Cool Homemade Smiling Caterpillar Birthday Cake

This caterpillar birthday cake was for my son’s 1st birthday, because he loves Baby Einstein. I premade 2 batches of marshmallow fondant- one regular and one with cocoa added. I dyed the regular MMF using Wilton gel colors a day or so before, so it would be ready to go.

I baked one cake with the #1 shaped pan and 10 of the mini ball halves. After cutting the tops off of everything to make them level and cooling, I coated the 1 with chocolate buttercream. I took the ball halves and coated with buttercream & put pieces together to form 5 balls. I then chilled everything for about 15 to 20 minutes.

I smoothed the chocolate fondant over the 1 to resemble dirt and sat aside. I coated each ball with a different color fondant to match the Baby Einstein caterpillar, saving a little red & yellow fondant.

I placed the balls so it looked like the caterpillar was climbing up the 1, using sucker sticks to hold each one in place. To put the yellow one on top, I used several sticks, because it was heavy & wanted to lean. I rolled yellow fondant in balls for the feet & tail. I put the tail on with a toothpick. I made all the facial features from fondant & just used water to hold them on. For the antennas, I coated dum dum suckers with red fondant about half way down the stick. Last, I piped green buttercream around the caterpillar and 1 to look like grass (to cover any flaws).

This was my first real attempt with fondant and everyone was really amazed.

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