her head on, with a toothpick running through the head, neck and the front left leg to support the weight of the head. I also used another toothpick to support her long tail. I was worried that it wouldn't hold up properly cuz the tail was pretty heavy, but I propped it up using a sponge while it was drying, and it dried nice and firm, in the right position. An interesting fact is that Applejack is only one of six ponies that has her mane and tail tied back in a "ponytail."

love the details in her hair and eyes

The most fun parts about making Applejack were her eyes. I shaped different-sized ovals from white, green and black fondant, and then layered them on top of each other, ending with big white "reflections" in her eyes to give her life. Her eyelids and eyelashes were drawn on using an black edible ink food marker, and the teeny white circle in her eye was dotted on using a toothpick and some bright white Americolor food gel. 

Applejack Pony with cute little cowboy hat

Now, Applejack wouldn't be complete without her signature brown stetson cowboy hat and her apple "cutie marks". The cowboy hat was sculpted out of yummy dark chocolate fondant, and the cutie marks were drawn on using edible ink food markers.  I love how cute Applejack turned out! 

Rainbow macarons

The macarons were filled with dark chocolate ganache, with six different rainbow colours for the shells. 

rainbow fondant toppers for mini cupcakes

I made the fondant toppers for the mini red velvet cupcakes in advance, since fondant toppers can be kept in an airtight container once they're dry. The little rainbows were made by rolling out blue, yellow and red fondant into thin snakes, then sicking them together with a little bit of water. I used a mini daisy cutter for the "clouds" at the ends of the rainbows. I frosted the mini cupcakes with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream at the venue so that I wouldn't have to worry about cupcakes toppling over during transport. 

Rainbow "name" cake pops

The cake pops are red velvet cake, crumbled and swirled with vanilla buttercream, before being rolled into balls and dipped into white chocolate, dyed six rainbow colours. It was perfect that the birthday girl's name was exactly 6 letters, one fondant letter for each of the six cake pop colours.

Applejack Cookies

My absolute favourite thing out of all the items I made for this party are the Applejack sugar cookies! Since I didn't have an Applejack cookie cutter (or any other My Little Pony cookie cutter) I had to hand-cut all these little ponies! First, I had to cut the Applejack ponies out of the cookie dough. And then I had to cut all their little details out of fondant: hat, body, mane, tail & eyes!! I made sure to add the white reflections in the eyes to bring the cookies to life. All the hard work was worth it though and I'm loving every single detail on these Applejack cookies. 

Applejack Pony & Rainbow cookies

I also got to make Rainbow sugar cookies. I used a round cutter to cut a circle out of the cookie dough for the rainbow, then used a cloud cutter to cut a "negative" cloud out of the circle, then cut out another cloud out of cookie dough and spliced the two together to form the cookie shape. Too bad I didn't take pics of the process cuz I'm having a hard time putting it into words! The fondant rainbows on top of the cookies are made just like this large fondant rainbow cake topper, but on a smaller scaler. Again I had to cut "negative clouds" out of the ends of the rainbows to make room for the white fondant cloud.

Rainbow Oreos

The last treat I got to make were chocolate-covered Oreos, coated with white chocolate dyed six colours of the rainbow. It is important to use only candy oils or powdered colouring to colour the chocolate, as any water-based food colouring or gel will cause the chocolate to seize and become unusable!

Applejack Pony Rainbow Dessert Table

All these yummy desserts were displayed on a super bright and cheerful dessert together put together by the talented Sugarena. I love how all the happy colours came together! I love the Applejack Rainbow custom banner, the rainbow goblets and the apple cut-outs! The display plates and glassware are very nice as well. It's great that this table had minimal props, letting the bright, colourful rainbow coloured desserts shine for themselves. I was happy to see a big smile on birthday girl's face when she saw all the pretty colours! Happy 1st birthday, Jiemin!

mini red velvet cupcakes

Happy 1st Birthday, Jiemin!