Every baby needs a friend.

This is what I was told by my 4 year old critic ( aka Samantha), when I told her I was making a shower cake for a couple who were adopting a baby. I thought that was one of the sweetest things ever said, and oh so true. So last week, I set out to make this cake that my friend ordered for the shower. The couple decorated the little guy's room with No Jo Jungle Babies. After finding it on Toy R Us site, I decided I was going to make the cake look like a nightlight from the collection. I was pretty happy with the results (although I will always think of things I could have done differently), and I hope they liked it too (I haven't gotten any feedback yet from the shower).



I thought I would include the recipe I use for buttercream. It's such a easy thing to make and most people (even those whom claim not to like buttercream), seem to like it. Plus I have never had this recipe fail me, even when it looks like it not going to pull together. So if you decide to make the buttercream, please keep in mind that if you just let it whip in your mixer, it should come out okay.


Buttercream Recipe
4 egg whites

1 cup sugar (although as of late, I have been cutting this back to 3/4 cup)

1 pound butter, room temperature

(sorry no picture of the ingredients...I forgot to take one)






Whip your egg whites until soft peak, then slowly add the sugar. Continue whipping until stiff peaks form.

Add soften butter in chunks, and let continue to whip until buttercream is light in color.
When you first add the butter, the mixture may start to look like cottage cheese. Just keep whipping it, it will pull together.

Add whatever color you may need and then you are ready to go.

A tip for preventing crumbs... do a first icing where you are just basically covering the cake with the buttercream. It's okay if you can still see cake through the icing, just as long as there is a based coat of icing on your cake. Don't worry if you haven't perfectly cover the cake. Refrigerate the cake for about an hour, and then do a second icing, where you completely cover the cake and make the surface all smooth. Doing this method will save you from the annoying crumbs and believe it or not, you will end up using less icing to cover your cake.

Kneed some food coloring (I prefer the gel kind over liquid or powdered) into the fondant until you get your desired color.

I painted the edge of the circle with food coloring to get the appearance of a second circle.

To add a little interest and to go with the theme, I used a leaf tip to create the border.

Colored fondant and the design that I was following for this cake.

The finished product.

Welcome Ayden!