Cake toppers.

It had been a while since I had baked a cake but I had the chance to make two in the last week. Confession: cakes stress me out. I love making them... but I'm a perfectionist and a lot of things can go wrong when you bake a cake. You could burn it while baking it. The frosting could turn out wrong. You could stack it and it ends up lopsided (one of my most common mistakes that drives me crazy.) You could screw up while trying to write words with frosting...

I've decided to do away with the possibility of the last stressful situation and am going to take a break from writing on cakes. It stresses me out. And if I do it the way that guarantees results it takes waaaay too long. But it just happens to be my lucky day because Pinterest agrees with me and is all about this "sticking things on top of a cake and calling it a day" thing. (And what Pinterest says goes.) So I made cake toppers instead!

(This is how it's done, folks.)

One cake was for a family birthday party. It was a white cake with white frosting (with a lil' almond extract to make it special.) I used some wooden skewers, cute scrapbook paper, string, glue, and a Sharpie to make a banner. It was really easy to make and the family was impressed. (Not that that says that much… they love everything I do because they have to.)

The other cake I made for my friend Megan. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and peanut butter filling. Megan's an artist so I wanted to do something cute for her. I kept it simple because I didn't have a lot of time but I was happy with the results.

You can do it too! An easy way to spruce up a cake without the risk of writing on the cake itself - a DIY cake topper. Man, I love workarounds… Happy baking and decorating!