Crissa's Cake Corner!: Nautical Dessert Table

My nephew was celebrating his 1st month, and my BIL asked me last minute if I could do up a dessert table for him. Even though the weekend was already packed, how can one say no to family?! He wanted something with whales, with some blue and grey in it, so I suggested a nautical theme. He said go for it! And so I did, with lots of dessert items including cookies, cake pops, macarons, cupcakes & jelly cups.

Nautical-themed Dessert Table

For the sugar cookies, I didn't have any specific "nautical" cookie cutters, so I got creative and re-purposed the cookie cutters that I did have. Some of the whale cookies were made using a "baby in a sling" cookie cutter, with some of the bits cut off, like these whale cookies I made a couple of years ago. The rounder, fatter whales were cut using a balloon cookie cutter. I just nudged the "tail" end of the balloon so that it angles up, just like a whale's tail. I used a baby bottle cookie cutter for the light house & an umbrella cookie cutter (upside down, with the ends curved up a little) for the anchor! I love re-purposing cookie cutters!

cut out using re-purposed cookie cutters!

I made a big batch of royal icing, and dyed it shades of blue, grey, red & white. Because I'm "lazy", I don't bother making different consistencies to outline and flood the cookies. I just get the royal icing to a 15-second consistency and use that to both outline and fill the cookies. I have gone "tipless" as well, just piping the royal icing using disposable piping bags without any piping tips.

royal icing, all ready for piping

The cookies were decorated to match the artwork on the banner, designed by One and Only Gallery. I love the cute bite-sized baby onesie cookies, which I decorated with little sail boats and more whales.

Nautical Sugar Cookies set

The cake pops were chocolate, dipped in white chocolate. I went for a variety of designs for this set: glittering sanding sugar, blue chocolate swirls and sprinkles, an anchor (which was drawn on using some melted chocolate and a toothpick!) & a moulded white chocolate starfish.

nautical cake pop set

I love how cute these cake pops turned out, especially with the smiley whale paper topper and the blue, white and red ribbons tied onto the straws.

too cute cake pops!

The red velvet cupcakes were frosted with cream cheese Swiss meringue buttercream, swirled on in two tones using a 1M piping tip. To make the buttercream, I whipped up some cream cheese in a mixer, and slowly add edthe same amount, by weight, of vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, making sure that it's well mixed after each addition. It's very important to add the buttercream to the whipped cream cheese, and not the other way around, or you'll end up with large lumps of cream cheese in your frosting! I also added in a squirt of fresh lemon juice to compliment the tartness of the cream cheese.

red velvet cupcakes

The macarons were all sorts of colours which still matched with the colour scheme. They were filled with dark chocolate ganache, lemon curd & smoked salted caramel.

assorted macarons

And finally, the jelly cups. These guys were blue agar-agar jelly, with coconut milk mixed in to make the lighter blue layers .

blue jelly cups

All these desserts were put together on this nautical-themed dessert table, styled by One and Only Gallery. The balloons were kindly provided by my BIL's friends. Love how well everything turned out! Happy 1st month to my nephew, baby Joshua! We had whale of a time at the party! :D