Lovely Ladybugs #2

Today is the second (and final) part to my ladybug cake decorating series. You may recall I made some ladybug cupcakes last week. I loved working on these cakes for a little girl's first birthday party, it was such a great end of summer party theme. The cupcakes were for her birthday party, but I also made a smash cake for her actual birthday. I had several different ideas of what I wanted to make, but decided to go with a cake shaped like a ladybug!

I really wanted a cake that was domed, so it looked like a 3D ladybug. I looked around my local craft store, and found a cake pan that was meant for making sport balls. The kit consisted of two half-sphere pans with a ring to set them in to bake. I used one of the pans to make the body of the ladybug. Then pans were easy to use, I just had a little more trouble than usual with the cake sticking. Thankfully, I had done a test cake first so I knew this would be an issue. I decided to only wait 5 minutes before flipping the cake out, instead of the usual 10 minutes. This worked a lot better for this pan.

To make the head of the ladybug, I used the top of a cupcake. I baked the cupcake (without using a liner) and then cut it down to about 1/2 the height. I used the top half for the head, it was a good size to compliment the ladybug body.

Here's how I made the cake:

Ladybug smash cake instructions:

• Bake chocolate cake using a half-sphere cake pan
• Using the remaining cake batter, bake a couple cupcakes (I made extras in case one fell apart)
• Place cake and cupcake on cake board 

• Make buttercream and dye most of it red (set aside a small amount to use for the grass)
• Remove the cupcake for a moment and cover the cake with red icing

• Optional: Smooth out the icing using a non-design paper towel (such as Viva) and a fondant smoother. You place the paper towel on the buttercream and "iron" with the fondant smoother. NOTE: Only do this if you are working with a buttercream that crusts, other wise the icing will stick to the paper towel. 

• Place the cupcake on the cake board and cover with black icing.
• Using black icing (I bought this as it is extremely difficult to get to black icing with gels), pipe on black spots on the ladybug's body (I pipe it on as balls and then pressed them down flat once the icing had hardened some)

• Place dots of white icing (using a medium round tip) on the front of the ladybugs face
• Using a small round tip (or a ziplock bag with a tiny hole in the corner) pipe on the mouth with extra red buttercream
• Dye the leftover buttercream green
• Using the grass tip (Wilton #233) in a pastry bag with the green buttercream, pipe grass around the edge of the red cake

• Use remaining black icing to add antennae and center dots for the eyes (I just put some of the black icing in a ziplock bag with a tiny hole cut in the corner)

I saw some adorable pictures of the birthday girl smashing the cake, I think it was a hit!

Make sure and check back this week as I have some tasty treats to share including a strawberry kiwi sherbet (finally!) and some delicious cookies! Follow my blog (RSS, GFC, or by email), or follow me on social media for the latest updates.