Jungle Animal 1st Birthday Cake - February 2011

I made this jungle animal themed cake for a little girl named Keila's 1st birthday.   The funny thing is that this cake was for a family my mom went to church with whose baby shower cake I helped my mom out with a little over a year before (see the post Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Cake).  So, it was cool to now be making her 1st birthday cake.

I also made the little smash cake below for the birthday girl to enjoy!

(This cake was made very much like the jungle animal cake in the post It's a Jungle Out There... Well at Least on This Cake.)

More pictures and details to come... :)

[Right now I'm just trying to get everything on the blog, then I'll go back and fill in details; you can read a little longer explanation here if you want. BUT if you have any questions in the meantime, in general or about this cake, please feel free to email me by clicking on the 'Contact Me' tab at the top of the page and using the email address found there, and I will try to get back with you as soon as possible. Or you can always ask questions or leave a comment about this cake by clicking the comments link at the end of this post. :)]

(I created my animated name at this site.)

It's a Jungle Out There... Well at Least on This Cake - July 2008

I made this jungle animal cake for my daughter, Cara's, 9th birthday.  She was having an animal themed party so I showed her some different ideas I had, and this was the one that she liked the most.  Her favorite animal was a white tiger, so we made sure that would be one of the animals on the cake.  :)

Zoo Pals plates and cups worked great with the theme.  :)

My mom found these cute jungle animal candles for Cara to blow out.

For this cake I baked 3 cakes, a 10-inch round, an 8-inch round, and a 6-inch round.  When I stacked the cakes, instead of centering them right in the middle, I shifted them toward the back to give me some extra room in the front for the waterfall and animals (you can see what I mean if you look at the back view of the cake in the pictures above).

After I crumb coated the cakes and let them set, I used a food coloring marker to draw where my pond and waterfall would be.  I iced everywhere except where there would be water with buttercream icing I tinted green.

I tinted some buttercream blue and put it in the microwave until it had a thinner consistency, just thin enough to pour easily, but not super thin and runny.  I started at the top with the pond and poured the icing out to fill in the space for the water.  I continued to pour off the side and down slowly to let it flow down the cakes naturally.  After it was set just a little I poured over some spots again to fill in any spaces that were missed and make some more of the drippy water look.  I used a grass tip to pipe the grass around the bottom of each layer and all along the edges of the water.

I sculpted each of the animals using fondant and painted on the details with food coloring.  I would have liked to make more animals, but I didn't have enough time.  I liked all the animals on the cake, but I really liked the elephant squirting water from his trunk, it may have been my favorite.  :) 

I thought the cake turned out really cute, and everyone enjoyed it, especially Cara!  :)

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