Sunflower Cake: Dina's 4th Birthday

When my daughter born in March explained that she wanted to have a sunflower theme for her 4th birthday I was a little bit worried. Sunflowers? In March? Is that even possible here in NL?

I immediately began planning the cake and even had her make a drawing of what she wanted her cake design to look like.

My drawing of the cake.

Dina's drawing of her cake.

My decision to paint the wall to match the theme was perhaps a bit over the top, since I was 9 months pregnant at the time.

The color yellow we choose made me so happy, however, and I have not regretted it.

The luckiest part of the preparations happened a week before the party. I was at local outdoor market, getting flowers for a friend when I saw SUNFLOWERS for sale, totally out of season. I asked the guy where they were from, "Israel," he said, and his next question was, "Will you buy them? Great deal!" I asked if they would last a week and he suggested I place them in a cold place, in water, then cut them as short as I could manage just before the party. It worked beautifully. I was thrilled to have real sunflowers in March!

Using a 9x13" pan for the base cake and a couple of 6" pans and cupcakes for the flowers, I made her sunflower cake happen.

 (Does it look a bit like Mickey Mouse here? I thought so.)

I made a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling, and basic butter cream frosting. The sunflowers were made with a leaf tip (#68) and a star tip for the top, using a cocoa frosting. The grass and the writing were made with a round tip (#10 and #7). I did not put a base coat on the sunflowers, so you see the chocolate cake through the yellow petals, which I felt made it look more true to life.
The favors were sunflowers, grown from seed in the months before her birthday. I had her take a similar favor to school to give out but in that case it was just seeds, dirt, and a tiny painted pot with a stick holding the center of the invitation design(thanks, Uncle Danny!) and "Dina is 4" on the back.

We also covered our normal framed photos with my photographer husband's best sunflower ones.

We played pin the bee on the sunflower. Thanks, Uncle Danny for the giant sunflower, and Thanks, Samantha for the bees!

Much of the food served looked like sunflowers:

For her school party I made cupcakes- using Oreos as the center of each sunflower and also using round chocolate crunchy sprinkle-type things as well.

 It was a great party and we enjoyed celebrating Dina's fourth birthday! I'm over a year delayed in posting about this- but it was a blast.

An Airplane Cake for First Birthday Boy, Liam

When my friend Jessica asked me to make her son's first birthday cake, I felt so honored. Every child's birthday is special and a first birthday is especially so! Jessica is such a creative person- the party could not have been more gorgeous. The invitations were plane tickets! The color scheme was blue and orange- absolutely perfect. Ahead of time, I made a gum-paste plane and white chocolate banner (actually I made several of each- to allow for breakage) as well as some teeny tiny gum-paste blue birds. The only non-edible part of the entire cake was the small piece of tooth-pick I used to spin the propeller on the plane. I felt it just had to be able to spin!

 I used a round tip 10 for the clouds and top border and a round tip 12 for the bottom border, piping with my recipe for Basic Buttercream.

Just before placing it,  I made a small 'rope' from gum-paste to connect the banner to the airplane.

 

Since the birthday boy loves birds, tiny blue birds adorned the clouds. They were challenging to shape due to their small size. I started with a pea-sized piece of gum-paste, rolling it into a cylinder, then pulling the wings from the sides and tail and beak from the front and back. I used a toothpick to add the eyes and a bit of feather texture on the wings and belly.

 

The birthday boy needed his own cupcake to taste, so I made him one using Wilton's 2D tip and a round tip #3 to make the white dots. Topped it off with a Number 1 candle from HEMA, one of my favorite stores in the Netherlands.

 

In order to create the curved banner in white chocolate I needed to have it dry on something curved in the same shape. I used a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll, cut in half and re-taped together to form the "S" shape. After piping the white chocolate banner on waxed paper I carefully lifted it onto the "S" and let it dry there overnight. The following day I piped the dark chocolate lettering, "Liam is 1!"

From the moment Jessica explained her request and theme I knew I was going to have a blast making this cake. It was a pleasure to create and I feel so lucky to have been a part of a very special boy's first birthday.