Ankush's First B'day Cake and DIY Fondant Penguin

My Son Ankush turned One on the third of November. I wouldn't say "Wow, Time just flies". Nope. It was a really long year :) First year with my son was awesome I must say. There were a medley of emotions throughout. I experienced anxiety, happiness, frustration, pain, warmth , delight, love and many emotions which cannot be explained through words. First year of motherhood is so much memorable in a person's life.  It is truly a blessing from above to see my angel give his million watt smile.

So having wanted to make his first birthday all so memorable like all other parents, I started planning ahead in time. Ankush loves, loves and loves PINGU ,the penguin. It his first favorite cartoon character. PINGU is enough to soothe him down when he cries or when he's fussy about his meals. So I choose PINGU as the theme for the birthday. So Let me start with the birthday cake, the one I was most anxious about. I baked a marble cake and decorated it with fondant penguins. I used white frosting to represent snow.

All you need to make this penguin fondant is fondant (I used wilton white fondant), food/icing colors(black,orange), powdered sugar , toothpick, orange color titbits(optional).

To begin with, you can either buy black colored fondant or buy white fondant and use black food/icing color to get the black fondant. If you want to color it , do it the day before you intend you use it.

Take a lime sized portion of fondant and shape it into an oval which represents the body.

You can either use orange color fondant or orange titbits to represent the feet. Use 2 titbits and just push it at the bottom as shown.

You can use powdered sugar to help you from keeping the fondant from sticking onto your fingers. 

Now pierce a toothpick into the body as shown. Make sure the length of toothpick is lesser than the length of the penguin, else cut it to the required length. This step is totally optional. This is just to ensure that the head portion is totally supported. I just didn't want to take a chance.

Take  a small amount of fondant for the head. Shape it into a ball and place it above the body through the toothpick.

Meanwhile ,you need to use a pea sized amount of fondant, shape it like a stick and press it lightly , bend it to represent the wings as shown in this picture. Make all the wings before starting the body so that they harden up a bit to retain their shape by the time the body is ready.

Now roll white fondant into a thin sheet and cut out the shape as shown. This will be pasted using a dab of water onto the body.

Take a mustard size of white fondant and lightly press it between your fingers and place a small amount of black fondant over it to represent the eyes.

Now paste the eyes and beak on the face using a dab of water. Use just a dab of water,using more amount of water will make it slippery. So you need to be very careful white pasting it.Beak is done using an orange fondant. Paste the wings at the sides of the body. This edible fondant penguin is now ready.
 Fondant is very sticky and soft. Once the penguin was done, I kept it in open air for an hour and then placed it in a box. I only removed it just before assembling the cake for the party. Too much  exposure to air also hardens it and it might also develop cracks.

I then used green and violet colored fondant to decorate the penguin with scarves, and caps. The dome above the cake represents igloo. I used blue colored frosting to represent water.

Thus, I made the cake. Donno if Ankush really understood about the cake. But hubby and me were all excited about the cake. When Ankush grows up, Im gonna show this picture to him. Hope he Likes it:)


Coming Next Post: Ankush's Birthday Decorations.