Apparently, my Baby Mickey Cake and my small Minnie Mouse Cake are of my most popular posts every day.  I made this cake a few months ago, but never got around to posting it until now.

Even though I know how popular Mickey Mouse is with little kids, I’m always surprised at how popular those cakes are.  My 2 1/2 year old son loves watching Mickey Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so when I was making this cake for Libby, he kept asking to have it.  I was so excited when he knew what the theme of the cake was.  He even recognized the clubhouse!

Even though this cake was for a little girl, I love the color scheme.  I am usually asked to make pink and purple cakes for girls; it was nice to make something more bold yet delicate.  The gears were made of fondant.  I cut out circles, then used a small round piping tip to cut out the centers.  Then I cut 8 notches out using a baby bottle cookie cutter.  I used the tip of the nipple because it is more of a U shape, but you can probably use a small circle or piping tip to cut out notches.

My favorite part of the cake is the topper.  I baked some cake in a small glass bowl to get the perfect rounded shape.  I cut the ears out of fondant and allowed them to dry.  Then I attached them to lollipop sticks using black royal icing and inserted them into the topper.  I used black royal icing to attach the ears to the cake for added support.  The fondant bow was also made in advance.  I attached the dry fondant bow to the ears and in the center and added the center of the bow once the bow was dry.  The lettering was cut out of red fondant.  I think the lettering really puts this cake over the top.  I used my airbrush to spray the topper with pearl shimmer to give it just a bit more girlishness.

Libby loved her birthday cake! Happy 2nd Birthday!

The winning word from the Scripps National Spelling Bee was big news this year because it happened to be “knaidel” as in matzah ball fame.  The clip of Arvind Mahankali winning this years big prize was all over the media, so I’m sure you have seen it.  He even appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  So when his teacher asked me to make him a special cake his class, I couldn’t refuse.  I decorated the outside of the cake in a hexagon pattern to match the spelling bee stage background.

I have been getting better at modeling my gum paste figures (thanks to Anne Heap’s class on Craftsy) and knew I wanted to make a little Arvind.  Then I thought it would be cute if he was sitting on a knaidel in a big bowl of chicken soup.  I made an edible bowl and spoon out of gum paste and filled the bowl with fondant knaidels and carrots.  Then I filled the bowl with consomme colored piping gel to look like chicken broth.  It’s good that it was all cake, because Arvind is a vegetarian and can’t actually eat official chicken soup.

My next thought was how to incorporate the actual word?  How about having little gum paste Arvind in his famous thinking pose with the winning word in a thought bubble! Awesomeness ensued.  I even replicated the Scripps Spelling Bee logo, I wonder who ate that!

Arvind, his teachers, and his class loved the cake! Here he is with the cake.  Apparently, he even took himself home! Congratulations on your big win!