Love Birds

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and I decided to get a jump start on decorations for a special cake.  My niece's birthday party is a couple days after Valentine's Day, so I will be busy with preparations for her cake that week. I was trying to decide what kind of decorations I wanted to do for our cake.  I ended up choosing a penguin theme for the cake.  My husband and I have both loved penguins ever since we were little.  We even had a penguin cake topper on our wedding cake! I'm sure we had a few people confused since it wasn't a winter wedding, but it was special to us.  

The topper is made out of fondant and includes two penguins, a heart, some polka dots, and a iceberg.  The side of the cake will have polka dot details shown below, I have purple and pink dots punched out and ready to go around the edge of the cake.  I saw the polka dot border around the edge on a wedding cake recently, and thought it was very cute. I haven't obviously finished the cake yet, but I wanted to share the idea in case you wanted to do something similar for Valentine's Day.  I'm planning on making a 6" cake and covering it with sky blue buttercream.

The penguins are actually made up of pretty simple shapes.  Here's a tutorial for making the adorable love birds.

Love Bird Cupcake Toppers

• Start with black fondant. It's easiest just to buy black rather than trying to tint it.
• Roll out a ball the size you would like of the penguin's body. Pinch the sides of it to make it into an oval shape.

•  Roll a smaller size ball of black fondant for the head.

•  Before attaching the head, make a few marks on the top of the body to make it rougher and help it attach better. Attach head to body with gum paste (few pieces of gum paste or fondant dissolved in 1/4 cup of water).

• Next, make the flippers for the penguin.  I started with a long piece rolled out and then shape into a triangle.

•  Attach the flippers with gum paste.  Use the back of the Exacto blade to push the flipper into the body, this helps to seal it and make the flippers more stable.

•  Roll out gold or yellow fondant to just below 1/16". I used the cap of the edible marker to cut out a semi-circle shape. Attach to body of penguin using gum glue. You can make indentations for the toes if you would like using the Exacto knife.

• Using the same color fondant as the feet, cut out a triangle shape for the beak and attach to the face using gum glue.

•  Roll out white fondant paper thin and cut out an oval shape with the Exacto knife. Attach to penguin using gum glue.

•  Roll out two small balls of white fondant for the eyes.
• Mark a small black dot on each eye using an edible marker.
• Attach to penguin head with gum glue.

• Repeat the steps to make a second penguin.
• Make accessories for the penguins to personalize them (bow, scarf, hat, etc). 

• Roll out fondant about 1/16" and cut a cloud-like shape for the iceberg.

•  For additional details, you can make pink dots and a heart.  I made the heart starting with a circle and then pinched the bottom.  To make the top of the heart, I used the back of the Exacto blade and made an indentation.

• I'm going to finish my cake by attaching pink and purple polka dots around the bottom of the cake.  The smaller pink dots are cut out using the lid of the edible marker.  The larger purple dots are cut out using the smallest Wilton round cutter.

Hope you enjoy the topper tutorial, I'll post pictures when the cake is finished on my Facebook page.  Make sure and like my page to see the finalized cake pic and pics of the finalized Super Bowl cupcakes. If you are adding me and have a baking blog or business page be sure and let me know.  I love adding other fellow bakers and bloggers and sharing ideas!