"A Very Hungry Caterpillar" Birthday Cake!

I’ve always been a big fan of children’s books, and one of my favorite stories to read to my girls is Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”

 

(It’s especially a big hit with my very hungry little one, whose love for food developed the day she was born)

 

So when I recently received a request for a Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake, I was beyond excited and couldn't wait to get started!

Let's begin with the CAKE BOARD!

What you will need...                                                   

13 x 19 in rectangular cake board

Gum balls (assorted colors)

Glue gun and glue sticks

Patience (this is a necessesity)

Before you begin, decide on a color pattern for your gumballs, and be careful not to make the same mistake that I did…

MAKE SURE THE COLOR SCHEME 

COORDINATES WITH THE CAKE!

 When I originally started out with my pattern, I created a rainbow design (I even had a great ROYGBV song going on in my head), but half way through, I realized that the finished cake wasn’t going to look good with all those colors, so I had to pull them all off and start again  

(this is where the patients comes in handy).

my BEAUTIFUL rainbow board
(I'll have to remember this for a different cake)

The better pattern for my HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

Now that your cake board is all jazzed up, you can move on to building  

THE CAKE...  

What you will need...   

2 bunt cakes

(I had already baked vanilla cakes, but in the book the hungry caterpillar eats

CHOCOLATE CAKE, so if you're a stickler for details, I'd go with chocolate)

Cake filling

Serrated knife

Cake Board (not the one you just decorated with gum balls..that one is for later)

START by trimming the bottoms of both bunt cakes to make it flat, and then cut your cakes and piece them together into the caterpillar.  

This step is a little more confusing than it looks, so take your time and don’t worry if you make a wrong cut.  Once you cover the cake with icing and fondant it will hold everything together to it doesn’t matter if you have a lot of pieces.  Think of it as a really fun edible puzzle.

Slightly round out the ends of the caterpillar for the head and the end of the body.

NEXT, you can split and fill your cake, and then crumb coat.

Just when you thought you finished the puzzle you have to put it together all over again.

 

Crumb Coat (this just means covering the cake with icing)

Place the cake in the refrigerator to chill while you dye the fondant.

DYING THE FONDANT (WARNING...you will definitely be needing your patience for this step as well)

The caterpillar in the book varies quite a bit in color.

I really wanted to capture that look, so I used a marbalized effect when dying the fondant.

I started by dying the fondant LIGHT GREEN, and then I used a combination of LEAF GREEN, MOSS GREEN, GOLDEN YELLOW, and SKY BLUE icing colors, and I basically spent what seemed like eternity adding more and more color until I reached the look I wanted (or gave up and settled for the color I had). 

TADA!!!!

COVERING THE CAKE WITH FONDANT

Now it's time to cover the cake with fondant.  Being that the caterpillar has segments, you can cover the cake in sections...



 
Use a fondant tool to create defined segments

Add a RED segment for the head and your ready to add the FINAL DETAILS

FINAL DETAILS

 Cut out the eyes and nose using and x-acto knife

Create the antennas using purple fondant and toothpicks

 

Add more color variation by painting the fondant with a mixture of a
small amount of vodka and the same icing colors you used to dye the fondant

 

Add any additional details that you'd like and ENJOY!!!

Please leave your comments below and don't forget to subscribe!

-Dana

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A Carnival Birthday Party

In NJ the weather is cold and snowy, so I thought I'd warm things up a bit by sharing the details of my daughters 8th birthday party last summer!

The Theme: 

A Carnival Birthday Party! 

Planning a Birthday CARNIVAL is possibly one of the most exciting party themes I've worked with.

If you're a crafty DIY kind of person, this theme will be a dream come true! 

If you're not, don't worry, you can pretty much find every carnival related thing imaginable for sale or rent online. 

Either way, your CARNIVAL PARTY will be the talk of the town, and the kids (and parents) will have a BLAST!

 YOU'RE INVITED TO KAYLA'S BIRTHDAY CARNIVAL...

 My first project was the invitations.

When I bought the invitations they looked like this.. 

Cute - but a little to young for my big 8 year old! 

So after working some magic with my exact-o knife this is 

what I came up with...

I used these invitations as my starting point and designed the rest of the 

party details and decorations to match.

I printed up matching tags for the party favors -

 Our older guests took home T-Shirts printed up to read  

"I had a Blast at Kayla's Birthday Carnival"  

and the younger guests were given bubbles and sand toys.

GAMES

What fun is a carnival without games?!

With a little help from the Birthday Girl and Oriental Trading, 

I was able to recreate some of the most popular carnival games..

 

 Bean Bag Toss

Balloon Darts 

(Supervision required - Thanks Tara!)

To make this we used large cork board, thumb tacks, small balloons and darts for playing

(I was smart enough to recruit Alison and Matt for balloon blowing duty!)

Duck Pond

I wanted to make sure there was a game for everyone and 

this was a hit with the younger guests

 

 

Slip and Slide

We set up two of these in the front yard and the kids loved racing down them

 The Main Attraction

The Dunk Tank

We rented this from a local party supply and this was a huge hit with everyone!

Prize Table

After playing each game, win or lose, the kids were given tickets to trade in for prizes

Some Other Attractions

Balloon Animals

Silly Photo Board

The Food

We wanted to stick with classic carnival food so I served

Popcorn chicken

French fries

Sliders

Mini corn dogs 

We put all the food in these cute popcorn boxes that I found at the party store. 

I cut the boxes in half for smaller portions and printed up the "popcorn" stickers.



And of course Cotton Candy 

And last but not least THE CAKE (always my favorite part!)

A perfect end to the perfect party!

-Dana

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