You Can Have Bake Your Cake and Eat It Too!

As I mentioned in this {post}, I had the honor of making my best friend's daughter's 5th birthday cake this past weekend! We explored many options. You know, the typical: ...Princess cake...Hannah Mon@tna cake...B@rbie cake, etc, etc.

But their favorite cake was a 3 tiered cake made with fondant...in Hannah Mont@na colors of course!

Well, it was quite the experience! I'd never worked with fondant, but I was just itching to give it a try. And thankfully Di and Ellie were crazy daring enough to give me the chance! The Wi!ton's fondant we bought was D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G, although it looked pretty! So, I found this recipe for Marshmallow fondant. It was easy to make, but I think I gained a few pounds in arm muscle from kneading it!

I'll spare you pictures of the first two cakes I made for practice, but Paul's co-workers seemed to enjoy them!

So here's my Adventure in Cake Making!

It all started out simple, baking 6 layers of cake in three different sizes. But it got a tad complicated after our dog ate half a layer:

But we I recovered.

So it was onto letting the layers cool, stacking and icing each tier, and waiting for the icing to set.

I'd made the fondant the day before because apparently it's better when you let it sit for a day (in the fridge). But it had to be colored. I managed to color the light pink, dark pink, and purple. But by the time it came to the turquoise, I begged Paul to come in and knead the colors in because my hands were so tired. It turned out to be my favorite color!

Then it was on to rolling out the fondant for the layers and finally cutting out the shapes for decorating! It was really cool to see the progression of:

But then I loved finishing all the layers and watching:

So off we went to the birthday party! It was quite the experience trying to transport it. I know, Ace of C@kes puts theirs together on-site...but that wasn't an option and I'm no Ace of any Cake!

The party was at Pump !t Up.

So imagine this:
4 HUGE blow up things.

2 with slides

a double wide jumpy jump!

10-15 five year olds + moms and 2 dads

and Addie

Well I wasn't going to let her age size or lack of mobility keep her us from having fun. So off we trekked up the very steeply inclined ladder with kid sized rungs meant for climbing with both hands leading up to the top of a very tall slide...held up only by AIR, all while carrying a 30 pound bag of potatoes baby!

and sliding down! Addie strictly forbids you to click on this picture for fear of being dreadfully embarrassed of her mother's fearful look! I love roller coasters, but honestly people, that slide was steep, slick, and FAST!

But you can't have a ball in a room without Addie honing in on it! The 5 year olds were playing with a tennis ball and one kid let it go. Well, Addie was off after it at lightening speed, daring any 5 year old to get in her way! She pounced on it; and as you can see, didn't miss a beat!

One of our friends from church was there and her little sister came along too. Anna (the little sister) has been walking since she was 8 months old. So while she was a tad much surer on her feet, Addie kept right up with her. They were so cute together!

Daddy was a great sport about the whole thing. He drove while I held the cake and yelled kindly requested that he quit taking turns at such high speeds. Ok people, in all reality he probably wasn't driving that fast, I was just trying to make sure the cake didn't melt or slide off!

It was by no means perfect. It had bumps and dimples that I just couldn't seem to smooth out. The top layer wasn't completely centered. And it near about drove me crazy to look at these pictures...but this:

sure did make one precious 5 year old a very happy birthday girl! Happy Birthday El-Bell! We love you!

I think Addie might have enjoyed herself a tad bit too!

...ya think?