Fondant Umbrellas, Rubber Duckies, Flowers and Cupcakes, Oh My!

You guessed it... a Baby Shower!

Thanks Jason for the incredible photos of the finished cake.  They make me want a new camera (and your talent)!

This was perhaps one of the most stress free baking projects I have done in recent memory.  I'm starting to notice a pattern of mini disasters, but this project went really well.  Unfortunately I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked.  Maybe that is why it went so smoothly, I wasn't busy taking pictures.
 

I do want to share how to make the umbrella cake topper.  It was much easier than I expected.  One caution is that you will want to make the umbrella well in advance.  It has to dry for quite a while before it will hold the shape on its own.  Start at least a week before your event.

For the Umbrella, you will need:

• Fondant
• Half of a Ball pan like Wilton's or another half-sphere (or whole ball shaped object)
• Sucker stick
• Gel colors

To look at the proportions for my umbrella, I set my pans on my cake stand. The half ball pan looks big here, but without the holder it, looked about the right size. 

I used white and pink for the umbrella, but it could be any two colors you choose.  Roll a round of each color just a bit larger than your half sphere, then mold it and smooth it over the sphere.  You can go pretty thin with this one. 
 

For my umbrella, I then rolled the second color, and covered the first with plenty of cornstarch in between the layers.  With them both over the ball, I cut through both layers like pizza slices.  You will want an even number of slices.  I ended up with eight. 

With thin slices and to account for a little shrink when drying, I decided to roll a slightly thicker piece of a lighter pink fondant and cover the other half of my ball pan (although you could probably figure out how to use just one form). Use plenty of cornstarch on the pan.  I arranged alternating slices of the two colors on the thicker layer of fondant.  I sealed them to the thicker fondant with a bit of water and sealed the seams with a paint brush and water. Since my fondant was cut directly on the ball pan, and the new fondant layer made it a little thicker, this took just a little squishing to make the seams fit.  An easier solution may be to cover the ball pan with one color, then space out slices of the other color.  That would make the seams easier. 

Note: With the extra slices of colors, I tried making a second umbrella without the solid colored layer.  It did hold together but it was very fragile.  With thicker slices, you might be able to make this work.  Having the extra layer of fondant probably helped to make my project stress free.

Once that was finished, I used a round cookie cutter to make the scalloped edges.  My colored sections were roughly the same size, so I aligned the cutter so that it cut only one color at a time, leaving points at each of the seams.

The next step was to let it dry until it held its shape off the form.  This took several days.  I couldn't seem to leave it alone and it didn't hurt anything to pull it off the form and see how it was drying.  My umbrella stuck to the ball pan a bit.  To get it off, I took a piece of floss and pulled it tight to the ball so that it slid under the fondant, cutting it off the form.  It left some slight marks, but nothing anyone else noticed.

 

Once the umbrella was dry, I filled it with blue fondant for water while the umbrella was sitting a bit lopsided.  I traced some rings on the water with the back end of a paint brush and put a duck in the middle of the water.  The last part was to put the stick into the water so it looks like the umbrella handle.  I decorated the end of the handle with a little ball of fondant and a bow. 

For the ducks, there are plenty of tutorials out there.  I have had the best luck when I cut the wings out and stick them on rather than molding them into the body.  For the flowers on the cake, I used Wilton cutters and stamps with varying shades of pink and stuck a pearl sprinkle in the middle of each one.  As usual, I made way too many.

One of my new favorite party ideas is to do a small cake on top of my cupcake stand and put cupcakes on the other tiers.  It takes away the stress of decorating a big cake.  I still get to have fun decorating, and there is more than enough cake to go around for a crowd. It also makes room for more flavors and has the wow factor of a stacked cake!