Baby in a Basinette Full Month Cake

Do you remember Matthew, the little boy that really loves trucks? I was lucky enough to be able to make a dump truck & construction cakes for his previous birthdays, and now, I got to make a full month welcome cake for his new baby brother, Ryan! In Chinese tradition, a baby's first full month (or first 100 days) of life is celebrated, I guess cuz back in the day, times were tough and just surviving this period is something to be celebrated! Ryan's mummy wanted a simple design for his cake, in shades of white and blue.

Baby's Full Month Cake

The top tier of this cake is a vanilla butter cake, filled with vanilla bean German buttercream. The bottom tier is a super chocolatey Devil's Food cake, filled with extra dark chocolate German buttercream, so dark that it was almost black in colour. I used extra dark chocolate to make this batch, and it came out really dark, almost black colour! The aunties at the party were joking that it looks like baby poop! Haha. Who knew "baby poop" would taste this good. 

hooray for smooth fondant!

The bottom tier of the cake is simply decorated in small blue polka dots. I'm quite pleased with how smooth the white fondant coating is on this tall cake! I wish that I had used a thicker piece of fondant though, because you can see a shadow of the chocolate cake layers are showing through the fondant. The top tier is covered in baby blue fondant, with baby's name on a fancy-cut piece of fondant that I added a quilted pattern to. 

small baby blue polka dots on the bottom tier

fancy fondant baby name on the top tier

Ryan's mummy requested for a baby sleeping in a basket to top the cake. Ryan sleeps in a wicker moses basket, you see, so this is a perfect topper for his welcome cake! I used a 50-50 mix of gumpaste to fondant for this baby basket, because gumpaste dries rock hard and is less fragile than fondant alone. 

sleeping baby figurine

I moulded the basket and added the lines on the sides using a sharp knife. For the baby, I just shaped a piece of fondant oval for the body, and a round ball for his head. For his face, I gently indented his sleeping eyes and mouth using some fondant modelling tools, and added small balls for his ears and nose. His hair is just a thin snake of dark chocolate fondant which I curled on top of his head. The blue baby blanket is a circle of fondant which I cut using my round scalloped cutter, with the pattern made using a fondant quilting roller. 

lovely sleeping baby in a basket

view from the top

For the handles on the baby basket, I rolled two thin snakes of white fondant and twisted them around each other and then cut that in half. I used royal icing to attach the handles onto the sides of the basket, and then placed some foam on the sides for support until the royal icing fully hardened. To finish the cake, I added some pretty blue ribbon to border both tiers. 

Welcome baby cake

It was raining quite heavily on the day of the party! Ryan's mummy had to help hold an umbrella over the cake so that it wouldn't get wet! Water and fondant is a disaster waiting to happen! Luckily, only a few small droplets got on the cake and all was well. Welcome, baby Ryan. Happy full month! And congrats to Ryan's mummy for surviving the first torturous month!

Happy 1st Month, baby Ryan!
(photo courtesy of Ryan's auntie)