Girly Cakes

I LOVE making cakes for little girls. Whenever I get an order to make a cake for a little girl, I get really excited over the creative possibilities. Maybe it's because I live with three boys (four if you count the dog) and I'm constantly surrounded by all things boy, that I crave the frilly, flowery, and pinkness that comes with little girls. Whatever the reason, I had a blast making these cakes for two very charming little girls.

The order for the first cake was for an almost eight-year old who wanted chocolate cake, chocolate filling, and chocolate icing, and flowers. My original idea was to wrap the cake in chocolate fondant. However, you cannot buy ready made chocolate fondant here, and I tried my very best to make it myself. Both recipes that I tried didn't turn out at all. I found the first recipe on line, and the second was from the book, The Cake Bible.

The first recipe was awful. It was extremely dry and hard to use, and didn't even taste that great. The second recipe, from The Cake Bible came out a little better but it was still very crumbly and dry, making it too hard to roll out, even after adding more water like the recipe suggested. It did however taste good, kind of like a tootsie roll. (The boys kept coming in the kitchen to steal some of the dough) Unfortunately, good taste alone wasn't cutting it and that recipe got trashed as quickly as the first.

After several ingredients and hours later, I gave up on the chocolate fondant idea and decided to use chocolate butter cream instead. I think the end result turned out pretty, and it tasted good too.

I made the second cake for a three-year old who wanted pink inside and out. The cake itself was chocolate and the filling strawberry butter cream - hence the pink on the inside. Her birthday invitation was pink and green, and I wanted to tie some green into the decorations so I added a green vine with pink flowers. Also requested were the polka dots on the outside of the cake.