Circus Cake & Cupcakes for a 1st Birthday!

A few months ago, a friend of a friend (the best kind of referrals) contacted me about a cake and cupcakes for her son's first birthday.

The whole party was to be a Circus theme and she wanted an extra special cake to take center stage at the dessert table.

She had originally planned to order a custom made circus theme topper for the cake, but just a couple weeks before the party a mix-up caused that to not happen.

We collaborated a few ideas and she sent me this great sketch of what she was looking for: (Sovanna, I hope you don't mind - it really is a great drawing!)


Both cakes are white with fresh raspberry filling then covered in raspberry swiss meringue buttercream.



You may have noticed that I always trim the outside edges of my cakes which a lot of bakers don't do because it's messier and makes the cake harder to frost. Personally, I can't imagine biting into a yummy cake then feeling the crunch of a hardened or crispy edge. I'd rather spend the extra time to crumb coat then re-frost the cake so that every bite is soft and delicious. Sometimes, I say bad things under my breath while staying committed to this task but in the end I think it's always worth it knowing the customer will never have a bad bite!

I covered the bottom tier in white fondant and added red stripes.
I covered the top tier in blue fondant and added yellow diamonds, green dots and red letters to spell the Birthday Boy's name, Jackson.
After stacking the cakes (note: this was my first tiered cake), I lined both tiers with gumballs to match the colors of the cake.


I used marshmallows and yellow jelly beans to make the popcorn.
(I went to 3 different stores looking for the multi-colored marshmallows so that I could use the yellow and whites but they were nowhere to be found :(
Funny how I go to the store last night for some sugar and see a whole bunch of them...actually, not funny.


I rolled up a piece of paper and added red ribbon for the cotton candy handle.

Once on-site, I added the toppers and stuck in a few of the rainbow swirl lollipops which were provided by the customer...and the cake was complete!



The cupcakes are Red Velvet, Chocolate and White all with vanilla buttercream frosting. They were kept simple, so that the cake was the main attraction on the dessert table.


Special Thanks to my delivery/set-up assistant who was incredibly hung-over but still came to help me...I love you Amiable!!!