I was asked to do a birthday cake with a barnyard theme for a little boy turning 2.  The mother wasn’t sure what she wanted, so I reasearched some different styles and came up with this design for the cake. It’s a 3-layer 10-inch vanilla-bean cake with strawberry filling and vanilla-bean buttercream icing.  The mom didn’t want it covered with fondant, but I did add homemade marshmallow fondant details.  The little boy (Carter) loves tractors and his favorite animals are cows and horses.  The mom was also using some adorable Etsy decorations from Lulubella Creations, so I styled the animals to be similar with that cute little sideways smile.  I used this great Craftsy class as a starting point for the cow because I loved fact that he was standing up and holding a balloon.

The horse had a similar body, only sitting down to add some different height elements and character to the top of the cake. The Rose Bakes tractor on one of her farm cakes was the inspiration for the tractor with a few other details from numerous tractor cakes. I looked at a lot of barnyard cake fences and opted for a kind of “wonky” style, just ’cause that’s how I roll…matchy-matchy doesn’t work for me.  I used a woodgrain stencil on the chocolate fondant to add some detail to the fenceposts and threw in some little bees, ladybugs, and flowering vines for interest.  I was hoping to put the name banner on the side of the cake, but the day was very warm and I knew the cake had to travel over an hour to its destination. Since I was worried about the banner slipping down the buttercream, I opted at the last minute to put it on the cake board.  Isn’t that what cake design is all about, adjusting at the last minute to your conditions??

All in all, it was a really fun cake with lots of interesting fondant work.  Happy birthday, Little Carter Man!  I sure hope you enjoyed it!