This is the cake I made for my sister-in-law's baby shower, featured HERE.
The cake was my old standby - Martha's One Bowl Chocolate Cake/Cupcake recipe. It's the best. I made two 12 inch cakes, and put my classic swiss meringue buttercream icing in between and for the crumb layer. The cake is super moist and chocolately - dense, but not heavy. The buttercream complements it perfectly.
The bear was also made with the same cake batter. I've never used one of those molded 3D cake pans before but it was really easy.
For the fondant I made my homemade fondant from the usual recipe from the Food Network. I made two whole batches, and only used about one and a half.
The argyle was just diamonds cut with a rotary cutter - after I had colored the fondant using gel food coloring. I probably should have measured them and pulled out my skills from high school geometry, but I just eyeballed it :)
Once the argyle was in place, I painted each diamond with pearl dust mixed with vodka. Not sure if you can see the shimmer...
For the "stitches" I just made a small batch of royal icing and piped it with a #2 round tip. I obviously didn't use a ruler!
The bear cake was piped in chocolate buttercream icing using a small star tip. The pads on his hands and feet were piped with royal icing, as were his eyes. His brown pupils are the underside of mini chocolate chips, and his nose is a regular chocolate chip.
Love the end result!
My sister-in-law, Alison, a cake and cupcake baker herself, really loved the cake - and of course it was delicious also!
Once the cake was cut, our young cousin, Holly, requested the bear for her plate. I think she liked it :)
She ate a pretty large portion of that bear all by herself!
The cupcakes to accompany the cake were vanilla buttercream cupcakes from Martha's Cupcake book.
Simply decorated with a swirl of chocolate buttercream (same as the bear) and a fondant cutout placed on top.
Another successful day of baking!
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