the best cake i ever made...

so as you know, my little princess turned one last saturday. and what would be better for a princess than a princess party? we decorated the whole house in pink and white streamers, pink and white balloons and princess decorations. she had a little fuzzy pink party hat that said "princess," her onesie said "little princess," and we got her a sparkly pink princess skirt. everything was pink, pink, pink.

but the thing that took the cake was the cake.

a few months ago i was meandering around wal-mart and came across this:

and said, "this is perfect!"

my mother in law decorates cakes and has taken a bunch of classes. so i asked her if she would help me since i know nothing about cake decorating and have never made a two tier cake let alone a two layer cake. she agreed so we spent way too many hours making the cake. i got the wrong kind of cream cheese so the first batch of frosting was ruined. (word of advice: don't use fat-free cream cheese for baking. yuck.) top tier was chocolate, bottom tier was devil's food on one layer and funfetti on the other. somehow my MIL knows how to make delicious cake, i can't make a boxed cake mix taste that good. filled with cream cheese frosting and voila.
next up, the decorating. this took several hours...we were up until about 1 am. the kit comes with the towers, windows, door and little cones for the top of the towers. they are all plain white plastic, so you do the decorating. here they are after i'd piped the purple around the little windows and stuck edible glitter on them.
the cones we smothered in purple frosting and rolled in the glitter.
then little white balls of cream cheese frosting, and leaves...
here is the cake after we'd put on the leaves and flowers plus the door and the front part. the rest had to wait until the day of the party or the towers would all tip over.
so skip ahead to the afternoon of the party. we stuck the towers on, put the cones on them and frosting-glued them to the cake.
and here is the finished product. isn't it amazing?

what a cake for a baby's first birthday! i was so proud of it! it was sad when we dismantled it.
but let me tell you, those chubby little hands sure loved digging around in it!


and it was delicious!