Under The Sea Birthday Cake

C just turned 4 last year. I was holding her hand while I walked her to school last week and suddenly I felt the tiny little hand that I once held has grown much bigger. I was wondering for how long more I could continue to walk her to school and hold her hand like I did. Everything seems unimportant to me suddenly at the moment than to cherish her the way she is... yes just the way she is even her naughtiness. I asked her one afternoon what she wants to be when she grows up, she said, "Mummy, I don't want to be anything... I just want to be myself". Beaming at her, I gave her a big hug and said to her, "Yes darling girl, you should be just yourself!".

C wanted a cake she saw in the animal birthday cakes recipe book that I have. I don't know why she was so attracted by the underwater sea creatures cake that she saw and when asked again at different times, which cake she wanted she was so persistent with her first and last choice.

This is the third butter cream cake that I iced after the first two which I made or rather need to make when I was attending the Wilton Cake Decorating Level I which was about 2 years ago. I felt that the butter cream following the Wilton Method was rather too greasy, too sweet, not fluffy and neither was it light. My whole family didn't like it and we ended up scraped out all the icing but just ate the cake. The Wilton method required Meringue Powder for the butter cream and it didn't come cheap and mind you if you are not frequent baker, the whole tin will be a waste.

This is the site that I stumbled upon during my search for easy to make and delicious buttercream. I was so happy to have found this site and that I have learnt so much about so many different recipes of making buttercream. Another site that I have been visiting frequently lately to learn about buttercream cake decoration technique is this . I really would like to share these with you for your reference.

The buttercream recipe that I made was extracted from Tasty Kitchen and it was really a success and I was so happy about the result. It was not too sweet but very creamy and light and above all it was so so yummmmmmy!

Enjoying the first piece of the cut cake. The blue soft gel paste colour is so concentrated that her lips and teeth turned blue even before she could finished up the cake! She is so sweet and mummy loves her a lot!

Still have to work on the skill to frost a smooth cake. Saw the dented corner...?!
The cake was packed in a cake box, tied with a golden string.... simple but elegant presentation to me.
The decorations I used....
The fun part that she has been longing for the whole day .... :)
The deep blue sea is made of jello coloured in blue. I like the effect of the water splashing out from the pool-like-sea.


This was a two layered chocolate cake filled with the buttercream icing. Create a dam in the centre of the cake to hold the jello. Dig out the centre of the cake about half inch depth and one half to two inches from the edge towards the centre of the cake. The recipe was adopted from Hershey's website.
Some of the non edible decorations I got from the stationery store.
The jello was cooling off at the counter top to set about 80%. Swirl it with a fork to break it up. Strain away excess water. I used one packet of jelly powder.
The buttercream is a bit too thin in consistency and soft. I didn't left it too long at the countertop for fear it will melt in our climate.