Black, White, and Pink All Over - The Party!
My sister is wonderful at decorating and party planning - every detail was cute and girly! We make a good team, I do the food and she handles the decor. The weekend was filled with two parties - a family party and a tea party for her friends. I'll start with the family party recap and tutorials.
Family Party
First up was a family party for my niece. For this party, I made a tiered cake. It was a big hit! We also had the pretzel snacks I wrote about, white chocolate dipped strawberries, cake balls, chips, and peanut butter crackers. Here's some pics of the decor and food. My sister had a table set-up to do a tea party for Alexis and her cousins.
This party went great minus a slight disaster beforehand. We were preparing the pretzel snacks and my niece and nephew wanted to help so badly. I was trying really hard to keep them away from the stove (as well as my cake), but let them help out. In the process of all the craziness, a Hershey Hug was dropped on the floor and their small dog pounced out of nowhere and consumed it in one quick move. After a call to the vet, it was clear there was a chance this could be very dangerous to the dog and we had guests coming in a few hours. Thankfully my husband took the dog and they were able to get it out of his system. He's back to normal now - crisis adverted! My niece and nephew were very worried about him!
Back to the cake! So, if you've read the previous entries in this series, you know I already made the big topper bow, side bow, and curly letters. All I had left to to do was bake (and bake and bake), ice the cakes, and a few other details. Here's the tutorial for the cake!
Tiered Zebra and Pink Cake:
- A couple days before baking, I dyed fondant pink and rolled out balls for the bottom layer. I placed them around the cake pan to see how many I needed.
- The night before the party I started baking. First I baked an 8 inch cake 3 inches tall. This cake is zebra print when cut into. I previously wrote up a tutorial to make zebra print cake. Here's a pic of what it looks like cut into.
- While that cake cooled, I started baking a 6 inch round cake 3 inches tall. This cake is a white cake I made in case anyone was allergic to, or didn't want, chocolate.
- I placed the smaller cake on a 6 in cake board.
- Next I made two servings of my buttercream.
- I iced and smoothed out the icing on the larger cake.
- Using a mixture of light pink and electric pink, I colored the remaining buttercream.
- I iced and smoothed the icing for the smaller cake.
- I rolled out black fondant to about 1/16 in and cut strips 3/4 in wide.
- I cut the ends to a point and alternated whether the strips pointed up or down.
- Since the buttercream was still sticky and hadn't completely crusted, I just stuck the strips on without using gum glue.
- Before crusting, I pressed the curly fondant letters I had made on the front of the smaller cake.
- I attached the pink balls along the bottom of the zebra cake. I needed a little gum glue (drops of fondant or gum paste in water). I painted a conservative amount on each ball with a paint brush before sticking them into place.
- I left both cakes out uncovered overnight to dry.
- A couple hours before the party, I finished assembling by first cutting dowel rods to have 5 pieces the height of the bottom layer of cake.
- I inserted four dowel rods in a diamond shape at the edge of where the 6 in cake would be. (I used a cake board to estimate this.)
- I placed the last dowel rod in the center of the cake.
- I placed the small cake on top of the bottom layer.
- I rolled out black fondant to a thin rope to put around the bottom of the top layer of the cake.
- Finally I placed the two bows on using a little fresh fondant to stick them on!
Alexis, and all the family, loved the cake! If you are wondering where the candle went, we actually let her blow out a candle on a cupcake - which of course had zebra print, pink, and edible sparkles!
Now let's take a look at party #2!
Tea Party
My sister found a great venue for this party. It's a community center that had a perfect vintage tea party atmosphere. She again decorated in all zebra print and pink! This party was for 6 of her my niece's friends, and their dolls. Alexis LOVES American Girl, as her mother and I did when we were little. Alexis has several dolls and brought them for the girls to play with, as well as the ones they brought. For this party we had all the snack food from the precious party, as well as special cupcakes. My sister found adorable American Girl cupcake holders for the party. Here's some pics of the party decor.
This party had a lot less work on my part, but here's how I did the cupcakes.
- A couple days before the party, I cut out fondant stars from the electric pink Wilton Sugar Sheets. I used my Cricut Cake to cut these. The girls were fascinated they were edible, as they assumed it was paper.
- I rolled out fondant letter of each kids initial using the curly letter technique.
- The letters were attached using a small amount of gum glue. These need to dry at least 12 hours.
- The morning of the party, I baked my cupcakes and made buttercream. I had found the adorable zebra print and hot pink cupcake wrappers on Amazon.
- Once cooled, I piped the buttercream on using the traditional 1M tip.
- I sprinkled on some edible silver sugar sparkles on the cupcakes.
- After transporting the cupcakes to the site, I placed the stars on the cupcakes. The stars are pretty fragile, so I didn't want to risk them breaking.
Thanks for checking out this series of posts! Next up, I have a rose covered smash cake in a couple weeks, and then sweets for a garden themed first birthday party. I also have some other special treats I'm excited to try and share! Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Facebook for additional pics and updates!
