3D Teddy Bear cake and cupcakes

It's been a while since I last made a 3D teddy bear cake! This Teddy Bear cake is a for a little girl celebrating her first birthday. She has a favourite stuffed toy teddy bear and I wanted to recreate the fur out of chocolate buttercream for this cake. 

3D Teddy Bear Cake

I actually have a Wilton 3D bear pan, which makes it easy to get the a shape of the bear already sitting down,without having to bake up round cake layers and have lots of wastage after stacking and carving the teddy bear shape. My issue with the bear pan is that the placement of the legs and hands makes the teddy bear look ridiculous, with it's legs too short and in a weird split. So, I always carve off the hands and feet, and then reposition them and do a little carving on the cake, so that the teddy bear is in a more natural sitting position. 

naked chocolate teddy bear cake

The bear cake pan also allows the cake to bake up with a nifty hole going all the way up the middle of its body up to it's head, which is a great place to stuff in some yummy filling. The hole is necessary because that's where the heating core goes, so that the cake bakes evenly. In this case, I filled the bear with whipped dark chocolate ganache to go with the Devil's Food cake that the bear's body is made of.   

lots of piped buttercream fur!

To give the bear realistic-looking fur, I used grass piping tip number 133 to pipe on the chocolate buttercream. I used crusting "American" buttercream so that the fur would be a bit more stable. Before piping the fur on the face and feet, I added some light brown fondant details, just to give the bear a more layered effect, like an actual stuffed toy. 

cute face, up close

I had to keep taking breaks while piping cuz the heat from my hands kept melting the buttercream! That, and my hand kept cramping up! Lots and lots of piping needed to get all the fur on this fuzzy brown bear! 

so cute with the little pink bow

I added a sweet pink fondant bow, a couple of little hearts and a round little tail to finish the bear off. And because it's a first birthday, I did a little mini smash cake, decorated simply with dark chocolate ganache, bordered with pink fondant daisies, the birthday girl's name and of course, a fancy fondant number one. 

little dark choc ganache smash cake

check out the buttercream fur, close up!

cute tail and heart at the back

"fatty boom boom" bear

To go with the chocolate bear cake, I also baked up two dozen red velvet cupcakes, frosted with cream cheese buttercream with a hint of lemon and topped with a chocolate fondant heart. 

red velvet cupcakes

The 3D teddy bear cake and cupcakes went on this simple, sweet pink dessert table, styled by Our Happy Story. I'm so happy to hear that the chocolate teddy bear cake received rave reviews from the guests! I hope they weren't too traumatized watching the teddy bear cake being cut into pieces!! Happy 1st Birthday, baby Glenda. 

Pink Teddy Dessert Table*

Happy 1st Birthday, sweet baby Glenda*

slicing up the bear cake!*

* thanks to Glenda's mummy for these pics