In August of this year my niece turned 1, and as seems to be the tradition with my Sister she asked me to make up the kid's cakes which of course I'm always thrilled to do! She asked for Vanilla cake with Strawberry filling, I thought that it would be no problem to find a fantastic recipe for Strawberry filling--geez little did I know how difficult it would turn out to be! My first stop was a fantastic website I've found dedicated to cakes, decorating them, recipes for them, tips and suggestions from other bakers. I found no recipe for Strawberry filling, not even Raspberry. I figured if I could find a Raspberry or other "berry" filling I'd just swap it out; nope! So I checked other places online, checked the library--nothing!
After many years of watching me make cakes & sweets up for people Ryan has seen me up until all hours of the night covered in icing or flour kicking myself in the butt for not starting this project sooner and saving myself the panic. He delicately suggested that since the cake was "due" on Sunday how about if I started it on Thursday? That way I could bake it Thursday & decorate it on Friday and still have 1 more day in case a catastrophe happens. Which I thought was a great idea & I'm sure I looked at him like he'd just discovered the wheel or something! I took his suggestion to heart and sure enough it turns out I needed it!
When I imagined doing this cake for Alyssa I wanted to try Fondant. The Italian men on Cake Boss make it look so easy, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not a complete novice in the kitchen, I do know how to decorate cakes, not to the extent that Buddy Valastro does, but I figured that with some research & some time on my hands I might just figure it out. I got all the stuff, read all kinds of tips & instructions and excitedly got to work. Sadly it didn't work out. I was disappointed but OK with doing up a Buttercream icing. I had also wanted to make up some Building Blocks to decorate the top of the cake, I was going to cover them in Fondant as well, they didn't make it either.
Our 2 boys have also watched me make up cakes & sweets for people and our oldest is very curious about the whole process. He asked me if he could help me, I decided to make up a little cake just for Alyssa to have & eat all on her own and Keegan could help me with that one. Well of course whatever the big brother wants to do the little brother does as well! And when Alyssa's cake was all done they were very proudly telling everyone that they made & decorated this cake just for Alyssa!
So the end result of the cake turned out to be great, I think! It finished off being a Vanilla cake with Strawberry flavored Buttercream icing in the middle, covered in white icing with lots of pretty pink flowers decorating the sides & the top of the cake. It wasn't exactly what I had pictured her cake to be, but I think it looks pretty good!
