Shannon’s Carousel Horse Themed First Birthday Cake
It is nearly one month after Shannon celebrated her first birthday and I am still in love with the details and how this cake came together.
When Amanda, Shannon’s mother, contacted me about creating a carousel cake for her daughter’s first birthday, she said that she wanted to use the dress that Shannon would wear as inspiration. I saw the dress and immediately became obsessed. How could I not? Look how adorable this is:
Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit A for why my bank account is happy that I do not have little girls to buy for at the moment.
Amanda explained that she generally opted for simpler designs rather than busy and she desired a “classy carousel” in buttercream, not a circus-y look. She sent me some pictures of cakes that grabbed her attention and I went to work designing the cake.
The final product is something that I would describe as classy, sweet, and simple. All things that describe the kind of work that I love to do.
Shannon’s cake was buttercream frosted with ombre blue texture on the bottom tier. The top tier was iced perfectly smoothed so that the details could shine.
I color matched fondant to Shannon’s birthday dress and cut and hand rolled some small flowers and leaves to surround the hand-painted gold “1.” I absolutely love the color combination here!
This may be my favorite aspect of Shannon’s cake. I used a silicone carousel horse mold to get the amazing details on her cake topper. After allowing it to dry for several days, I used edible gold paint and diluted gel food coloring to hand paint the horse. When I was done, I wanted to paint all the cakes 😀
Shannon received her own smash cake, of course. Again, I hand painted her name in gold edible paint and added some flowers to coordinate back to the larger cake.
I’m not going to lie. I kind of want a cake like this for my birthday. No smashing, though.
Along with the larger cake, which was lemon cake with raspberry buttercream, the guests at Shannon’s party could also choose almond cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. Coordinating sprinkles and sugar pearls, of course. Because, sprinkles.
I was so delighted to hear from Amanda that she loved the cake and that all of their guests devoured both it and the cupcakes. She sent me some pictures of the event and it looked like everyone enjoyed the party, especially the birthday girl!
Happy first birthday, Shannon!