Hard to believe, but our little Kiana is turning one!! The year has gone by so quickly...and our tiny bundle of long-awaited joy has grown into an adorable little charmer! (Of course, I could be a little biased...)Our first daughter, Isabella, loves to read to her little sister...and one of her favourites is "Noah's Ark"! I was shocked to hear Bella reading it to Kiana the first time, cover to cover, complete with the booming voice of God! (She wasn't even five yet! But I guess we must have read it enough times to her...) So, of course, when it came time to choosing a cake for Kiana's first birthday, we thought of Noah's Ark...
Because we were showing our house (to sell for our future move to Vancouver), and needed to keep it immaculate, our dear friends, the Lees, allowed me to crash their kitchen to make the cake (and even hosted the party!) I brought over all of my materials (or so I thought), and started on the cake.
The ark itself is made of two halved vanilla sheet cakes (4-tiers total), filled with vanilla buttercream, then carved into shape. I made the "house-like" structure on top with what was left-over from the carving, to make it look more like an ark. The whole thing was then covered with buttercream.
I made the marshmallow fondant, and then discovered...I had left all of my food-colouring pastes at home!!! I needed to cover the cake with the fondant ASAP to keep it fresh underneath, but I couldn't make brown with regular food colouring (it would have ruined the consistency of the fondant). That was when my friend, Linda, came up with the most absolutely brilliant idea...of putting cocoa powder in the fondant! I decreased the amount of icing sugar in the recipe, and added Ghirardelli cocoa (quite a lot of it, actually!) until I got the dark brown I wanted. Finally, I could seal up the cake, and worry about the details another day!
Making the animals was so much fun for me! I loved making each pair a "boy" and a "girl" by adding little details like long lashes, or a pink bow, a little hat or scarf...
Every once in a while, our kids would stop mid-play and come around to check out the progress on the cake. The biggest hit by far, with the kids, was Monsieur Pig with his funky little moustache!
I had made scales on the snakes with the edge of a straw, but couldn't think of anything to make the pattern on the turtle shells. That's when Linda came up with Brilliant Idea #2...use an Allen Key (with the hexagonal cross-section)!
I just loved making all the animals, although I did get frustrated after dropping the bunny's tail / nose/ eyes, for the umpteenth time! Those itty bitty pieces of fondant sure were finicky!
Because of the number of people coming to the party, we decided to make another sheet cake for the base (water) of the cake. Unfortunately, this was AFTER I had started on the ark, so you can imagine the pain it was to move the cakes into position. (Many animal body parts were lost in the move...) I stuck a number of straws into the base for support, but it still ended up a little smooshed after all the repositioning. (My sweet husband, Paul, suggested helpfully that it made the ark look more like it was riding on choppy waters.) The whole process was nerve-wracking, to say the least.
At the end of it all, we all loved the cake...and Linda couldn't wait to get it out of her fridge (where it was taking up an entire shelf)!
The birthday girl was a little perplexed by the whole party, and eyed the cake rather suspiciously.
But as soon as she got her hands on a piece of it, she quickly decided she loved it too! :)
Happy Birthday, Kiana! We love you soooo much!
