I did a bunch of baby shower cakes last year and I’m so behind on posting, I’m only now getting to them. I also had orders for lots and lots of nautical or ocean-themed cakes. Not sure if there were enough to qualify as a “trend,” but it seemed like a wave of them during the summer and fall months (no pun intended :0).

This cute baby shower cake was fun and used a number of different icing and fondant techniques, so I thought I’d share…

The mom-to-be knew just what she wanted in terms of style, I just added a few tweaks of my own.

For the cake, the bottom tier is a 9″ round chocolate and the top is a 6″ round vanilla.  Both are filled and iced with vanilla-bean buttercream  The decorations and boat are made from homemade marshmallow fondant (except the red, I buy that because it is so hard to make large quantities).

The little sail boat is made from brown fondant with lots of tylose powder (to make it stiff); I used a woodgrain stamp on the sides to make the fondant look like wood.  The biggest trick was letting the sails dry long enough to stand up and stick to the skewer, which goes down into the top tier to hold the boat in place and keep everything together.

The baby boy was fun to make….There’s actually a cute little body under the blanket (wish I would have taken a picture).  I wanted the details on his little face to be subtle and soft, so I pressed them into the pliable fondant  with a needle tool and added a little dot of flesh-colored fondant for a nose. I drew his hair on with an edible marker…so cute.

The anchor and lifebuoys (that’s really what they’re called) are cut using cutters and the roping is 2 strands of fondant twisted together.

The bottom tier is iced with a rough surface to look like the water using a dark to light ombre technique.  The top tier is similar, just more smooth-iced.

This was a fun cake for an excited mom-to-be.  It was back in November, so I’m sure she’s a happy (and exhausted) mom by now.  Congrats, Maria!