1950's Birthday

This birthday cake was a blast to make. I enjoyed making this for my daughter's best friend who had a "girl's only" birthday party at a 1950's dinner theater. She loves the movie "Grease" and the color blue, so this is what I came up with!

The cake itself was very easy to make. I used a 12x18x2 cake pan and made two separate chocolate cakes. One cake for the blouse and the other for the poodle skirt. Once baked I let them cool and then froze them because they are easier to carve a shape when slightly frozen.

A week prior I had bought a large circle cake drum and cut out squares of colored white and black fondant and "glued" them onto the cake drum using royal icing to give it that 1950's floor look. I added a ribbon around the circle drum for a nice touch. The saddle shoe, record and poodle were also made at this time to give them all some air drying time. A template cutter for the shoes can be found at a cake supply shop or by searching on-line for printable baby shoe templates. The shoe was also "glued" together using royal icing and a fondant shoe lace was made and added. The record is just two circles cut, and placed ontop of each other and the writing is piped on with royal icing. The poodle is a image of a poodle that I printed out and traced over black gumpaste. The fur for the poodle is created using a plain tip and piping royal icing on in a swirling motion. Once the poodle dried I brushed the fur with a little bit of poodle dust and added a fondant pink bow. The poodles leash is also fondant.

Now that I had my cake drum decorated and my shoe and record made, I took out my frozen cakes and carved them freehand to look like both a blouse and a poodle skirt. Once carved to my liking, I colored the fondant using colored gel to match the favorite colors of the birthday girl. The fondant was then rolled out and placed on top of the cakes that I had already torted and filled with a chocolate filling. I iced my blouse cake with a buttercream tinted the color of a skin tone and the skirt I iced with white. I did cut a v-shape in the piece of white rolled fondant before laying onto the cake so that you could see the skin tone neck underneath. The skirt was covered with blue fondant and then both cakes were gently layed onto the cake drum, pushed together to look like a complete dress. I added a fondant black belt to hide the center crease and added a flower buckle. A fondant scarf was placed around the neck and an emblem that I made freehand from gumpaste and rolled in blue sparkle dust was added to the blouse. The buttons are rolled out fondant rolled in pearl dust, and the ruffled slip under the skirt is simply fondant scrunched together to give it that ruffle look. All of the supplies for this cake (cake drum, fondant, gumpaste, royal icing, color gel, pearl dust, blue sparkle, flower cutter for belt, square cutter for floor of drum) can all be found at almost any cake supply shop or purchased on-line. I know that anyone who makes this cake, will have fun just as I have.