I wish I could say I made this gorgeous barn and farm animals first birthday cake, but I didn’t! It was made by a cake decorating friend of mine at Julia’s Confection Connection here in Ohio. I came into her shop to pick up some cake decorating supplies while she was working on this cake and I fell in love.
Julia agreed to let me share this cake, and maybe some more cakes in the future! I’m so excited to be able to share this fun farmyard first birthday cake with you. She also made a super cute haystack smash cake and some fun farm animal cupcake toppers.
The complete display was stunning! I’m sure the first birthday boy was over the moon excited!
Here’s a close up of the cake. It was a two tier cake covered in green fondant, with a fondant barn, and adorable fondant animals on top and on the outside of the bottom tier. So cute!
The haystack smash cake was equally adorable! With a fondant or gum paste chicken on top. She probably used a Wilton #233 tip (or similar) on the end, over a small round cake. This is a round tip with several small holes in the end to let the icing come out in thin ribbons to look like grass. I also love how she gave the hay different shades. You can do this by adding more than one color of icing to your pastry bag.
The farm animal cupcakes are also super cute! A Wilton 1M tip would work well for icing the cupcakes. Working with fondant and gum paste to create the animals is kind of like working with play dough! You can even enlist the kids to help. Julia had her grand kids help her make all the cute little farm animals for this first birthday cake and the cupcakes.
They used the back side of a small paint brush to poke the shallow holes to make the sheep’s wool. Just work with the gum paste until you get comfortable with it! If it’s too stiff, add a little shortening to soften it up.
Have fun!