First Birthday cake

I made this cake for my daughters first birthday. My main inspiration has been Charm City cakes who have a charming (:)) show on Foodnetwork. I was nervous on a number of levels, this is the first time I was going something this big with cakes. This Cake was also a departure from my earlier Buttercream heavy style.

I narrowed down the process to the following steps:

1. Look at a lot of cake pictures and decide what kind of look and end product i wanted.(Princess cake, frilly cream detailed look, cool modern finish etc etc)
2. Decide on the number of people I wanted to serve
3. Then decide the shape of the cake, Do i want a single layer flat sheet cake or a tiered sculpted look etc
4. Model the cake in a 3d drawing software - Sketchup in this case to see if the proportions look good.
5. Decide on the non edible decorations: The balloons, Flying butterflies etc.
6. Make the gosh darn thing!


The final cake was a 6x6 square on top of a 10x10 square and served 40 people. The layers were Chocolate Chiffon cake with Vanilla Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache fillings that alternated. Boy was it delicious, even if i say so myself.

FROM CONCEPT
















TO REALITY