Baby Cake

My husband's cousin Katie was hosting a baby shower  a few weekends ago and asked me if I would make cake for the shower.  She had a picture and wondered if I could make a similar cake.  I looked at the picture and said I would (and could) do it.

I love making new cakes and challenging myself with how I can make it.  For this cake, Katie wanted a pregnant belly (and breasts) in a fancy dress.  Oh yes, she wanted a little foot kicking the inside of the belly.

Pregnant Belly Baby Shower Cake

 I looked at what I had to work with and decided on baking the cake in my largest Pyrex bowl for the rounded belly and my smallest Pyrex bowl for the breasts.  Then I made two layers of a 9-inch round cake and one layer of a 5-inch round cake to go underneath the belly and breasts.  I ended up having to carve off the edges of the large bowl cake as they were a little too big for the 9-inch cake base, and were a little dry and hard because they cooked faster than the middle of the bowl part of the cake.  I then frosted and stacked all the layers and placed them on a cake board in the correct shape.

Close-up of the little baby foot

 The next step was to make a little marshmallow fondant foot and place it on the belly after I frosted, but before I covered the cake in more mmf.  This part went well until I covered the whole thing in the fondant.  The foot part was visible, but I hadn't made the toes big enough to see through the top layer of fondant.  I picked the fondant up off the cake (yikes!) and of course it tore on both sides of the belly.  I replaced the original toes I made with round balls of fondant and replaced the fondant dress cover.  I was able to mend the tears somewhat with water and smoothing, and covering with the black zebra print fondant pieces.  I was happy with how the foot looked now, but a little bummed with the cracked fondant.  In the end it turned out beautiful, and now I know to make the toes bigger!!!