Baby Beluga Cake


When a friend from my book club announced that she was having her second baby, the rest of us immediately started planning the baby shower. I knew I wanted to knit a gift for the new little one, as I've done for all the "book club babies".  I ended up knitting a vest with a whale motif  and that turned into the inspiration for the cake too!

I decided to try an Oreo Cookie Cake because I've never done one before and I knew it would be a crowd pleaser.  I used this recipe from the Life Love and Sugar blog.  I made some changes to the recipe: taking out the Oreo fillings, using larger broken off pieces instead of crushed Oreos, and baking it for longer than 18-23 minutes.  My cakes were in the oven for about 27 minutes.  And actually, I didn't use Oreos, but instead went with Whole Foods' 365 brand chocolate sandwich cookies. They may not be a health food, but they do have better ingredients than Oreo brand.

The cake layers were delicious but, disappointingly, they were a bit on the thin side.  I'm not sure if this has to do with my taking out the Oreo filling, though I doubt it.  Unfortunately this made the cake a bit on the low side, which affected my decorating design.

For the frosting, I wanted to try a buttercream using malt powder, to get closer to the cookies n' cream experience.  This recipe from Handle the Heat intrigued me because it uses much less sugar than other buttercream recipes.  And it was delicious! However, I mistakenly added too much milk - 3 tablespoons! - and this made the frosting very difficult to work with.  I had wanted to make crisp, nautical looking slices, but had problems with the cake comb going through this gooey frosting. I was able to get the stripes, but they were certainly not crisp.  Coloring the frosting was difficult too, due to the malt powder.  It gave the frosting a very yellowish base.  I'd made the fondant decorations ahead of time so that the cake topper would firm up and to save time on the day of the event.  I colored the fondant with Americolor Royal Blue, but although I used the same shade on the frosting it came out looking more aqua.  To me this spoiled the whole look of the cake, and because I don't think the two shades of blue look good together.

I completed the look with some fondant starfish and seashells the cake was ready. Although I'd felt a bit let down, I was still satisfied and most importantly the new mom was very happy and the ladies from the book club complimented the taste.  All that was missing was Raffi in the background, singing "Baby Beluga", a song that takes me back to my own son's toddler days!  


    And here is the whale vest that inspired the cake!

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