Lovely Ladybugs #1
Today I'm kicking off part one of a cake decorating series all about ladybugs! Last week I worked on a smash cake and cupcakes for a little girl's first birthday. I made a smash cake for her birthday, and then cupcakes for her party. You may recall this is my fourth first birthday party I have worked on this year, I really love making the smash cakes and party treats! Earlier this year I made cakes for a garden themed party, an elephant party, and a sea turtle party. The ladybug theme has been my favorite to work on, though. It was such a great end of the summer theme!
For part one, I am going to focus on the cupcakes I made for the party. Half of the cupcakes for the guests were topped with a ladybug fondant topper. The other half of the cupcakes were piped with red icing with chocolate chip "spots." To finish out the cupcakes, I made a special one just for the birthday girl! Her cupcake was covered with buttercream piped to resemble a ladybug.
I made the ladybug fondant toppers about a week before the party. They were easy to make, and looked really cute on the cupcakes! Here's the steps I used to create them.
Ladybug Fondant Toppers:
- Roll out red fondant to around 1/16 in
- Cut out circles using around an 1 1/2 in diameter cookie cutter (one for each topper)
- Roll black fondant out to the same thickness
- Using the same cookie cutter, cut out black circles (one for each topper)
- Using a metal spatula, cut out a wedge of the red circles
- Attach the red portion to the top of the black circle using gum glue (fondant or gum paste dissolved in water)
- Create a wide oval-like shape for the face of the ladybug using the cookie cutter
- Attach the black oval to the edge of the topper
- Roll out black fondant paper thin
- Punch out the spots using the end of the Wilton #21 tip - four per topper
- Attach the spots using gum glue
- Create small white fondant circles for the eyes
- Attach the white circles on the black oval
- Finish off the eyes by drawing black dots in the center of the white circles
- Here's the finished product
I decorated 12 cupcakes with the fondant toppers. Another dozen cupcakes were decorated with red icing piped with the 2D tip. To create the lady bug look, I added "spots" using chocolate chips. Here's a pic of the chocolate chip cupcakes.
Finally I made a special cupcake, just for the birthday girl to enjoy! I made her a smash cake for her actual birthday (I'll be sharing that next week). But, for the party I just made a cupcake. I used red and black buttercream to pipe a cute little ladybug on the top of the cupcake!
