Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes Cake

I remember the classic children's story books when I was growing up. You know, stuff by Robert Munsch (I'll Love You Forever), Dr. Seuss (One Fish, Two Fish) & Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar). But of course, there are always new children's books to add to the long list of classics. 

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes cake

The topper on this cake was inspired by the artwork in the book Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, written by Mem Fox, and the rest of cake was inspired by the birthday boy's colourful set of toy blocks. 

story book cover

Both tiers of the cake were the ever-popular Devil's Food Cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. After crumb coating the cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, the first thing I got to work on was the figurine. 

the makings of a figurine

This figurine is made out of gumpaste, because I wanted in to be nice and stiff, since the limbs would be freely hanging unsupported. I made the guy in three parts: head, upper body and legs, making sure to pay extra attention to the ten little fingers and ten little toes, of course! The parts were then secured together using a dry spaghetti noodle and some royal icing. 

cake topper, up close

lovin' the little dude's smile and hair!

The blocks were modelled after the birthday boy's own set of plastic toy blocks. I thought the pink flat disc block was particularly unique and unusual. They were arranged on top of the larger tier, filling up the empty space nicely.

ready for the blocks

To add more fun to the cake, I put each letter of the birthday boy's name on a different shape, with each shape being a different colour, and then bordered the whole thing with  colourful pastel beads. 

cute little toes hanging over the cake

Now, transporting tiered cakes always stresses me out, because of the risk of the cake becoming imbalanced with all the bumps, curves and stop-gos on the road. I always hope that no taxis slam their brakes in front of me. Well, it was a particularly hot day, and I was stuck in traffic forever, thanks to road construction and road diversions. I gave up looking for the restaurant and parked the car "nearby". I ended up having to walk three blocks under the blistering sun in 37C tropical, humid weather before I finally found the place! Walking steadily, balancing a heavy 4-5kg cake in one hand, while navigating using a smart phone's map in the other hand, is no easy feat. Thank goodness that the cake made it safely to the venue, unaffected and all in one piece! Funny that the birthday boy's mummy's first comment was that the little boy on the cake has more hair than her son! Haha. 

Happy 1st Birthday, Jasper