About seven or so years ago, I completed Wilton’s cake decorating courses. I have to confess that I didn’t put the lessons to very good use. In fact, it wasn’t until I had kids that I found a desire to make beautifully decorated cakes.
My first attempt was not very good. However, by the time my daughter turned four and wanted a “Barbie” princess cake, I was more proficient. Last year was a princess castle and my son was happy with his jungle themed cake.
I’m still not perfect and have to say I use my Wilton lessons as a stepping stone to try new things but don’t use their exact ways. And I certainly don’t think I could make a decent rose to save my life.
Anyways, a couple of weekends ago I made a baby shower cake for a friend who recently had a beautiful baby boy. It was a Wilton inspired cake called a Tot Toy Box. Of course, I put my own personality into it. For example, I used butter cream vs. covering it in fondant (I don’t like the taste of fondant). The cakes were Rose Levy Barenbaum’s recipes. I had a hard time figuring out a recipe for a 12 inch square pan, In the end I used a recipe for a 13 inch round pan – it worked beautifully.
The icings were also Rose’s – chocolate sour cream ganache and neoclassical butter cream. I did make the toy box and baby out of fondant…it was a bit labour intensive but so much fun to see the end product.
The letters on the toy box are made out of melted chocolate. The decorative baby bottles and bears are sugar candies that were purchased from a local cake-decorating store. The instructions for Wilton’s cake can be found
here.
It doesn’t say on Wilton’s site, but I would make the toy box a week ahead of time if possible. For the baby, if you are making it out of fondant here’s what I did:
- Colour 1 cup of ready-made fondant (I used copper tone).
- Roll fondant out to about ¼ of an inch in thickness.
- Cut two circles out of rolled fondant – I used the open side of a drinking glass to cutout the circles.
- Roll two pieces about three inches long each and form into arms.
- With a small ball of leftovers, color fondant black or other hair colour and thinly roll a piece of hair, and eyes (I used blue but again use whatever you like).
- Colour another small piece pink or rose for cheeks.
- Attach the pieces with a bit of water.
- Sprinkle some cornstarch on a pan and place “baby” on top to dry.
Also, instead of attaching the baby to a wall of the toy box, I cut an extra long side of the toy box and then used it as an extra prop to ensure the toy box lid stayed in place and I leaned the baby on it.
