This is a pure brag blog post. I'm only sharing it because it's a cake that I'm so so SO proud of - one that I made for my son for his third birthday.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our favourite bed-time story. This was going to be the first actual birthday cake I’ve ever made for X-ray. Even though his birthday picnic was going to be small due to Covid restrictions I wanted the cake to be epic. So I planned on making him a three-tiered cake, with chocolate, vanilla and red velvet sponge layers. As inspiration for the decor, I skipped the boring fruit and went straight to our favourite page of all the foods - chocolate cake, ice cream cones, pickle, cheese, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, sausage, cupcake, watermelon.
Chocolate cake, cupcakes, lollipops and ice cream cones were easy enough. I used fondant and cake pop mix to make the cheese, pickles, salami and sausage.
I made the cherry pies from scratch. Look at that lattice on each of those mini pies!
For the watermelon slice, I decided the 4" top tier could be made to look like a watermelon slice with chocolate chip red velvet sponge layers. I then frosted it on the outside in green and red and studded it with chocolate chips. This part was easily my favourite detail! Even though everyone knows I absolutely hate making 4" sized cakes, everytime I do make one, I go awww so cuuuute. The aww-factor on this dinky lil watermelon cake was off the charts.
Having baked all the sponges, and made all the decor, it was time to assemble it all. And that's when I hit a major snag - who da heck wants to butcher a tree-tiered cake in a park, with a disposable wooden knife?! Not me, nu-uh. So I started re-designing the whole freakin' thing.
Remember this Woodland creature bespoke cake I made? I thought I could base the new design in a similar style, but was feeling less confident about having all the decorations on.
There were just so many decorative things to add on, it was going to look a right mess. Gah, I was really starting to regret this whole darn thing now. This is why bespoke cakes are a pain. So.Much.Thinking. And then so much RE-THINKING.
I frosted the two bigger tiers into logs with salted caramel and chocolate buttercream. I left the third tier as the watermelon. It looked a bit weird when I placed the three cakes onto the board but piping the grass and leaves started to bring it together.
The decor went on from then on. The fondant caterpillar, pickles, cupcakes, salami, etc all started fitting in. But the cherry pies....oh the cherry pies looked awkward whole. So I had to cut them up. I know...all that lattice-work was a total waste but they do look so cute cut up as well.
The only thing that I couldn’t fit on was the piece of chocolate cake. One of the logs is chocolate cake anyway though, so if X-Ray was gonna whine about it I would’ve said sure, complain to the manager. Hah.
You should’ve seen the lil guy’s face when he saw the cake! It was worth allllll the effort just to hear him squeal in excitement, naming all the bits and pieces, running around it loads. So so so cute! Ahhhh my heart. Happy 3rd birthday X-Ray!
Lots of love,
Reshmi xoxo
Samantha Ward
November 21, 2021
This is my favorite book to read to my children and I’m obsessed with this cake. You’ve got a very lucky boy.