Hello Kitty Birthday Cake

Sorry for the lack of updates! I'll make up for it by posting something cute. :) It's a birthday cake that I made for my niece who turned one year old this past weekend.

Hello Kitty cake

©2006 Yuzu Eats

I'd never before attempted a shaped cake before, let alone one for which I didn't have a special baking pan. I used a boxed strawberry cake mix to bake a 13x9" rectangular cake. After it cooled, I took the cake out of the pan and laid it on a sheet of wax paper, where I used a serrated knife to cut out an oval and two triangles (Kitty's head and ears). I put them onto that square plate and placed plastic straws into the cake to secure the ears to the head. After that, it was frosting time! I whipped up a really quick batch of vanilla buttercream frosting and separated it into portions which I dyed into different colors to make up Hello Kitty's face. I used a star pastry tip to pipe white frosting all over, and again to pipe the red bow. Lastly, I made my own pastry bags out of parchment paper, snipped the tips, and used those to add the nose, eyes and whiskers.

My niece seemed to enjoy the cake, but she was reluctant to dig in at first — maybe she didn't want to mess up Kitty's face. ^_^ Unfortunately, none of the other kids at the party got to try the cake because my niece eventually smooshed the whole thing to bits. Some of it actually made its way into her mouth, while the rest was on the table, her hands, her bib and parts of her face.