We had a fantastic weekend full of friends and family and LOTS of baking. I have a few recipes I’ll have to share with you sometime (like a chocolate swirl banana bread, and Skor Bar cake balls)! Today its all about the Teddy Bear Cake I made for my 2 year old’s birthday! She loves her “Beeeers” so we knew it was fitting to make her this teddy bear. I know there are molds for this, but I didn’t want to go out and spend too much money on a cake pan. So I made due with what I had (as I seem to be saying so often!). I used the “bottom” part of the giant cupcake pan, and the bowl for the body and head. Then I baked a little cake in an 11×7 inch pan and made cake ball-like mixture to form the ears, legs and arms. Simple.
After the cakes had baked and cooled I trimmed off the ridges of the bottom of the cupcake, leveled the top of it, and inverted it onto my cake board so the widest part of the cupcake was down. For the bowl cake, I rounded off the top edge (you can see in the picture below, the yellow part is where I cut to round the ‘edges’) and I left the dome on top to give it the right shape for the head. I put some frosting on the part that was on the board already, and then placed the bowl cake right side up on top of the other part. Did that make any sense??? Then I crumbled up the cake that was in the 11×7 pan, added a little frosting to the crumbs, mixed until it was combined, and then started shaping the ears, muzzle, arms, and legs. It was trial and error, the ears were far too big but they were also a quick fix.
At this point I put the cake in the freezer for thirty minutes or an hour, just to firm everything up. While it was in the freezer I made the fondant for the nose, eyes, bow and cream colored parts on the muzzle, ears, tummy, and feet. I quickly rolled out and shaped each piece and pulled the cake out and put them on. There was no science to it, it all was yet again trial and error, but without too much error. I threw the cake back into the freezer and made a big batch of chocolate frosting with this recipe, except I didn’t want it to be such a dark color so I only used 1/2 a cup of cocoa and added a 1/2 cup of extra powder sugar in its place and I think I liked the taste better! I filled my pastry bags and got to work! I used a small tip, the wilton 13 tip, which is a small ‘star’ looking tip that came in a pack for letter writing. Its what I had available to me. It looked great, but maybe next time I would get one like this. Yes it did take a while but I planned for it and just watched one of my favorite shows while working on it. It was actually a very enjoyable night. Just as a little tip, I had a couple pastry bags I switched between because as I held the bag in my hands to apply the frosting, the warmth from my hands started making the frosting too melty and it started to get a little messy. So I’d set that bag down for a rest or sometimes I put it in the refrigerator, and started working with the new bag. I added some dark cocoa to my frosting and piped on the mouth, stitches for the feet and the name. So here’s the finished product….
Not bad huh? When our two year old saw it, she was delighted! “BEEEER!” She just kept saying it and was so happy. She actually wanted to pick it up and carry it around with her! It was so fun to see her enjoy the cake! It made my day! Happy Birthday to my little Autumn!
Here is the latest video my husband made – it has a bit of the process of making this cake.
