Baby Doll Cake

I kick off all the wonderful madness of 2013 with a challenge.
A Birthday cake for my cousin's sweet little girl who loves baby dolls. At first I knew exactly what I was going to make.
Then my brain took over.
I was planning on using the Wilton 3D bear pan and making a sitting baby doll in a diaper. Then the thought of cutting into a baby put me off.
This is where it gets tricky, a baby cake that doesn't look like a baby shower cake. When I tell you I searched the web for 3 weeks looking for ideas, that is no joke.

Finally I saw the perfect cake. It is a design by Leslea Matsis where she uses a teddy bear in a box.  Perfect, a BABY in a box!

My next step was to watch Sharon Zambito's DVD on Boxes and Bows to figure out how to make it happen. I've had the DVD for months and had a reason to sit down and watch it finally. If you are in the early stages of cake decorating I highly recommend her videos. She gives wonderful step by step demonstrations of the most popular techniques and styles.

I started on Sunday, 1 week before delivery.  First I made the box top.
I took the pan I was going to bake the cakes in, flipped it upside down, covered the top in cornstarch and greased the sides. Then I rolled out gum paste, pure gum paste to about 1/4 inch thick and covered the pan.

 I smoothed it as if I was putting fondant on a cake.
Then I took a ruler and trimmed the sides to 1 inch .

Let this dry for 2 days and then gently slide off the cake pan. Allow another day or 2 for the air to dry out the inside.

Once it is dry you may add your bow, or whatever you choose to decorate the lid with.

I needed some baby accessories. I decided on some diaper pins, a teddy bear and a rattle.
I used a mold for the diaper pins that I found on ETSY.  These need to be done in advance also if you are planning to add them to your cake. They need a bit of drying time.
The teddy bear I made from a tutorial I found on Youtube. The rattle is a cake pop stick with a ball of gumpaste on each end and decorated with fondant. ( see photo of finished cake )

Now for the baby, I had no idea how I was going to do this I decided on a core of Rice Krispy treat that I rolled into a ball and inserted a dowel.
Then I covered the RKT ball with some buttercream and a generous layer of flesh colored fondant/ gumpaste mix.

I used my ball tool to add nostrils to a  small ball of  fondant I rolled and squished a bit for a nose.

I  also rolled 2 more balls of fondant for ears.  With a little gum glue I stuck them to the doll head.

I used my Wilton oval cutters to make some eyes.

Next I  drew on an eye lid with a superfine Wilton marker.

Finally I rolled a small log of brown fondant, flattened the end and gently drew some " strands of hair" on it with my Exacto knife and added a bow.

For the pacifier I used the largest oval cutter and cut out a mix of gumpaste and fondant for the base, rolled a ball and attached it to that , then rolled a rope and used it to make the ring. All attached with gum glue.

I chose to use 8 inch square pans for this cake based on the number of servings I needed.  The box consists of 2 layers of vanilla cake, and 2 layers of chocolate cake. A Wilton separator plate is used to separate the 2 cakes so they can be unstacked and served.

The great thing about the box cake is you don't have to get your buttercream perfectly smooth. The fondant side panels will cover any imperfections.

Once your cake is stacked and iced, measure the width. Find your widest point and record that. Next measure the height and add on 1/4 inch.
Make a template on computer paper of the width and height you will need each side to be.
Roll out a mix of gumpaste and fondant. I used about a 80/20 ratio rolled to about 1/4 of an inch thick.
Lay your computer paper template on the rolled out fondant, Cut out 4 sides for your box and let dry. It took mine a full 24 hrs .

To attach these the cake melt some chocolate. I used white chocolate. Also, mix up some buttercream the same color as your box.
Dot the side of your cake with white chocolate and press the panels onto the box.
Once in place, spackle the corners of your box with the buttercream .

Decorate as you choose. I chose to make some stripes in " baby" colors and a bow for the top.

I draped in a baby blanket to cover the top of the cake that I made from just a piece of fondant rolled out to 1/8 of an inch thick.

I made a platform that resembled the tops of shoulders out of fondant rolled into a chunky log to set the baby doll head on.

Next I rolled out 2 equal logs of flesh colored fondant , flattened the ends slightly and cut 4 slits with my Exacto knife to make fingers. With my hands I rolled the attached strips I had just cut into rounded fingers.
Attach both arms to the sides of the chunky fondant " shoulders"  in your box.

At the last minute I decided to make a bib.
I rolled out some white fondant and used the lid to my 5lb bucket of Satin Ice as a template to cut a rounded bib. I attached some " strings" made of fondant.
For the bib trim I used my FMM scalloped cutter to cut out some pink fondant and attached it with gum glue to the backside of the bib.
Set that in place and you are done!
( Sorry I dont' have many photos from this, it was VERY late at night and I was really wishing I was in bed :)

Once all that was done I decorated the cake board.

Finally, after a week of preparation it's done, and hopefully I captured Birthday and not Baby Shower.

Off to deliver!

Thanks for reading and if you would like more detailed instructions on this cake please don't hesitate to ask.

~ Melanie