A reason to make a cake recently came up. My niece's 3rd birthday. My sister-in-law has been extremely busy with moving stuff herself and training for an Ironman. I figured why not offer to do the cake and get the last one in before we do our own move? I have boys and know little about the likes of young girls, so I was told my niece likes Hello Kitty, pink and purple. Could she have made that ANY easier?!
I was immediately all over Pinterest. I actually have a board dedicated to cakes and wondered if that is excessive, but I saw a few boards dedicated to Hello Kitty Cakes only, so I no longer feel this way. There are so many cute possibilities, I started having fondant dreams, but I pulled myself back to reality. "She's 3, Brandi. Three year olds don't do fondant." I pinned a few pictures for inspiration and I would totally link to them if Pinterest weren't down right now. Shocking, I know.
This is how it turned out and I'm pretty proud of it given my lack of decorating skills. For the cake, I used this recipe from Sweetapolita. I like her style. She's a 3 layer cake kind of gal. That's how I roll too. I think we'd get along great.
The cake tasted SO good. My only issue was the frosting. It was so sweet, I think it overpowered the cake taste. I tend to spread frosting a little thick because I love it so that's totally my fault. But frosting is delicious, so I don't feel too bad about it.
This picture is just to illustrate my complete lack of confidence in my cake decorating skills. I printed off a Hello Kitty face and taped it to parchment paper and cut it out. I put that on top of the iced cake and traced along the parchment paper with a toothpick. Could I have freehanded it? Yeah, but it wouldn't look good at all. I'm sure there was probably some easier way to have done it, but I seem to enjoy doing things the hard way. I also have to admit to a little OCD. I couldn't deal with the bow as is, so I cut it out of the cat face, then cut it in half. I put the nice looking half (the one on the left in case you didn't know) on a folded piece of parchment paper and cut the bow on the fold. I needed that bow to be symmetrical. Even looking at it now, sitting there completely lacking symmetry is bothering me. Moving on...
This is how I incorporated most of the purple. I jumped on the color gradient bandwagon because I think it's cute, but I'm steering clear of the "O" word because if I see it again, I may have a meltdown. That probably means I'm on Pinterest to much, so maybe the fact that it's down tonight is a good thing.
And here are the layers. I thought the top one turned out just a little too grayish looking for me. It really could have benefitted from more purple. That bottom layer was just gorgeous. Sorry for not getting all the stuff out of the background. I keep promising that one day, I'll learn to take better pictures and that just never happens. And if you were curious, those Cliffs Notes in the background are for the Odyssey :)
Happy 3rd Birthday, Miss Alaina!
~Brandi
