Baby Block Shower Cake

Trudy asked me to do a cake for her daughter's baby shower and she forwarded this link to me from Martha Stewart:

http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=6799d0f19132f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

I thought the idea was absolutely adorable and was looking forward to getting started. I had some challenges, though, with this one. Martha wanted me to start out with a 12X18 sheet cake. After it bakes, I was to cut the cake in half and place one half over the other in order to make a two-layer cake. Then, I was to cut the cake into twelve, 3X3 inch pieces. None of this was challenging, but when I started working with these mini-cakes, the difficulty level raised dramatically. Frosting each with buttercream was sloppy and covering them in fondant was a whole different world to me. I'm used to working with cakes at least twice that size.

After a few hours (yes, it took more than one) I had each of the cakes covered in fondant and was working on decorating them. If you see from the picture from the website, Martha only shows 9 mini-cakes. The sides of the inside cakes weren't decorated, but everything on the outside was. I had to come up with at least 24 different designs on the sides and top and THAT was actually hard. I kept asking my husband, "What else can I put on a block?" He'd say, "A duck." Got it. "A boat." Got it. "A boot." Ooh! A BOOT!! Didn't have that one. But finally, I got them all decorated and the overall effect was really quite cute.

Trudy requested a white cake with strawberry buttercream. Her daughter is having a girl, and the pink filling was in honor of her soon-to-arrive granddaughter. The plan was to cut each of the mini-cakes in half, providing 24 servings. Nice.

I hope the shower was lovely! And congrats to Trudy and her daughter on the new addition to their family. How exciting!