1st Birthday Cake with Baby Elmo and Cookie Monster

This is one of my favorite cakes.  It was for a first birthday – all gumpaste figures. The example cake that the client gave me had plastic figures. We changed everything up a bit and we ended up with gum paste baby Elmo and Cookie Monster.

I included a jumbo crayon for the number one since the baby was turning 1. Cookie monster has real cookies. I thought it would be fun if they decide to eat any of the characters.

Everything is handmade and rolled. To make the “fur” on the figures, I used tiny scissors and pulled out.

The coolest part are the crayons. The “paper” was printed using an edible printer and those edible Wilton sheets that you can get at a hobby store. I downloaded a “crayola template”, there are quite a few. I rolled a long “sausage” and cut them so that the width was consistent and then I made the cone on top. No one could believe that they were edible.

The top cake was 6″ and bottom was 8″. I always cover the board with fondant, it makes it more elegant and I can put the message there and not on the cake.  I prefer it that way sometimes so that it does not interrupt the cake design. I did offset the top cake towards the back to make room for Cookie Monster.

I used tappits for the letters across the cake.

The parents were thrilled and excited about their baby’s first birthday. They were expecting quite a few people and had other desserts but were amazed that the gum paste figures looked better than the plastic examples they showed me. We were able to customize this more for them than they would have gotten with the plastic figures and I just love to make the sugar figures.

Elmo has a jumbo crayon for the number 1

Cookie Monster with real cookies