Chickadee Baby Shower

My sister's pregnant! Well, it's not new news, but her baby shower was on Saturday. Janie, a good friend of hers, offered to help me plan it, and I took her up on the offer. She is a FANTASTIC event designer, so we decided to split the shower with her doing the set up, decor, and games, and I would take care of the food, and OF COURSE, the cake and desserts! It was at Big Leaf picnic area in Tilden Park in Berkeley. I will DEFINITELY use that space again. It had a HUGE grill, big picnic tables that were gorgeously laquered, and a grassy area that was used for quite the intense game of wiffle ball!

So, back to the sweet stuff! My sister loves my lemon bars, so I knew I was making that, no-brainer. And I decided the cake was going to be a yellow cake with lemon curd. I was anticipating about 50 people, so I was going to make a two tiered cake, but less people RSVP'd, and I opted for one tier, but a regular two layer cake didn't have the pop factor I wanted, so I ended up making a tall cake instead (which is a same sized two tiered cake). Since both of those were lemon-y, I made some chocolately red velvet cake truffles coated in yellow candy coating...

There were several techniques and things that I was trying out with this cake:

1. tall cake (8" tall!)
2. fondant fabric roses
3. lemon buttercream
4. lemon curd as filling
5. individual ruffles

Hmm, until I typed that out, I didn't realize how many firsts there were on this cake and there were only a couple of snafu's, which makes me REALLY REALLY happy with this cake! the one BIG thing that I really messed up on, was not kneading the fondant before rolling it out to cover the cake. It ended up making the fondant really thick, and it tore really easily, and created air pockets between the fondant and the cake. Also, since it was such a tall cake, i didn't put it in a box, which, in hindsight, I probably should have. It would have been easier to keep the cake from slipping around on the car seat. So in holding on to the cake board (while trying not to flatten the ruffles), the cake shifted during the car ride so that it was off to one side, no longer centered on the board, which explains all the yellow Easter grass on the platter to hide the slippage!

---

THE DESSERT TABLE

Here are more photos from the shower, most of which are from other people. I wish I thought to take more pictures, and one of the grillllll... i was so proud of my bbq ribs, homemade bbq sauce, and gourmet condiment spread!!! This lil baker can do some cooking too!