Jungle 1st Birthday Cake & Smash Cake

I've shared pics of this Jungle 1st Birthday Cake & Smash Cake before (in this PicMonkey tutorial), but today I'm finally getting around to sharing all the details!

So let's get started!!

The cake was 6" and 8" round tiers. More specifically, each tier was 2 layers of vanilla cake filled with vanilla buttercream, then covered and decorated with homemade marshmallow fondant.

I used Satin Ice Brown fondant to do the vines and the monkey, but everything else was homemade marshmallow fondant. I used leaf cutters from the Wilton Gum Paste flowers set to do all of the leaves and then veiners from these JEM Leaf Veiner sets to give them the textured detail.

I used my brown food marker to make the giraffe print on the number "1" topper... it was hand-cut from homemade marshmallow fondant (mixed with tylose for it to harden).

I used a little monkey cutter from this Cutie Jungle Cookie Cutters set by Autumn Carpenter... except I added the long tail to hang on the vine. The borders (for both tiers) were done with my largest silicone pearl border mold.

I used the same Jungle Cookie Cutters to make the giraffe & elephant. I also used the Autumn Carpenter mini accent cutters to add the details and food markers for the eyes, spots, etc.

For James' name, I used the alphabet cookie cutters from BrownCookie.com that I talked about here. I find myself using those cutters more and more and I just love them!!

The smash cake was a single layer 6" round vanilla cake. I covered it with leaf green vanilla buttercream, then added a "1" to match the big cake topper and a few leaves for accents.

More 1st Birthday Cakes:

• Strawberries 1st Birthday Party: Cake, Cake Pops, Cookies & Smash Cake
• Boy 1st Birthday : Standing Owl Cake, Smash Cake & Owl Cupcakes
• Circus Tent Cake: 1st Birthday
• VeggieTales Bob the Tomato 1st Birthday Cake
• A Super Cute Hedgehog Cake