pacific thyme: Cake Chronicles pt 4

It's time for cake number 2 of the big baby shower weekend! I assembled and decorated this cake on Saturday morning before heading to the shower in Clovis, so this cake would have a full day to defrost in the fridge before the shower on Sunday. This dinosaur cake turned out to be BIG. I made two sheet cake layers, one vanilla and one chocolate, and frosted them with green swiss meringue buttercream frosting. As usual, I started with the first layer straight from the freezer, but I put it directly onto the nice cake board. I always cover the edges with foil so that I can frost the cake, then remove the foil once I'm finished and I don't get any frosting on the cake board!

first layer in the cake box, on the foiled cake board

Once I put a coat of frosting on top of the first layer, I stacked the next frozen layer on top.

Two layers stacked and ready for a full frosting coat

I actually ended up using ALL of the green frosting for the first coat, and had to make a new batch for the grass. I couldn't believe how big this cake was! I decided to make just half a batch of frosting for the grass, sure that it would be enough. To make the grass, I used a grass tip and piped it in rows all over the top of the cake. My friend Viviana helped me pipe half of it because my hand got really tired!!

Piping the grass

About two-thirds of the way through the grass, it was clear that there wasn't going to be enough frosting to finish the whole thing. I tried to make another batch, but colored it WAY too dark green, and got really frustrated. Then my friend suggested that I use some of the leftover fondant to cover a big area - so genius! I rolled out some leftover fondant from the western cake, and made a big dinosaur egg! Then I had just enough frosting to cover the remaining portion of the cake :)

Covered cake!

I also used 4 containers of piroutte cookies to make the "fence" around the cake. It was fun breaking the pieces to different heights and eating the scraps :) Then I put the toy dinosaurs on top, and voila! The cake was finished! Here is the final product!

Dinosaurs roaming

Finished cake!

Everyone loved this cake, too! It was funny to see discarded plates - people definitely had preferences for chocolate or vanilla cake, so I'm glad I made both! We ended up with plenty of leftovers for people to take home, as well. Congrats mama!! Aunty Erin can't wait to meet this little dude!