Smash the Bug Emily

Of course no first birthday is complete without a "Smash" cake so of course I had to make one for Emily. I decided to go away from the mostly used giant cupcake and instead went for a large ladybug.

This was an extremely quick cake to make, and one of the quickest to be eaten also. I used a hemisphere cake pan (which is half of a sphere) to make the body of the ladybug. after cooling the cake I crumb coated it and placed it in the fridge to set. While the fridge was working its magic I coloured some fondant using my newly acquired and favourite Americolor food colourings, and made up some more pink and purple matching to the colours I made up for Emily's first birthday cake (the one for the adults as it turned out) and I created the head and face of the ladybug. Pink for her head and purple as her antennae. I also made some purple spots for the body of the cake. I made the eyes using plain circle tipped piping nozzles as punches in white and black fondant and then used the fondant tool which has the clam on one end and the semi circle on the other end the latter being the side I used, pressing it gently into the fondant and creating a smile. 

Once the crumb coating had set I coloured up some buttercream frosting, the idea was to match up to the pink fondant but I added a bit too much colouring and it was darker, but still a lovely colour. Using the Wilton 1M piping tip, I piped rose buds onto the cake, I piped straight out to fill any empty spaces. I put this is the fridge over night to set.

The next day I added the head and the spots to the body finishing the cake, although this cake was one of the quickest cakes to finish, it was still my favourite and I think it looks great.

We placed it down in front of Emily and all the other kids, she pretty much just looked at it while all the other children rammed their fingers into the icing and made quick work of the cake, not much was left in the end and all the kids had a ball, I even think Emily got a little of the icing.