Adventures in Baking

One of the most exciting events in a child's life is the first birthday. Okay - maybe not so much for the child, but it is an exciting time for the child's dotting family. So much anticipation surrounds the moment when the child will eat his or her first bite of birthday cake. Will the child eat it daintily, or will he or she tear into the cake like an icing craving fiend? But without the perfect birthday cake to present to the child, how else can a proud family document the celebration of a first birthday without a photograph of a frosting covered child to cherish for posterity?

I, along with my friend, Shannon, were given the task of creating cupcakes for my niece's first birthday party. We baked forty-eight cupcakes and planned to decorate them with pink strawberry icing. The snout would be made of strawberry marshmallows, and the ears would be created out of sugar cookie dough. But, like all "good" plans, our triangular shaped pig ears came out of the oven as unrecognizable blobs of cookies. So we ended up creating the snouts and ears out of the pink marshmallows and added pink sprinkles for pizazz.

Snouts and Ears

We were going to make the eyes out of white chocolate chips, but, when placed the chips on the frosted cupcakes, they refused to cooperate with our vision. So we ended up drawing them on with black icing.

Before

After

To present the cupcakes, we twisted black pipe cleaners and attached them to pink plates to create the bodies of the pink piggies. In the end, we ended up with a very cute dessert for the kids attending Lennox's birthday party.

Swirly Tails and Pink Plates

Ta-da!

Barbara ended up making the cake for Lennox. She baked two circle cakes of different sizes to create the body and the head of the cake. She frosted them with pink strawberry icing, and used strawberry marshmallows to create the snout, ears, hooves, and tail. It was adorable.

Barbara decorating her daughter's first
birthday cake

Pretty Pink Piggy Cake

I'd say the cake was a success as documented by her dotting aunt.

"Birthdays are nature's way of telling us
to eat more cake."
-Unknown