Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake

I can hardly believe our baby is now 1.  Seems like just last week we were headed to the birthing center.  If you missed it before, you can read her birth story here.  

Here are a few things to know about Miranda:

1. She is our only baby that didn't like a pacifier.  Major bummer. 

I can't tell you how many times I wish she would take one.

2. She got her first tooth at 7 months and now has 8 teeth.  She got 4 on the bottom,

then two canines on the top, and finally her middle top teeth.  Corban had exactly the same pattern.

The other 3 girls all got their 2 middle bottom teeth at 9 months and no more teeth until they were 15 months.

3. She is our only baby who refuses to crawl on all fours.  She scoots on her bum and leg.  She gets

around really fast that way and the seat of her pants is always dirty.  Her knees stay clean, though. 

4. She adores her daddy more than any of our other babies.  For several months now, as soon as she

hears his voice when he comes home from work, she starts squealing "Da da!" and waving her arms and bouncing around.  She thinks he hung the moon.  He, in turn, is completely wrapped around her little finger. 

5. She gives the BEST. BABY HUGS.  Seriously.  She will wrap her arms around your neck and squeeze. 

None of our other babies did that at such a young age. 

6. She doesn't like bread/muffins.  

The only exception is cheese pizza.  She loves beans (especially spicy Mexican flavored ones), lentils, cheddar cheese, grapes, blueberries, kiwi, strawberries, pineapple, and cheese crackers.

And she was pretty fond of her cupcake frosting and ice cream. 

7. She LOVES our dog.  Pretty much any animals, really.  Grant takes the credit for that,

as he has encouraged her to pet Monty and play with him since she was born.

8. She also loves the dog's food and water bowls.  Her favorite thing to do is stick her right foot into 

his water bowl and splash around. I don't think Grant encouraged that.   

9.  She has a killer scowl when she's upset with you.  I'm pretty sure she gets that from me.  

10. She is a pure delight and joy to us.  We cannot imagine our lives without her.     

So I had decided to make a cake out of cupcakes for her birthday several months ago, and had a general idea what I wanted to do, but I actually got my final inspiration from this cake on the day of the party.  I had already baked cupcakes (using this recipe, minus the raspberry filling) and just needed the frosting.

I made a batch of buttercream and tinted part pink, a smaller part purple, and left the rest white.  

I arranged the cupcakes in the general pattern I wanted and chilled them in the fridge for awhile so they'd be easier to frost.  Some people recommend putting a dab of frosting under each one to "glue" it to the board, but I didn't do that and I had no problem with them moving or anything.

You can see here how I just frosted over the whole top just like it was solid cake.  The gaps don't really matter. 

So I frosted the bottom first, then the top with white, then I piped around the edges and did the sprinkles and writing.  Very simple and quick - and it turned out so cute!   

Sneaking a dab of frosting before we sang to her. :)  

Yeah, I think she likes it.  

We took her cute dress off for the real cake eating.  Getting messy was fun!

Ummmmm.....fistfuls of frosting.  Made for a happy baby!

Linked to Trick or Treat Tuesday and Crazy Sweet Tuesday