Tomorrow the littlest Humble turns two and I will be spending most of today working on the food and cake for her party. However, I just finished this ferocious bear cake today, so on the blog it goes.
I picked up this Build a Bear cake pan last year for my daughter's first birthday. It was pretty easy (believe it or not) and made a cute centerpiece, so I decided to give the cake another go this year.
Last year's Bear Cake:
(This one is glazed with a little more cocoa, hence the color difference... and yes that is an enormous candle on that cupcake. I think we forgot to pick up normal candles for her cake last year. My brain had been addled by holiday preparations and I forgot)
Last year the teddy bear was dressed up like a princess, this year the bear will be wearing the same dress and accessories as my daughter.
Now, we don't eat the bear cakes. I mean, how can you decapitate a teddy bear in front of your toddler and eat it? More so, can you do that to one dressed exactly like your kid? Talk about a freaky birthday party. Might as well put a down payment on all that therapy your kid is going to need now.
So, we use the bear as centerpiece on the buffet table. Last year I gave her a yummy pink vegan cupcake to devour, or rather coat herself in as most babies her age tend to do. This year, since she will likely eat the cake, I am baking a mini cake to place in front of the bear in her favorite flavor: Chocolate.
The chocolate cake photos will come later, as I'm still working on the assembly.
So here are a few photos from the bear's assembly process:
Turning the cake out of the pans and trimming it.
Applying butter creme to hold the two sides together.
Glazing the bear with powdered sugar, little cocoa and milk.
Coating the head in turbinado sugar. Thoroughly coating my floor and counters with the stuff as well.
Fondant in process. About to put 'shoes' on those ridiculous blocky bear feet. Should I ever try to put shoes on this bear again, I'm going to trim the feet into something a little less brick-like.
Finished bear cake
I used about half pound of fondant for the bear. I tinted most of it navy blue for the dress. The shoes are tinted light gray with super black and brushed with silver luster dust. The soles are fondant tinted with warm brown. The eyes and nose are more fondant tinted with super black. Most of the fondant is 'glued' to the bear with butter cream.
The striped areas are thin strips of navy blue rolled onto a sheet of white fondant and then cut out. The ribbon was held in place with a little royal icing. The white scalloping is white fondant cut out with a scalloped short bread cutter and pasted onto the dress with a little royal icing.
Oh and for anyone who has emailed me recently and has not yet received a reply, I will get around to it.
I'm just, you know... cooking. A lot.
Funny, because the bear resembles a newborn at the glazing step. A little raspberry jam in the glaze and you'd really be sending her to the therapist.
ReplyDeleteThat's brilliant. My family wouldn't have any problems attacking a cute bear though. Seems disturbingly fun.
ReplyDeleteWow, it's hard to imagine doing all that work on a cake and not eating it... I'd totally do it, at least after the party and the other kids have gone home to you know, minimize collateral damage.
ReplyDeleteLittle Humble is going to be one of those kids who thinks something absolutely amazingly cool is normal and commonplace. Like Darwin's son, who wondered where his friend's father "does his mussels". Little Humble will be amazed when she finds not everybody has bakery-fu at their fingertips. Lucky!
your bear is amazing,I stare at it in wonder, and a very happy birthday to your litte girl, take loads of photos with her and the bear you will love to look at them when she is all grown up.
ReplyDeleteLast year, after everyone went home, we nibbled on the bear's feet. It seemed like the most reasonable body part to carve off.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessie - once Little Humble starts attending friends' parties, she's going to be surprised! "Why doesn't your mom make a bear centerpiece too?" :)
ReplyDeleteIt looks fantastic! Enjoy looking at it.
Wow! This is totally impressive! I have thought about doing a fun little cake for my little sister and see those baking pans all the time. However, I wouldn't even know where to begin to make it even slightly resemble what the pan's intended look is suppose to be. However, what you're process gives me a little more confidence (though admittedly still not quite enough to tackle the challenge).
ReplyDeleteAdorable! I like the texture of the bear much more than the bear cake I made years ago...I used a grass tip to make "fur", and it just looked kind of pokey. I'll definitely do it this way next time. And I have to agree with one of the other comments...my kids wouldn't be able to wait to serve up the bear ;)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful job! The fur and fondant outfit are just perfect. I could never make something that nice :) The only 3-D cake I made...the head fell off overnight! Talk about a sad surprise.
ReplyDeleteYour daughter is lucky. My kids are thrilled to get a store-bought cupcake... I really can't imagine where you find the time! Good job!
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday little humble! God loves you, you can tell by the wonderful mommy he has given you.
ReplyDeleteOh my!! Both cakes are truly AMAZING! They're so amazing that I would so eat them both, even if I'm not into cakes! lol And, of course, Happy Birthday to the little Humble princess!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so even if you don't eat the cake, you've still got to explain why the little bear "goes away," and can't go to bed with her.
