Happy Birthday Baby!

Our little Layla had her first birthday last week. We celebrated yesterday with a small gathering here for cake and ice cream. Jess and I always make grander plans than get done. We don’t aspire to Pinterest-esque parties, but we do love to think we could. One thing that did get done was the pink roses and pearls cake that Jess wanted for Layla. It was obviously an amateur decorating job, but still was pretty.

I used a new-to-me recipe for the frosting. It was a base of marshmallow crème, so it ended up kind of spongy when set. Some of us really liked it, others not so much. I liked the texture and it seemed lighter than regular buttercream. It did not pipe so well, however. Granted, the kitchen was pretty warm, but the frosting was a little too soft for making those roses. I also needed one more batch to be able to completely cover the cake. What you’re seeing here is the least-worst side of the cake. I also have never piped frosting on a vertical plane before, and I was trying to work quickly. Now I know to allow some time to do that. Jess placed the candy pearls on each flower. Those were crunchy chocolate candies that weren’t like little bullets to chew on, but we still didn’t let Layla have one. She got a plain cupcake with a tiny dollop of frosting.
I didn’t use a recipe from any particular web site or blog, rather just read a few, then put it together myself. Here’s what I did:
1 stick butter, softened
7 oz. marshmallow crème
2 tsp. vanilla
Cream together til smooth.
3 C powdered sugar, one cup at a time
pinch of salt
I added the first cup of powdered sugar and pinch of salt, then got that all mixed with the butter/crème mixture. With the second cup of powdered sugar, I added a dollop of gel food coloring and mixed all that together until smooth. Then added the third cup of powdered sugar and mixed.
You can add a tablespoon or two of milk if you want a more fluid frosting, but I was going to for pipeable, so didn’t. Next time I’d add another ½ cup of powdered sugar for a bit stiffer consistency.

I used three batches of frosting for this cake, and could have used one more. It was three 8-inch layers with a thin layer of frosting in between and on the top and sides before I piped the roses.

It was fun to experiment with a new recipe, and I’ll keep it to use occasionally when we want something a little different.