A friend of mine was celebrating her daughter’s first birthday recently, and needed a barnyard themed fondant cake to join the celebration. I jumped at the chance to make the cake so I could do some more fondant work. After a bunch of nights searching online for ideas and seeing what others have done, I came up with a variety of ideas.

I need to work on my sketches a bit more, but here were the initial concepts that I ended up amalgamating for the final design. It was helpful to have a sketch to share with my friend in advance, so she could see what direction I was going with the cake. I did have a bit of creative freedom as well, as long as it suited the theme and a baby’s first birthday.

I made a few elements in advance, like the sugar flowers on the cupcakes, the smaller animal details, and the apply bowl. I also made the fondant myself, and baked the cakes from scratch, then frosted them all with swiss meringue buttercream (which has become my favourite buttercream recipe lately, always fluffy and not too too sweet).

The day before the party I covered the tiers in fondant and decorated each one with all the barnyard details. All made by hand. Then I baked the cupcakes to pair with the cake and frosted them the morning of the party.

In total, there were two tiers of cake (a 6″ round on top, and an 8″ round on the bottom) and four dozen cupcakes. All the cake was vanilla butter cake, my favourite and most trusted cake recipe.

As it all came together, I was impressing myself even!

I took a variety of photos along the way and wanted to share them with you all.

The party also included a professional balloon artist and a kid’s face painter. All of these extra details really made it a fun day at the farm.

There were even real animals at the farm where the party took place. My gumpaste animals become much more cartoony when you look at the real thing.

Overall, it was a great party and I can’t wait to make my next fondant project.