Maria asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughter, Isabella, and her niece, Taylor. The girls were turning 5 and 8, respectively, and had swim party. Maria also wanted to get some decorated sugar cookies at the birthday party to give out to the kids as party favors, which I was very excited about. Love me some royal icing creations. The girls wanted a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and Maria also wanted to do a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, both covered in Marshmallow Fondant. When I saw the birthday party invitations, I knew that is what I would run with. They were just so cute! Maria made them herself using the Paper Doll Kit from Paper Source (which I believe might have been inspired by this PS blog post), and adding her own little touches -- like a magnet on the back so people could stick it right on the fridge (without covering up any part of the cute invitation).
The Swim Party was at Anderson's Swim School in Pacifica. The kids had a good time in the water -- as did some brave parents.
I think Mikayla wins Best Swim Atire Award. She's rockin' it.
Here is a picture of the cake. The figure on top -- modeled after the invitation -- is made of marshmallow fondant. The hair, eyes, mouth, and nose are made out of modeling chocolate (my first attempt).
For the party favor cookies, I decided to make Butter Cookies instead of Sugar Cookies because I knew that once I added all the royal icing, the cookie could end up being a bit TOO sweet. (I know, I didn't think that was possible either.) The butter cookie is plain, but has a melt in your mouth buttery flavor and very little sugar. The butter cookie can be a pain to roll out and cut with a cookie cutter - but the key is to keep it ICEY cold when cutting with the cookie cutter and removing dough scraps.
I tried to make the girls look like the invitation, using a gingerbread cookie cutter. I confess that I gave the cookies a little "lip-dough-suction" by cutting off the round belly sticking out on the sides. I made my own boy version of the paper doll. I especially like the color blues that Cole helped me bring to life to coordinate with the girl cookies.
I also made beach ball cookies out of gingerbread to go in the party favor with the swimmer cookies. I wrote each of the kids names on the beach balls.
I am pretty sure that, generally speaking, kids love to see their name on something. Makes it way cooler.
Here is Enzo, post biting his own head off. Funny kid.
I think this is my favorite shot of the night.
Another great shot of the girls making their wishes...
Isabella and her cake topper, who took a little tumble when we took her off the cake, but remained fairly intact (minus the pony tail detachment).
The chocolate cake was sliced and eaten before you could say "dutch cocoa". Here is Taylor digging in!
Fact: Mikayla likes cake.
Classic one of Oscar.
But don't forget we had Yellow Cake too!
Lucy gives it two hands up.
Yay for the birthday girls!
