Let them eat butterfly cake

For Josie's first birthday party, I wasn't obsessed with having a theme. I did, however, figure I would use the colors pink, orange and yellow. And I would also use butterflies. And so I began looking for ideas for butterfly cakes.

I thought to possibly just use a cake mold. But that would entail buying a cake mold.

I thought about cutting and carving a cake to look like a butterfly. There is a great suggestion of using a round cake, cut it in half and switch halves, then trim a little to make the two semi-circles into the butterfly. However, I seem to have massive crumb trouble whenever I level or trim a cake.

I thought about making a sheet cake and just drawing and decorating a butterfly on it. Boring!

And it was suggested to me to make a cupcake cake. I've read too much Cake Wrecks to even attempt a cupcake cake.

One of the first suggestions to me was to make chocolate butterflies out of melted chocolate. At first I dismissed that idea as too fancy, but after not liking any of the other ideas, I decided to go for it. I bought some white melting candies and melted them in the microwave. I drew template of a pair of separated wings on a piece of paper. I also drew antenna but decided not to attempt them. I put the paper underneath wax paper. I put the melted candies in a pastry bag and drew over the wax paper using the template for a guide. Once I finished one set I would move the paper template underneath the wax paper and draw another set of wings.

Even with the air conditioner running, it was a hot day. So I stuck each sheet in the refrigerator while I made the next sheet. I think I made 16 sets of wings all together. It was the first time I've done anything like this and it took a little practice. They turned out very fragile and I broke more than one while getting them off of the wax paper. Ok, I broke like six. Then I realized I probably shouldn't use a dinner knife to peel them off. Once I used a spatula, they came up nice and neat.

Next I placed a piece of wax paper with a crease into an open book. I put a small strip of melted candy down for the body, stuck the wings in and globbed more candy on top. Back into the refrigerator until cake decorating time.

I decided to make box cakes, fun-fetti for the sheet cake and chocolate cupcakes. The cupcakes just had frosting swirled onto them and butterflies randomly added.

The cake turned out gorgeous but still home-made looking. I loved it!

Here was the one butterfly that broke one wing. I thought it looked cute sitting on the flower.


Turns out that everyone else liked the cake and cupcakes. All of the cupcakes were gone and only a little corner of cake was leftover. There is no better compliment than that when backing.