Hello Kitty!

I love making cakes for people, but I hate it when I will not have enough time to make them super special.  My best friend asked me to make a cake for her daughters 4th birthday with a Hello Kitty theme.  I was super excited until I realized I would be out of town the 2 days before the party, and the party was coming up soon!  So I thought I need to make a cake that I can freeze.  Which meant that it couldn't be a fondant covered cake (I have had horrible results unfreezing fondant covered cakes, with moisture build up and decorations falling off).

I decided on a 9 inch round cake, that I would cover in buttercream and decorate with fondant and gum paste decorations.  The hardest part would be making sure the buttercream was smooth enough (which I can admit, even I need to practice).  I baked my 9 inch round dark chocolate cake, leveled it, filled it (with just buttercream since it was for a child's birthday party), crumb coated it, and then covered it with a light pink buttercream frosting.

OK, so it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, but it didn't turn out as perfect as I wanted either.  It seemed the more I tried to smooth it out, the more it would show imperfections!  So I got it as smooth as I could, covered it and walked away to make the decorations for the cake.

First I made a huge bow for the cake out of gum paste.  I colored it dark pink, and just playing around I created a large bow for the top side of the cake.  I then also created a small bow for the Hello Kitty that would be on the cake.  Knowing there was going to be a bow and a hello kitty on top of the cake, I decided that simple polka dots would decorate the rest of the cake.  So I cut out some circles in white, dark pink, and black.  I then cut out Hello Kitty's shape, as well as her eyes, nose and whiskers.

I know I am not doing a super job of describing how or what I did, but I was just playing around (I had a little leeway, since it was for a friend).  I then assembled the cake: Putting the Hello Kitty I created on one side of the top, and the large bow on the other side.  I then added my polka dots randomly, and completed it with a ribbon around the bottom of the cake.

All in all I was super happy with the results.  I delivered it to my friend and she has it in her freezer for Sunday's party.  So I am keeping my fingers crossed that it thaws out alright.