Danica's Minnie Party

As far back as September, I was approached by my friend Melissa to make her daughter Danica's 1st Birthday cake. Talk about planning ahead, right? She and her husband, Mark knew exactly what they wanted, which made my job a whole lot easier. I had plenty of time to plan and come up with design ideas (five months to be exact).  They decided on a Minnie Mouse theme with zebra print and pink colors.  This was by far the best cake table set up I've had to work with and really enhanced the look of the cake and cupcakes and made for wonderful photo ops.

Photo Courtesy of Mark Lorico

 This was Danica's invitation and my inspiration

Mark and Melissa requested for a cake and cupcakes to feed 150 people! That's a lot of people to feed, so I really needed to step up my game. Organization and preparation was important to get everything done. I drew my game plan on a butcher-paper-lined table. This is where my production started.

I used Walt Disney's signature font to create cupcake picks specially for Danica's party.

I came up with two different designs for 50 cupcakes.

This was the concept for the cake, but some changes were made and the design evolved a bit.

I worked on the cupcakes first. Fun cupcake liners were used that really added to the theme of the party....a pink polka dot liner and a zebra print liner. I decided that the pink polka dot liners would be perfect on the cupcakes with the Minnie ears and bows to resemble Minnie Mouse herself. The ears were made out of chocolate fondant cut out in perfect little circles. The zebra print bows were hand painted using black icing color on white fondant.

50 circles were cut out, molded, and left to dry in plastic wrap-lined egg cartons.

25 mini zebra print bows were meticulously assembled.

The cupcakes were dipped in chocolate and ready to be decorated with the ears and bows.

The zebra print cupcake liners were used on the next cupcake which were a little easier to put together. I piped on some cream cheese frosting in a ruffle design using a #104 tip. The concept was to give the look of Minnie Mouse's dress. I designed a graphic to make some one of a kind cupcake picks to stick on top. 

I used my Adobe Illustrator skills to create this special design.

On to the cake.  It had three tiers...the first tier resembled a Minnie Ears hat which I had attempted in some of my earlier work but didn't quite work out as I wish it had. This was my shot at redeeming that vision. The second tier was covered in plain white fondant to create some balance from the busy patterns and colors. The bottom tier was covered in pink fondant with some white polka dots with a white ruffle border.  

I frosted and covered a hemisphere of cake in chocolate fondant for the top tier Minnie Ears hat.

Here's what I used to create the white ruffle border to the bottom tier.

A toothpick was used to add some frills.

I added a piped pearl border above the ruffles. A zebra print ribbon was used to decorate the cake board.

A Minnie Mouse cake is not complete without some polka dots.

Here's the naked cake that needed some final touches.

The ears were molded and ready to be added.

Danica's Birthday greeting.

The big zebra print bow

The back of the cake, just like an embroidered hat from Disneyland.

Voila! The final product ready for a fun party.

I got to the party early to help set up the cake table. Melissa was very thoughtful by providing some wrapped boxes and a cupcake stand to place all the yummy treats on.  I felt my interior design skills kick into play...I was able to play with different levels and heights creating depth and visual interest. Here are some photos provided by Mark Lorico and Nicole Virtucio...

 Melissa and Mark got some other yummy treats from a few of their friends to add. It really completed the look of whole cake table.

Yummy cake pops provided by CakedLA

Rice cereal treat pops by Natasha Burgos

The happy Lorico Family :)

Cutie pie Danica enjoying her 1st Birthday Cake! This picture makes me happy :)

I truly enjoyed working with Mark and Melissa. Danica's party was very inspiring and I had a fun time! I hope I helped make her first birthday a memorable one.

I have sooo many fun cakes to share with you, but I've been really busy lately and haven't been able to update my posts...so please bear with me. Thank you again for stopping by.

~Abs of Cakes~