Baby Cakes

As most of you know, I have no training in baking--just what I learned in Lani's Kitchen. (that's my momma 'case you didn't know) I can follow a recipe with no problem. I can even frost cupcakes with very few problems now. But cakes?....eh. It's been hit or miss.

So when I was asked if I could make a baby shower cake, I said, "Sure. No problem." Then the anxiety hit. After committing to the order, I learned that she wanted something called a Hummingbird cake. Ever heard of it? Me neither. So before I could make the cake, I had to do a dry run. Apparently, the cake is a dense, banana cake with pecans, coconut and pineapple in it. The recipe I chose was from Southern Living and touted as being "one of their most requested recipes." Pretty strong recommendation, I thought. So I made the cake. It turned out like a cream cheese frosted banana bread with a TON of pecans, and very little (if any) pineapple or coconut flavor.

I made a sheet cake for the baby shower with the following variations: I cut down on the pecans, added more coconut, coconut extract, pineapple extract, and pina colada extract. It turned out much better. After I got the cake recipe part figured out, it was time to freak out about the decorations. The invitation was a cute pink and white gingham card stock with clear vellum overlay topped with a silver baby booties charm. I got the bright idea to try to make booties out of cupcakes. This is how that went:

First, I cut a cupcake in half and layed it cut side down. I took a second cupcake, and made a vertical cut on one of the edges to make it straight. Then I sliced off the top to make it flat, and inverted the cupcake placing it next to the other one. I then hollowed out the top (previous bottom).

I reserved a small amount of the cream cheese frosting and then colored the rest pink. It turned out a whole lot darker than I wanted, but ended up OK. I frosted the inside of the bootie pink.

I used a leaf tip to pipe the white frosting in lines to resemble knitted yarn.

I followed the same process for the second bootie. Then I added a pink bow and a little yellow flower.

I thought the booties turned out pretty cute, but I was not pleased with the finished product. The end result turned out like this:

Even now as I look, all I can see are the errors. Believe me, there are plenty. But aren't the booties so precious?