Circus Tent Cake: 1st Birthday

It's a really exciting week around here... there's the HUGE Craftsy Cake Class sale, and then the HUGE Pazzles Giveaway (go enter now!) and I just couldn't wait to share this Circus Tent Cake with ya'll! Excitement, excitement, EXCITEMENT!

Do ya'll remember me telling you about sweet Aiden? I did the Anatomical Heart Cookies for him (or really for his mom) a few months back when he was having a heart surgery!

Well, last weekend I had the privilege of making his 1st Birthday Cake! Isn't he one of the cutest kids you've ever seen? I could just eat him up!

His Mom Leslie chose a Circus theme for his cake and party and I had so much fun putting the Circus Tent cake together!

I started by making all the little circus animals. First I made the seal (tutorial coming soon!):

Then I made the bear. Except he started out as a lion. You can see that drama over here on Facebook 😉

And then there was the tiny little monkey... I think he was my favorite!

Then the last animal I made was the elephant peeking out of the tent:

The last thing I added, just to balance the cake was a fondant ball. It was easy but fit well into the design.

This cake was 3 tiers of vanilla cake - a 6" tier, an 8" tier, and the tent was made from 4" round cakes and a small bowl cake.

For the tent, I baked two 4" round cakes, then I also baked a small half ball in a 4" Pyrex bowl. To get the top of the tent pointy, I simply carved the curves off of the little bowl shape to bring it to a point.

I started by covering it all in homemade marshmallow fondant - following the same steps that I used for the Rocket Ship cake :  covering the top first, then wrapping the sides (see how to do that here).

Then I added the red stripes (cut from Satin Ice red fondant) using my ribbon cutter.

The trim was done with an FMM straight frill cutter and a silicone pearls mold. I hand cut the flag, used a small flower cutter to cover the top of the tent and I also hand-cut the "1".

The large stars and diamonds on the middle and bottom tiers were done with cookie cutters and the borders on each were also done with silicone pearl molds (one of the best things I've ever bought for cake decorating!).

Aiden's name was cut with the Fox Run letter cutters and I used my extruder to do the trim work on that plaque. That's another tool that I consider a must-have for cake decorating!

Leslie didn't ask for a smash cake, but I had some extra batter at the end of the day, so I baked a single layer 5" round cake.... then forgot about it.

Until the very last minute when I remembered that I had baked it so I literally "threw" it together just a few minutes before delivering the cake... it's not my best work, but it was cute.

Aiden didn't seem to mind 😉

*Photos of Aiden taken by  his mom Leslie and used with permission.

And that's it... my Circus Tent Cake! Do you have any questions about this cake or the details? I love to hear from readers, so leave me a comment and I'll do my best to reply!