ReplyDeleteBoth the cakes are incredibly cute. I love that you did the back of the dress in such detail too.
That cake is amazing! I would be scared to dig in, it's so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteAmazing cake, I hope you'll eat it later in the evening when the baby's asleep :) Hope she has a wonderful birthday!
ReplyDeleteReal masterpiece..bravo!
ReplyDeleteYou are a god. I'm saving every one of these posts, so someday, when my current kids who already know I'm hopeless grow up, I can convince my grandkids that I, too, am a god.
ReplyDeleteWow. what a cute cake! You are really talented!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Rosa
That's incredible. You should do this professionally!
ReplyDeleteI am seriously impressed. Not only with the baking, but your uncanny ability to mimick real clothes using fondant. Bravo!
I want that cake for MY birthday. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteI have this pan too. I love it but how do you get the two halves to stick together. Mine totally separated on me. A total disaster. lol
ReplyDeleteThat's beautiful. It made my mouth water!
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute bear cake!! I've never heard of this cake pan; it looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteLilly,
ReplyDeleteI've always found this cake to be very sturdy when trimmed flat, slathered with a good coat of butter cream and placed in the refrigerator to chill overnight.
I always decorate the next day, so the butter cream can dry out a little and firm up. That way the cake can handle me poking and prodding it while I apply the glaze, sugar and fondant.
Of course, if it were ever hot in Seattle I might have trouble with the butter cream holding at room temperature. Then I'd probably resort to sticking bamboo skewers in it for extra stability.
LOVE the cake and the pretty little party shoes. I have some cakes to make in a week or so for my daughters... just love this pan.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the lamb cake my mother used to make for Easter. She would frost it with white powder sugar icing, and then cover with grated coconut. She then put some drops of green food color on coconut and spread it around as the grass.
ReplyDeleteCould be a polar bear cake idea for another year.
Though, as a mom to a 15 year old girl, there will be a year when she and her friends will be glad to attack the bear with knives(my daughter at my "site": http://sewuntalented.deviantart.com/art/Punky-Straight-Jacket-71610915 ). Though, if they are like my daughter and her friends, it will be after they make the bear themselves.
That is part of growing up in a house where cooking and baking are common. Truthfully, I have never created anything close to what you have displayed, but not for lack of trying. The best we have ever done was the few years when I baked the parts for small individual gingerbread houses to be decorated for each of the three children. (I must confess, it was easier when they were younger, but not so much now as I am back in college attempting to go back to work as an engineer)
Just wait, you too will try to work in your kitchen, only to have a child pull up a chair and want to watch and help at each step. When our boys were four and two we moved into a house we built with a large kitchen, except I could not move because I had one pressed in on each side of me!
The upside (or a downside depending how you feel about cleaning messes) is that the offspring are not afraid of cooking and baking. One friend of daughter wishes to become a pastry chef, but her mother will not let her use the kitchen, so she bakes at our house when she visits (I find myself teaching such things like the importance of making sure that all ingredients are at room temperature and that beaten egg whites will deflate in the presence of grease). This past week my daughter made sugar dough, and then took it and a rolling pin, a bag of powdered sugar, several cookie cutters, food dye (from Home Bake!) and colored sugars to a friend's house to create cookies for a Christmas party. Last Halloween she took the poffertjes pan (that we bought in Amsterdam last summer, not far from where her grandfather was from) plus the stuff for the batter to a friend's house where she made the tiny Dutch pancakes.
Yea, I am grateful that my mother was/is a good cook. Most of my siblings cook well (one cooks for a living). She has done a lot to keep our horizons pretty broad when it comes to food.
ReplyDeleteShe of course, is always trying to impart her 'vast wisdom' to me and my three siblings.
Why, she lectured my 20-something brother on how to properly clean a bathroom... over Christmas dinner. I kid you not.
Wow! Awesome, awesome, awesome. I'll be back to see what is next.
ReplyDeleteWhat great work... and it made me smile!
ReplyDeleteThis is beyond adorable! It's almost too cute to eat.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous cake! I didn't realise you could even get cake tins in that shape. The decorating looks like soo much fun :)
ReplyDeleteFirst time to ur blog...amazing bear cake .really beautiful.
ReplyDeleteSO cute! Happy birthday to your little one!
ReplyDeleteAmazing! The sugar gives the bear just enough realism. Love it!
ReplyDeleteHi there. I'm a private baker in South Africa and came across your blog - and your bears. Well, although it's14 months after the fact and your daughter has had her third birthday in the meantime, I simply MUST post a comment about your blog and the "bear" saga... very very cute indeed - Missy Bear's matching birthday outfit was just fabulous! You're a clever and very creative lady with a flair for writing!! Love it!
ReplyDelete