Two Birthday Cakes

It was quite a busy weekend. Spending time with my sister and 4 yr old nephew in Boston, packing for my week long trip back to Ohio for my FAVORITE holiday, and putting together 2 birthday cakes.

The first little cake was made for my roommate. It allowed me to use some of the many Royal icing flowers I have been making in the level two cake decorating class and also allowed me to practice my basket weave for the 2nd cake. The small cake for my roommate is chocolate, a leftover I had frozen from my baking class. It has a raspberry preserve filling and a buttercream frosting. I hope she likes it. I'm actually afraid she'll think it's too pretty to eat.
The 2nd cake was made for Pete's nephew's first birthday. I was informed that Jonah is "coo coo" for raspberries. This is a vanilla 2 8in layer cake with a raspberry preserve filling, topped with an additional 6in layer, covered in all butter-buttercream frosting and adorned with fresh raspberries. The idea was to make it look like a basket of fresh raspberries. I think Jonah enjoyed that cake, but enjoyed the leftover raspberries I brought, even more.
















I really like the look of the basket weave icing. It's a little tough to do, and very time consuming. I learned a few things from these two cakes that I will definitely apply in my future attempts.

I'm giving a little shout out to Pete here, who was a big help during the Sunday morning frenzy of putting this cake together and icing it. He helped me keep my sanity, and made sure the numerous dishes and utensils I dirtied in the process were cleaned up before I left. Thanks a bunch!