Babybug Baby Shower Cake

Last week I released 1000 ladybugs into my aphid-ridden, tiny garden.  So it seemed fitting that this week's cake was a fun take on a ladybug.

  The cake is yellow cake with chocolate BC frosting and filling.  The face, antennae, and butterfly are fondant.
  I never thought much about how difficult it would be to sculpt a baby's face out of fondant.  I kept trying and failing miserably.  After an hour and a half, I had come up with a dozen or so ways NOT to do it.  Every face I made looked like an adult.  I watched YouTube videos and pulled up pages on CakeCentral.com but had no luck.  I just couldn't get the lips right.  So I finally tried something completely different and came up with the finished product here.  I think I can do better next time, but I think it looks pretty good and it's definitely a far cry from what I started with!

  I carved the cakes and did a crumb coat, which I usually don't do but this time I got the urge for ease.  I set the crumb-coated cake into the freezer for about 15 minutes before doing the final frosting.
  The antennae are fondant shaped on wires.  Pretty easy peasy.  The leaves the babybug is laying on are buttercream.  The butterfly was fun to make.  I love making butterflies.  This one I wanted to be simple and pretty, so I put a simple pattern on the back in a darker pink and sprinkled it with shimmer dust.  I added GumTex to the fondant so it would dry hard and set it to dry on balled up cotton.  It works well.

  My client loved it and said "It's PERFECT!" when she saw it, and made my day.  It was a fun little cake and I learned that I need more work with my sculpting.  I'm very much looking forward to this next few weeks and the cakes I'm going to do.