The Rest Of the Story

Last post about Rosebud's birthday.  I have other stuff to post, like Little M. Man's reptile day at school and life...you know like meeting a fellow baby-wearing-Bible-believing-mom named Neptune in the organics isle of Kroger.  Stuff like that!

 So here's how we made Rosebud's Hello Kitty cake.  I got the pan with a 50% off coupon which is good because you know me, I never pay full price unless I have to.  And cake pans aren't a "need" they are a "want" so they better be on a great sale.  Anywho, I made two full recipes of Betty Crocker's gluten free cake mix (yes, it is REALLY good) and divided it into three equal parts.  If I had to do it again I'd either just do a two layer cake or buy a third box (which isn't happening, that stuff is pricey).

 The plan was to do a three layer cake having one be yellow, one orange, and one pink.  I read up online about how to do natural cake dye, and read several places that 2 TBS of beet juice should do the trick.  See how pretty pink it is?

 See how pink it isn't?  The cake on the left is the pink one.  Once it baked...no pink.  Just disappointment.

 Anyway, I put the three layers together and "caulked" it with gluten free frosting.  I mean I literally took my (clean) fingers and shoved frosting up in it so that it was all the same height and not sagging anywhere.  The edges were a bit frosting-y.

 Next I carefully put on a thin layer of frosting all over.  Using my fingers.  The cake was really crumbly and wouldn't tolerate a knife.

 My mom volunteered to do all of the little piped starts, and I let her.  I did it once for Snug's second birthday cake and vowed I'd never do it again.  Thanks to Grandmommy little girl had a beautiful cake.

Ok, now to the pom pom how-to.  First you need 8 sheets of tissue paper.  Nothing fancy.  I got 32 sheets for $1.

 Accordion fold the paper in about 1 1/2 in folds.

 Use florists wire to secure in the very middle.  I forgot to keep taking pictures, but next you round off each end with sharp scissors.  Then you carefully pull the entire thing apart.  I do one side at a time

 When it is all fluffed, hang it up.  If you want a face, cut out and hot glue on whatever you want.  I'm going to try and do an Angry Birds one for LMM's birthday.

 Here is the completed cake.  We used leftover Easter jelly beans for the eyes and nose.

This is how the color layers turned out.  The top is what was supposed to be the pink one.  Hmmmm.  It tasted good though.