Ladybug Party: Cake

I've never been an adventurous cake maker. I've made a few cupcakes in my day, but never a full on cake. To be honest, I've never really liked cake. In fact, every year for my birthday I always have cheesecake in lieu of the traditional birthday cake. One of my daughter's biggest requests for her birthday was a strawberry cake, so I decided to get a little creative with her cake. My sister helped me bake up a bunch of cakes in different sizes, plus a bunch of mini cupcakes to use up the left over batter. After baking, mixing up some fluffy frosting, and decorating, I created my first birthday cake and was so excited for my daughter to see it.

She loved it! I asked her what part she wanted to eat and she was happy to claim the head!

We can't forget about the mini cupcakes. They were the perfect size to pop in your mouth (maybe too perfectly sized because I may have eaten one-too-many!)

How I made the ladybug dome cake:

Generously grease and flour a pyrex glass bowl. Fill with about 3 inches of cake batter (we made strawberry cake for ours.) Bake until done- sorry I can't remember how long it took. Just bake it similar to how long you would bake an 8-9 inch cake round adding as much time as you need so that the center is cooked. If you need, put tin foil over the top to prevent burning.

You will also need one larger cake for the base. We used about a 12 inch round, but you could use a rectangle as well. For the head we used a cupcake and shaved off the bottom edge at an angle and around the edges to make it nice and round.

How to assemble and decorate:

1. Place base cake on cake stand or serving platter and frost with green frosting. Don't worry about getting it smooth because you then texturize by patting the entire cake with your spatula.

2. Frost large domed cake for ladybugs back. I did the red first and then filled in the small area with black. Then add your black spots on the red.

3. Carve your cupcake and place it on the base cake and leaning of the ladybug's back. Frost with black frosting. Use white frosting for eyes, add a round sprinkle on each eye. We used pull-and-peel red licorice for the mouth. We wanted to use black shoestring licorice for the antenna but couldn't find any and ended up using a black pipe cleaner instead. If you have time to let some of the red pull-and-peel dry out a bit, you could use those for the antenna.