Dalmatian Cake

What a fun cake to make!  I really enjoyed this one a lot.

I got the main idea from a lovely design I found on Cake Central and then made it my own.

I started by finding a coloring picture of a dalmatian online - well, a lot of them actually, and showing them to Marissa (the birthday girl) to pick which she liked most. This was the one I had already decided to draw on poster board for a "Pin the Dog tag on the Dog" game, and it turned out that she liked it best for the cake.

I baked a half-sheet cake (11 x 15") homemade strawberry cake several days earlier and froze it.  It frosted beautifully with no crumbs at all....wonderful!

I gave it a base coat of white buttercream, chilled it a little, then went to work.  I had enlarged the picture of the dalmatian to the right size and cut it out. I placed it on the cake and traced around it with a toothpick.

Then I filled in the details and used buttercream tinted black to trace the outline with the Wilton Tip #2.  I also used that tip for the writing and the butterfly.

Then I used the grass tip to pipe on the green grass....Tip #65 for the stems and leaves, and Tip #4 to make the flower petals.
The yellow I just put in a ziplock bag, snipped off a tiny corner, and filled in details without a tip.

I used Tip #13 to pipe tiny stars all over the puppy to give texture and add extra frosting.

I honestly can't remember which tips I used for the borders......silly, isn't it?  I just  made the cake 2 days ago.  But I was trying out several different tips to see what I liked and I can't recall which I ended up using.  I think it was #17 for the bottom border and something smaller for the top, I know that.

Anyways.

The birthday girl was delighted throughout the whole process of watching me decorate the cake and was just beside herself with joy at the final product.  It's really rewarding to make something for someone who truly appreciates your effort.

This recipe is linked to the Ultimate Recipe Swap: Birthday Cakes.