Butterfly Baby Shower Cake - Baby Shower Cakes

One of the biggest problems I have is in the department of cakes. I've often stared at lovely cakes that were expertly made and decorated that I knew I could never do. So, until recently I've always purchased a sheet cake and had some clever saying on the top.

Things are about to change! I've finally figured out a cute cake that I can make, that is unique and lovely. This one is called a butterfly cake.

What You'll Need:

* Heart shaped cake pan
* Rounded bottom muffin tin
* Ingredients for 3 cakes (same or different flavors)
* Icing (enough for 3 cakes)
* Food coloring, cake decorations
* Cardboard
* Foil

The heart shaped pan will become the wings of your butterfly, the rounded muffin tins will be the body. Be sure to grease the pans very well. I choose to use the spray that is the grease/flour combined. If you want you can have the entire cake be one flavor or you can make different flavors. For the cake you will see, it has a body of strawberry, and wings of chocolate and white cake.Prepare all cakes according to the mix. Since you only have one heart tin you will need to prepare the wings separately. All cakes must be very cool prior to starting. Some choose to bake the cake the night before to allow for maximum cooling.While you are baking or waiting for the cakes to cool, take a large piece of card board, we used the middle section of a school project board, and cover it in foil. This will be your cake board.

Once the cakes are cooled and your board is ready, you need to level the cakes. To do this take your cooled cake and a very sharp knife (Be very careful!) and take off an jagged edges on the bottoms of the cake. This is more important with the muffin tins.When you have done this on all of the cakes from the muffin tin, take a small amount of icing and place it on the bottom to secure the cake to the foil covered board. This will keep it from moving around while you're working or during the party. Remember to mentally plan how you will lay this out prior to securing the cakes.

Choose an icing color and either make it using food colors or buy it prepared. I actually purchased frosting that was whipped and added green food coloring until it was a pale green. I used this for the wings. I choose a pure white icing for the body. I iced the body before placing the wings. Once the body is iced, you can place the wings. Be sure you've leveled them out and added a bit of icing on the bottom to secure them to the board as well.After you've place the wings, ice them with your icing. Then you can choose to decorate them a variety of ways. We actually purchased some colored frosted packets and intended to do some intricate designs, but the icing bag broke. We quickly substituted colored sugar crystals which turned out to work nicely. You could also use small candies. We choose to add the eyes and antenna in black icing.As you can see this cake is easy and fun to make. It was a big hit at our party. You can also do variations on this theme, including using the muffin tins to make a caterpillar. Enjoy! Next page > Photo Directions > Page 1, 2