Miss S's Enchanted Forest Party...

My sweet little girl turned five today.   Here are some photos from the party we had yesterday - I hope you enjoy them!

I painted this mural on the window to create the feeling of being in a forest (and to echo the invites).

On the morning of the party I raced around the communal garden in stealth with a pair of scissors and cut some greenery to decorate the table.  The toadstool placename-holders were purchased from Etsy - details in this post.

Don't tell the local forest authorities about my pillaging of tree stumps etc...

Then the guests arrived and were offered summer fruit pots...

...before we commenced the games, including a treasure hunt in the communal garden of our apartment block...

... and while the kids were occupied with Mr Muck in the garden, it was time to bring the food to the table...

...including the cake...

...and marshmallow/ apple "marshrooms", amongst other things...

...and all this food inevitably bought Master J to the table...

...and all of Miss S's friends too.

Candles were inserted into the cake (gasp!), ready for...

...singing happy birthday, and blowing out the candles.

The party favours were forest critters in jam jars.

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...and five years ago today, this was her and I. <3

The Enchanted Forest Party Cake...

My daughter's 5th birthday party just ended (phew!) and it was fantastic.  As I usually do I made the cake at home - and as usual I was totally over-ambitious and ended up burning the midnight oil for days to get it finished (cue husband rolling eyes as he enters the house to find no housework done and his frazzled, tracksuit pant-wearing wife up to her eyeballs in fondant).

I designed the cake a few months ago and drew endless pictures of how I wanted it to look.  Unfortunately, the hard work is in actually bringing that picture to life, and this cake was really the most challenging one I have ever made.  I'm really glad I did it - I learned so much - but next year, Miss S is having a round Betty Crocker packet-mix cake, pink icing and sprinkles!

Side...

I thought I'd share some pics of the cake from different angles and a few bits of info on how I made it, for anyone who is interested.  

Back...

The cake is my favourite family celebration chocolate cake.  You can find my recipe in the comments of my previous post on Master J's Kiwi party.  The bottom layer was 24cm, the top was 16cm and I used a 35cm cake board.

Other side...

The fondant on the cake board, and the two cake layers was tinted using the same green, but in different strengths so the layers went from dark to light.  The lettering was cut using my gumpaste/ fondant cutters (see this post to see them).  I cut them from gumpaste and then dusted them with white shimmer dust.

Close-up of the tree...

The tree was made from chocolate fondant which I found a little crumbly so I mixed in a bit of Sugarcel into it to increase it's elasticity.  The tree alone took me about two and a half hours, and I was so nervous doing it as I had no idea what I was doing!

The fairies I made after watching this youtube video.  I didn't have a face mould so I had to make the faces by hand - that's why my yellow fairy has a bit of a "meh" look on her face :).

The butterflies were made from gumpaste left to dry in a "v" and were attached to the cake with a tiny bit of royal icing.

All the other decorations were made in fondant and attached to the cake with water, except the little daisies which were made from gumpaste.  To finish it off, I sprayed the whole cake with a light spray of edible shellac.

If you have any questions about this cake, please leave them in the comments below.  I'm sorry that I have not got any good "in progress" photos - I really didn't think the cake would work out, so I didn't take any!

I'll post some other photos from the party in the next few days...

LM x

Enchanted Forest Cupcakes...

Well, it's less than 24 hours until the big event (my daughter's 5th birthday party, that is).  I have just finished decorating the cupcakes, so I thought I might share a few pics of them.

These were made using (from the bottom to the top), chocolate cupcakes, chocolate buttercream, grated dark chocolate (for the "dirt"), vanilla buttercream tinted green, and then the toadstool toppers I made and blogged about recently.

For these butterfly ones I made the toppers using gumpaste (also called flower paste).  This is an edible modelling clay that dries hard. 

I cut them out using an embossing cutter, then when dry I painted them with a mix of Wilton gel and vodka.  When the paint was dry I dusted it with white shimmer dust.  The pink buttercream is also tinted with pink shimmer dust.

To get the butterflies to dry in a "v", I made a contraption out of cardboard which I covered in tin foil - it was my dad's design (a quick trouble-shooting skype session!), and it worked really well.

Really looking forward to the party, but still a lot to do - including finishing the cake!

LM x