For my daughter’s 2nd birthday, I knew she would love an Abby Cadabby theme party. I practiced drawing Abby’s face several times on scratch paper before making the cake. I read Coolest Abby Cakes 2 and 6 for inspiration and advice.
To start my Abby Cadabby Birthday Cake, I baked the 3 round cakes using two cake mixes (1 9-inch pan, and 2 8-inch pans), then I let them cool. I cut the shape of Abby’s chin into the 9-inch pan, and I shaped the 8-inch cakes into her pigtails. I placed the 3 cakes on a cutting board in the shape of Abby’s face. Then I frosted all 3 cakes with buttercream frosting (I used 3 buttercream frosting containers in all), then I stuck the cutting board with the cakes into the freezer for 30 minutes so Abby’s pink frosting wouldn’t blend with the white frosting underneath.
Then I pulled the cakes out of the freezer. I used a toothpick to sketch Abby’s face onto the buttercream frosting. Then I froze it again for another 10 minutes. After that, I used the Wilton cake tips and Wilton frosting (3 pinks, 2 reds, 1 yellow, 1 blue, 2 purples, 1 black). I started with Abby’s eyes (took me about 30 mins), then her nose (5 mins), then her mouth (20 mins). I mostly used the long, thin Wilton tip for her eyelashes and the small round tip for the rest. I also used a few toothpicks to smooth out features my fingers couldn’t. Then I put the pink frosting on her face. It was easier to put the pink on after I had the detail work done. I used a small circle tip to squirt on the pink frosting. With my clean finger, I just smoothed out the frosting gently, so it would smooth out (this took about 20 mins).
I froze the cake for 20 mins at this point, so the colors wouldn’t blend. Then I added Abby’s smile lines and freckles (15 mins). The last part of her face was her face shape line.
Then was her hair. I added her ponytail holders using a star tip. I was worried about the hair turning out, but I put dark purple on the hair first. Then I streaked pink frosting throughout and blended the pink and purple frosting together with my finger til it looked like highlights.
When I was done frosting, I wrote my daughter’s name on the cutting board in frosting. I covered the Abby cake lightly in the fridge with saran wrap overnight. From beginning to end, including bake them this cake took about 5 hours. The actual decorating part took about 2 hours. We had 11 guests, and we only had one pigtail left!
My daughter loved the cake and so did my family!
I just wanted to add, for the aqua blue and light purple colors, I actually just used the Wilton blue & purple colors, which were darker to start with. Then I mixed a few tablespoons of the white buttercream frosting with the dark blue in a bowl to make her eyelid color. And I also mixed buttercream to lighten Abby’s purple freckles and some of her hair color. I didn’t know where I was going to get my colors, but mixing worked.