Here’s a very sweet little elephant cake we were asked to create for a fun baby shower! For this design we were requested to decorate a small cake that had a simple elephant theme with soft pinks and ruffles. For an extra bit of adorable playfulness we added in a pink gum paste balloon and made the baby elephant hold it too!

Our first thought was to add delicate fondant ruffles around the sides in a crisp white to keep the cake bright and have the main focus be the tiny grey elephant character and it’s shiny edible balloon. Each pretty ruffled strip of fondant was added individually, tweaked lightly with a dry paintbrush to fan out a little and left to set before we adding the pink ribbon trimmings and the decorations on top.

The cake itself was a Sicilian lemon oil cake filled with fresh raspberry jam and covered with a Madagascan vanilla buttercream and then iced in marshmallow fondant! The smell of this cake in the studio and kitchen was incredible to say the least. This may just need to be a tempting cupcake flavour for late spring/summer that we have to develop and test ourselves!

Adding fondant frills and ruffles to cakes is such a decadent and lovely technique. It can add texture and drama to a grown-up design or a definite sweet look to a kids’ party cake! We especially love combining ruffles with fashion and vintage glamour inspired tiers and also bright Christening cakes. You can really help bring out fondant or buttercream ruffles with theatrical gold painted sequins and beautifully crafted sugar flowers for a chic wedding creation. For cute baby shower cakes teaming fondant frills with pastel colour palettes, simple blossoms, an adorable character and royal icing polka dots dusted with an edible pearlescent lustre works perfectly!

Creating the gum paste elephant for this ruffled elephant baby shower cake was and is a lot harder than it looks! It’s quite mischievous and deceiving! Due to the elephant being created in one continuous piece of fondant (execpt for the pink ears) it appears to be rather straight-forward and simple. It helps to first begin with a smooth ball of gum paste that has been rolled around in your hands for a few minutes before you begin tackling the shape. Warming up and rolling the fondant or gum paste helps rid the paste of any annoying and horrifying cracks and creases.

We hope that this sweet little gem of a cake was enjoyed. It was great to work on such a bright and fresh design when the winter days are growing more and more dark in our part of the world!