It’s a Jungle Out There!

There are some cakes that you just fall in love with. The colors, the characters, the style of this cake was just too cute! This cake was for a second birthday with a jungle theme. Some jungle cakes are busy with too much going on, but this cake was simple and sweet in its design.

We started creating elements for this cake about a week before it was due. We needed to give the leaf accents and animals time to dry. When creating 3D fondant sculpted animals, you always have to do them in phases. You will start with the body and head separate. If you try to assemble to animal too quickly, the weight of the head can squish the body or cause the fondant to wrinkle. To avoid this, we created the core pieces and let them dry. Once dry, we were able to assemble limbs, ears and tails.

We also had to create the leaf accents, so they would hold their shape when placed on the cake. We used a variety of green colors of fondant and made differend shapes and sizes of leaves.
We also created the #2 topper in advance. We made this the same color as the off-white buttercream, so it would not compete with the animals and leaf accent colors. To make the number topper, we cut out the #2 twice and sandwiched floral wire inbetween the two layers of fondant. Once dry, this allows for the number to be skewered into the cake. The wire is thin enough not to be seen or cause a bump in the fondant, but stong enough to secure into the cake and hold the number upright.

When it came time to actually create an assemble the cake, we iced each tier in off-white buttercream and let it chill in the fridge. We then stacked the tiers and added the birthday girl’s name, “Chloe” on a wood-like plaque. This didn’t need to be made ahead of time sinde it’s placed directly on the cake. We then added all the leaves and animals to the cake in a staggered pattern to balance the design.

We think this one turned out super cute! Happy 2nd Birthday, Chloe!!