Welcome Baby Cake

This welcome cake was for another party to celebrate little baby Ryan's 1st month. I got to make Ryan's full month cake for yesterday's celebration too! For this cake, baby Ryan's mummy wanted a simple design for the party at home with family and friends, so I came up with this. 

Baby's Full Month Cake

The cake is the ever-popular Devil's Food Cake, made with dark chocolate and (decaffeinated) coffee, filled with dark chocolate crème Mousseline (aka German buttercream). It is my favourite filling these days, as it has a rich yet creamy and smooth texture, thanks to the 12 eggs yolks in the custard base! 

I'm pretty happy with how smooth I managed to get the fondant covering on this cake, even though it was a large 10" diameter. Usually I have problems like elephant skin forming on the edges, but I guess today was a good day! It's really hard to control the humidity in the tropics. We only have air-conditioning, which really makes the air very dry, so the fondant is prone to cracking. But then, if it's not on, it's 99% humidity and working with fondant is too much of a goopy, sticky mess!

sleeping baby fondant figurine

To top the cake, I made a sleeping baby figurine. I was apprehensive about doing this and considered buying a silicone mould for it, but it turned out to be pretty easy! First, make his body by shaping some peach fondant into an oval-ish shape. Dent the front bit to make room for his head. Then, make two snakes for his legs, bending the ends of them backwards to form his feet. Flatten the part that goes under his body. Next, make two thinner snakes for his arms, cutting a few notches in the end for his fingers. Place those at the top of the body. 

cute little bottom

For the head, just make a smooth ball. Add a little ball of fondant for his nose and a small ball cut in half for his ears. Indent the sleeping eyes and poke a small hole for his mouth. Add a curl of hair if you like. Then, rest the head on the arms and body, which you already have arranged. Use a little bit of water to attach everything together. Then, just cut a circle of fondant out with a cutter, and add a quilted pattern if you like, using a rolling quilting tool. Drape this over the baby as his "blanket". Don't forget to add a triangle of white fondant for his diaper if you don't want a naked baby's bottom sticking out of the blanket!

freehand-cut fondant baby-clothes

The clothesline is just a very thin snake of fondant. For the clothes, I freehand-cut them out of a thinly rolled piece of fondant. I placed them on the clothesline and added some "clothespins" made out of dark chocolate fondant. I added Ryan's name on the clothes, cut out of fondant using tappits cutters. To finish the cake, I added a border of baby blue fondant pearls along the bottom of the cake. I love this cake: simple and neat. Perfect to welcome baby Ryan!

Welcome, baby Ryan!