Sweet Homemade Baby Einstein Caterpillar Cake for Son's 1st Birthday

I made this Baby Einstein Caterpillar cake for my son’s first birthday. It was a lot of work but I was happy with the results. I used:

*(2) 11×15 Wilton sheet pans for the base

* Wilton sports ball pan to make the caterpillar halves

* Wilton gel icing colors (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black)

* 5 cake mixes (vanilla, chocolate, rainbow sprinkles, and chocolate chip)

*approx. 3-4 batches of butter cream icing as needed

*(2) extra large poster foam boards glued together covered with foil to support the weight of the cake

I baked the cakes 2 days before the party and the decorated the cake the day before. I trimmed the bases to even them out before icing them white. Then I iced each caterpillar half as I fit it onto the sheet cakes.

I used a tip from others, placing parchment paper underneath each cake while icing it to protect the white icing base. The face I piped with black icing and the antennas were dum dum lollipops covered in red icing. Piping the trim and writing was last. Originally I intended to use mini cupcakes as the feet, but they were too large and didn’t look right so I just piped a big swirl of yellow icing for each foot.

**RED icing…I used the entire container of Wilton color to get a good red, otherwise it will look pink!