Sweet 16!

My daughter turned 16 this week.  She didn't want a big fancy party (she's kinda like her Mom), just a few friends.  But I asked her what she wanted for her cake.  I made her the hippo cake last year (seen here in my New Year's post) and she loved it. 

She decided she wanted an Alice in Wonderland themed cake this year, so I set out looking up ideas. I knew I wanted to do buttercream instead of all fondant this time because, frankly, I'm a little obsessed with buttercream lately.  I think it has to do with all the cake blogs I read on a daily basis.

I ended up going with a topsy-turvy style, 2 tiered cake.  She requested her favorite colors for the frosting and I made up marshmallow fondant for the decorations. 

It took some time to make this cake.  Making the fondant one day.  Tinting the fondant and forming some of the decorations another day.  I finished the decorations the 3rd day plus baked the cakes (Two 8 inch layers and two 6 inch layers).   The day of the party I made the buttercream and put it all together.  So, a few mini sessions over 3 days, plus a marathon morning the day of the party.  (I think I work best under pressure!)

Since I'm not at all experienced in this area and I haven't made a lot of what I call 'fancy cakes', I've made mental notes of the little mistakes I made with this cake to do differently the next time around.  Hopefully with each passing birthday I'll keep getting better--plus my husband gave me a Wilton class for my birthday that I still need to sign up for!

Ok, enough talking.  On to the pictures: