Daniel Tiger Birthday

We celebrated my daughter's 2nd birthday this year with a fun Daniel Tiger theme. She is obsessed with Daniel Tiger--it is the only show she wants to watch. I, of course, loved the idea of doing a Daniel Tiger theme--I have a soft spot in my heart for him from all my years as a little kid watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood with Trolley and such. I love the new spin off of that show in the form of sweet and cuddly Daniel Tiger.

The first element that I knew was a must on the cake was Trolley itself. I printed off a picture of Trolley from the internet, and cut it apart into the different elements of the trolley. Then I rolled modeling chocolate out, in varying thicknesses, put the paper template on top of the correct piece of modeling chocolate, and cut each piece out with an exacto knife. Then as I assembled it on the side of my bottom tier, it seemed to come to life with the varying thicknesses of the trolley, almost looking 3 dimentional.

Next I wanted to put Daniel Tiger's house on top. I cut slats into the fondant to make wood planks, then distressed them a little with a little roller tool, and finally painted on the white fondant with brown food coloring mixed with lemon extract. I followed the tutorial here for doing the wood look.

My husband had bought me a clay extruder gun for Christmas, that I was so excited that I finally got to use when I made this cake. I used the gun to make the sticks for the roof of Daniel's house. It was time consuming, but turned out just how I envisioned!

For the final touches on the cake I made a Happy birthday banner out of modeling chocolate, and put Daniel, Katerina Kittycat, and Miss Elaina on top by Daniel's house.

We also served some other Tiger-inspired snacks--Tiger cupcakes

 Tiger tails (pretzels dipped in orange candy melts and drizzled with milk chocolate.)

And these adorable Tiger mandarin orange cups were so fun for my 6 and 4 year olds to make, so that they felt like they were contributing to the party prep.

 It turned out cute, and she was so excited about her cake. That was 4 months ago, and she still talks about her cake everyday and loved it. Here are a couple pictures of the birthday girl with her cake--the one below she was attempting to blow the candle out, but ended up needing a little help from her sisters and cousins.

What was hiding inside the cake?  We'll you can't make a tiger cake with out making the inside tiger striped. To know how to do this technique, check out my post here where I make a zebra striped cake.
Ugga Mugga!