Baby Einstein Caterpillar Cake

by Andrea
(Syracuse, NY)

For my son's first birthday, I wanted to create the Baby Einstein caterpillar that was on many of his favorite toys. I used the Wilton ball pan and two and a half batches of batter to make the five caterpillar sections. I frosted these with buttercream. For the feet I simply played with more yellow frosting until I got a look I liked. I made the face and antennae on the top with black and pink deocrating gel.

For the background, I made two 9 X 13 cakes, cut them lengthwise, then spread them out. This gave me enough area to place all the caterpillar sections. These I frosted with chocolate buttercream, which I patted down with my fingers to resemble dirt. I used green colored buttercream to pipe in some "grass", then used the leftover buttercream from my caterpillar sections to frost the sides of the cake. Finally, to create my son's name I painted some wooden craft store letters and glued them to dowels I also painted green. I wanted them to look like flowers popping out of the dirt.

This was my first attempt at a large-scale cake like this and it was a hit at the party!

Editor's note: Thank you so much, Andrea. That's a wonderful cake and it will be very helpful to future readers who are looking for ideas on how to make their child's cake special.