Miles' 1st Birthday Cake

This cake was made for my nephew's first birthday! My sister-in law asked for a white cake with strawberries and vanilla buttercream. (this was what we had at Rylee's first birthday as well) I also made a smash cake for him, which will be seen in another post.

The theme of his party was kite flying, so I wanted to incorporate that in some way. I first attempted to make a gum paste/fondant model of him but it didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped. Instead, I decided to make his name in whimsical letters and have them on the top of his cake.

Decorations: The kites, the bees, the ladybugs and the name were all made of a gum paste/fondant mixture, 4 days ahead of time. The name was painted with a gel color/vodka mixture (gels or luster dusts mixed with vodka allows the piece to dry MUCH faster. the vodka evaporates, don't worry)

The tree: Orginally I'd bought a tube to use as the base of my tree but after getting the modeling chocolate wrapped around it, I realized it was WAY too big. I started looking for something to use around the house that was smaller and came up with an empty prescription bottle. So, I wrapped it in modeling chocolate and then used my gum paste tools to give it a "wood" or "tree" looking effect. Then, I formed a rice krispy treat into a ball and covered it in modeling chocolate as well. I cut it in half and placed it on top of the tree. This served as a surface area for the icing leaves. To make the leaves - I basically just used a simple round tip ( a #4 I think) and pulled up on my icing. I used mostly dark green and then did a fill-in with a lighter green.

For the smaller trees on the sides of the cake: All I did was take a few pretzel twists and wrap them in modeling chocolate. I made the leaves the same way as I did on the bigger tree.

As I mentioned before, the cake is a white cake with strawberries in the middle of each layer. I'd orginally only made it two layers but at the last minute I decided it wasn't tall enough and added a third. I'm glad I did, I definitely needed the space!

I really had a great time doing this cake. I've said it before, kids cakes as the most fun to make. The colors are brighter and the themes are fun, it's kind of like being a kid yourself. And it was for my nephew, so that it made it pretty special and fun anyway. I'm very happy with this one, my husband says it's the best cake I have done so far!