A boy turns one

My sweet nephew had his first birthday party last weekend and I was in charge of making the birthday cake. My sister made adorable invitations in the shape of the number one with polka dots, so I decided to make a cake to match. My plan was to have a number one like this: 1, but as I tried to frost it, the bottom part started breaking off, so I went with a basic 1.

I had seen a number one cake mold, but decided I could make a cake that was just as cute without the mold. It was more challenging than I thought, and while frosting my cut-out cake, I wondered why I didn't take the easy route! I baked two yellow cakes in 13 x 9 pans. I used box cake mix in order to save time since I had so much other baking and decorating to do. After cooling slightly, I removed the cakes from the pans and let them cool overnight.

That same night I also made sugar cookies to use for the polka dots on the cake (see recipe below). I used a 1.5 inch cutter to cut out the cookies. I cut some of the cookies in half to make polka dots that got “cut off” the edge of the cake. I made a simple sugar cookie glaze (see recipe below), divided it among three bowls, and colored it with concentrated food colorings so the colors would be vibrant.

After my cookies had cooled, I used an offset spatula to ice the cookies. This process seemed to take forever since there were so many very small cookies, but the icing is easy to work with, so that helped. I put the iced cookies on half sheet pans, covered them with plastic wrap, and let them set overnight.

The next day, I used a serrated knife to level the top of one of the cakes. I then transferred it to my white rectangular serving platter.

I whipped up a white frosting (see recipe below), put a not-to-thick layer on top of the bottom layer. I leveled out the second layer and transferred it to the top of the cake. I should have remembered to turn it upside down, as that would have made the top of the cake much easier to frost.

On a piece of paper, I drew a number 1 that I saw online, cut it out, and positioned it on the cake. I used a small serrated knife to cut around the template.

I then began my crumb coat – a thin layer of frosting before the final layer in order to keep all the crumbs stuck to the cake and out of the final layer of frosting. After finishing the crumb coat, I refrigerated the cake for about 30 minutes. I then began the final coat of frosting. I put it on pretty thick at first using large and small offset spatulas.

Then I used a small offset spatula to smooth it out, taking frosting off little by little to make it straight and smooth. I occasionally would dip the spatula in hot water before smoothing out the frosting, which helped a lot. The most difficult part of this cake was the top of the number one. The cake was fragile in the corners which make it challenging to frost.

Eventually, I had to stop trying to make the frosting look perfect, which was difficult for me. My husband reminded me that there would be cookies covering a lot of the cake so most of my imperfections would be hidden.

I pressed the decorated cookies into the cake in a random pattern and had some that were halfway on the side and halfway on top. I refrigerated the cake until party time.

I had a lot of extra cookies, which was part of my plan. I put 3-4 cookies of the same color in a mini muffin wrapper and put about 20 of these on a round platter. That was sure a hit! It was nice to have a sweet snack for people to much after lunch before the cake was cut. I would definitely do that again even for a grown-up party!

White Cake Frosting (I tripled this for my cake)

½ cup shortening (Whole Foods carries a non-hydrogenated shortening)
1 box (16 oz) powdered sugar
4 tablespoons water
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon almond extract

Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, mix all ingredients on low speed until powdered sugar is absorbed, then increase the speed to high and mix until light and fluffy.

Sugar Cookies (Adapted from Joy of Cooking)

3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups (2 ½ sticks) butter, softened (I used salted butter)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla, and continue beating until well mixed and smooth.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat on medium-low speed until smooth. Refrigerate half the dough. Place the other half of the dough between two sheets of parchment paper or wax paper. Roll out to between 1/8 and ¼ inch thick. If it is difficult to roll, you may need to refrigerate the dough for a few minutes before continuing. Once rolled out, refrigerate for about 30 minutes until slightly firm. Once cold, peel off the top paper, cut out the cookies, and transfer them to a parchment lined or greased baking sheet using a spatula. They can be fairly close together. Refrigerate the scraps to roll out later.

Bake for 7-9 minutes or until the edges just start darkening. Let cool on the sheet for about 3-4 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough. You can continue rolling out scraps and cutting out cookies until you have used up all of the dough.

Glaze with Sugar Cookie Glaze (recipe follows).

Sugar Cookie Glaze

2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
¼ cup water

Whisk all ingredients together in medium bowl. Divide into small bowls, color using food coloring, and cover until ready to use.