Baby Shower Cake

Andrea DeKeyser

July 5, 2018

3 min read

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I’m not sure what happened, but I’m told it is the month of July. Can someone tell me where the last four months have gone? They slipped through my fingers like sprinkles! I have a massive backlog of stuff that frankly should have been posted a long time ago. Such is life though, right? I work full-time and it’s crazy busy for us right now. I am getting busier with all things cake and cupcakes on the side as well, which makes me extremely happy. All of this while trying to keep myself from teetering over the edge. Some days it feels like I’m only holding on with fingertips!

I have so much fun stuff to share from months ago, but since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, I’m going to post the last cake I did! I have to tell you, I even impressed myself with this cake. It turned out beautifully. I had my doubts along the way but managed to turn out a gorgeous baby shower cake for a little boy who joined this world a little early! The design was inspired by the bedding that is in the baby’s room and a cake by Peggy Does Cake. I always love trying something new even if it is nerve wracking! The distressed barn wood and deer silhouette were created with gumpaste. I used gumpaste because it dries faster and harder than fondant in my experience. I needed the “wood” planks and deer to stay upright.

I’m sure there were several things I didn’t do quite right. Like distressing the gumpaste after it was dry. Or not being precise on the width of the wood planks. However, I wanted it to look as authentic as possible. Barn wood is unique and I didn’t want it all to look the same. I rolled out and cut pieces of white gumpaste to the length I thought I would need and left them to dry. Funny story – the night before I put this cake together, I had dream after dream of cake disasters. I dreamed that somehow the cake was eaten after it had only been crumb coated. There were delivery disaster dreams. But the worst dream was when I went to put the wood planks on and they were not even close to long enough. Does this happen to anyone else?!?!

Once the gumpaste was dry, I took my wheel cutter and with some pressure, started marking the gumpaste back and forth along the entire length. I paid a little more attention to the ends of the gumpaste pieces. Barn wood is beat up, especially at the ends. I also used a larger toothpick to make some small holes. After I was satisfied with how they were marked, I mixed up some gray gel colors with a little vodka. Once the gel color was mixed in thoroughly with the vodka I brushed it on the gumpaste and left them to dry again.

Delivery day arrived and I finished up the cake with it’s final layer of frosting. I managed to have just enough pieces of barn wood to go around the cake and they were long enough that I could chop off whichever end I didn’t like. This way they all sat flush with the cake board. I finished it off with the deer silhouette and navy blue ribbon. I have to say, this is one of my favorite cakes to date!