Toby Turns One!

Some of you might seen this face a few times before in this blog and yes, he is my beloved little nephew and he just turned one year! Oh, how time flies really fast, it feels like yesterday when he was born and now he's just so full of cuteness!

I did say in the older post that June/July is one of the busiest months for me, but nothing can beat September to early October for me. I live with one of my brothers' family with three kids and one mother in law, and all the three kids and the mother in law's birthday are one week apart, some even two days apart! Not to mention other friends and events happening at the same time that require cake, so you can imagine how stressful I am during that time. My niece and nephews are so spoiled with desserts, the older ones can request the flavor of the cake now, even the decoration! They watched me making cakes and decorate all the time, so they know what they like, most of the time.

Celebrating with big sister and Sunday School friends

Not for this nephew though, at least not yet, he's only one now but who knows what he'll request when he gets older. First birthday is a big deal, not so much for the years after except maybe the 18th or 21st but that's waayy in the future, so I tried to make it special this time. I came across this design when I was browsing for a wedding cake (another event for later) and immediately fell in love with it! I love the color, I love the simplicity-but-cute design, I love the 2D cutouts, a change from the normal 3D figurines that takes me hours to make. Coincidentally, my nephew has this zoo-animal-themed toy hanging on top of his crib, which resembles the cake so much, so it was set then.

There were two celebration for this birthday, which fell on the same day, at his Sunday school class at church in the morning and with family and close friends at home at night. It was a bit complicated deciding how the cake would work as I certainly don't want to make two smaller cakes and having to decorate them separately. I would rather make a tiered cake for appearance and divide the portion (somehow). After much deliberating, I decided to make a two-tiered cake 9"-6", and an additional 8" square cake. The 9" cake was chocolate cake with chocolate mousse, caramelized banana, and a layer of creme brulee in the middle (supposedly for the night party for the adults), while the top 6" tier and the 8" square will have the same flavor, fromage fraise (for the morning party which if for kids mostly). Everything got changed though when I found out that one of my tires went completely flat when I was about to go home from work, buy ingredients and make some of the components. To make a long story short, I can only make 8" fromage fraise and the top tier is the classic Indonesian cheesecake. (I got bored of making it but it seems like no one got bored eating it).

Making 2D cutouts is so much easier than making 3D figurines, although it still took me a good amount of time decorating the whole thing. Even though it's not perfect, I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out and I hope Toby would too when he get's older and look at his 1st bday cake pictures :). Happy Birthday my dear Toby!

Onto the giveaway result now, the winner is Lynne. Congratulations!! We'll send you an email shortly for the gift card :)