My Niece's 4th Birthday, Tinkerbell Cake and Cupcakes!

It was my niece's 4th birthday on October 9th, Krisalyn Satriya (Krisalyn means beautiful bearer of Christ), we were celebrating it just with family and close friends by having dinner together at the house. My niece is just like any other girl who loves anything princess, very girly, loves dresses, stuffed animals and barbie, etc. I made her a barbie cake and a castle cake the years before and after doing some thinking of what cake I want to make for her, I decided on Tinkerbell cake. I don't know where the idea came from, I was browsing around and I had the idea of making a fairy cake at first. But knowing that I won't be able to make a pretty fairy figurine (unless she wants a fairy that looks like a tiger), I decided to just make a tinkerbell cake. I didn't make the tinkerbell of course, it's a candle. I think this is perfect since I was really pressed with time as usual.

I wanted to make just a simple cake, nothing over-the-top since it was only with family and close friends. Besides, my niece would be ecstatic with anything that has a little of tinkerbell or flowers :). I know I wanted the cake to be pink fondant, although the end result was more pink that the one in my head, but it's all good as long as it's not hot pink color :D. I love the little mushrooms personally, although it's very easy to make, I feel a little proud of myself considering that I don't usually have the patience to make this kind of thing. At least they look like mushrooms in the end :).

The inside is raspberry jelly and white choc. and cream cheese ganache that I have made a few times already. This is the first time I made a cream-based cake with fondant. I was a little nervous at first, but it turned out to be fine!!! I frost the whole cake with thin buttercream so that the cream won't touch the fondant. The fondant didn't even sweat for a bit when I refrigerated this. Now that I know I can make cream-based cake with fondant, the possibility is endless as long as refrigeration is not a problem, yay! Thanks to Hany too who gave me the confirmation that I can make cream-based cake with fondant. She makes strawberry shortcake covered in fondant all the time, yum!

The main reason why I chose this cake other than that I wanted to see if I can make cream cake with fondant, is that I also have to please my fruit-lover family. I think I mentioned this before but my family loves everything light and fruity, especially my picky brother, so buttercream is out of the question, but I was so glad that they all loved it. I didn't actually eat the cake at all since I made it so often but even my brother had a few slices! As long as you don't eat the fondant, it's all good :). I love fondant for it's appearance, but it still can't get me hooked on its taste and it's sweetness just yet :D.

My niece couldn't stop starring at the cake the whole night. We took a lot of pictures of her, but it seems like she can't get her eyes off of the cake. After we finally done with the picture taking, she was so glad that she can finally cut the cake, the moment she had been waiting for so long. Happy birthday my beloved niece!

Oh I almost forgot that I made cupcakes too for her to bring to her Sunday School class the morning after. I don't normally make cupcakes, nor do I like making and decorating each one of it, it's not my repertoire :P. But I made it anyway for some reason the night after the celebration. I was REALLY tired and luckily, my other sis-in-law (not my niece's mom) was ready to help me. The cupcake base was ready already, we "just" need to decorate it. Finally we finished every one of them with just a simple decoration, it's faaaarrr.... from perfect but it's for kids. So as long as they see some sparkles, butterflies, flowers, I think they're pretty happy :). I chose fondant decor so that it won't be messy and I know that parents don't usually like seeing their kids eating a mountain of frosting on the cupcakes. This has very little buttercream just to glue the fondant on the cake, and I filled the cupcake with the same white choc. cream cheese ganache from the cake leftover filling.