Cradle Cake (Memories of a Princess Baby Shower)

I wanted to share a cake I made a little over a year ago for my daughter-in-law's baby shower. (While expecting my first grandchild, who is now ten months old--I can't believe how fast time passes!)

The grandmothers-to-be got together and planned a themed shower of "Tutus and Tiaras". We got our ideas from Pinterest, of course. We were so excited about this little one coming into our lives! (The tiara on the diaper cake in the photo below belongs to the new Mama from when she won a beauty contest in high school.)

I had already decided to make a cradle cake inspired by a YouTube video by McGreevy Cakes. I tweaked the finished product a little to go with the theme by adding a little sugar paste crown and ballerina teddy bear as cake toppers.

The cake was the mattress of the cradle and was the easiest part of the whole thing!
I made the cradle parts separately of a 50/50 mixture of modelling chocolate and gum paste. Each part had to be made ahead so the gum paste could dry and be solid enough to stand upright. I allowed about 2 weeks, but if you were short on time, I would give it at least 3 or 4 days.

A little on the construction/planning of the cradle parts: I attached the rockers a little differently than shown in the video and I feel it made it a bit sturdier construction than just using melted chocolate or Royal Icing. I used a wooden skewer in the side edges of each end piece. (photo below) It was covered by a second layer of the 50/50 mixture. The skewer end showing on the top of the cradle end was covered with a ball of the gum paste mixture to look like a finial as on a real piece of furniture. I did this on both cradle ends. The sharp ends of the skewer were "glued" into the rockers. It took some careful planning to make sure I had holes in each rocker at the exact placement for the skewers to be inserted, because once those pieces dried I wouldn't be able to move the skewer or place another hole without the mistake being visible. I also had to make the top of the rails different than the video because I forgot to cut out the pieces to dry and didn't realize I was missing these parts until I started to construct the cake the day before the shower! So I wrapped a wooden dowel with the gum paste mixture and used Royal Icing to attach it to the cradle sides. Phew! Catastrophe averted.

This was a very rewarding cake for me to make; not only for the memories of welcoming my first granddaughter, but because of the structural planning needed to get the individual pieces to fit together. I've never considered myself to have a mathematical mind, but I managed to get the measurements right for this to come together for a show stopper cake. Most of the guests at the shower thought it was a toy model for a decoration. They couldn't believe it when I deconstructed it to cut the cake for serving!
I hope you enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane with me planning and constructing this cake. Have a great day!