Cat in the hat cake

I tried my first attempt at fancy frosting today.

 

Many many years ago, back in India, I used to love baking. 

But frosting, that I never even tried.I remember my mother toiling over a bowl of butter and sugar for hours at a time before each of our birthdays, whipping those together literally by hand! That is how she was taught in her baking class. It looked painful and I didn't care much for the frosting anyway! 

And back then, there was no internet to teach you things. 

And the fancy frosting tips and bags were the things of either rich people or professional bakers.. 

But recently I came across this tutorial through Pinterest, and I wanted to give it a try. And the chance came with my friend's daughter's first birthday when her usual cake maker was busy with the new baby. She asked me to make an individual cake for her daughter. (Thank God for one of the supermarket bakeries which offered to make the big cake with rice paper printed frosting.. it would have been a nightmare to do this on a big scale the first time.)

First attempt using Betty Crocker Whipped butter cream frosting..

The good thing was that, even though I could not find black color for the border, I was able to mix the three standard colors to get a darkish gray color! 'Yey' for painting basics!

Second attempt with the same.

But this time it came out nice and looked fabulous while still on freezer paper! But the problem with the store bought frosting is that, it does not freeze solid. And this is what happened when I tried to peal it from the paper!

Finally, during my third attempt, I decided to not be lazy and make my own frosting, simply by mixing butter, sugar and vanilla extract. And I was amazed as to how easy it was!

  
I still had the leftover storebought frosting, and it worked out perfectly to frost the rest of the cake as it did not have the slight yellow tint my homemade frosting had and took on the blue color beautifully!

Finally, I added the peaks of blue and white using the $3 frosting tips I bought from Christmas tree shop, and voilla! Love it! Can't wait to try it again!