Elephant Cake

I am an epically bad estimator. Always. Ask me how far away that is. 1 yard? 1 meter? 1 mile? You might as well save me the trouble of having to guess way wrong and not ask me at all. I have a hard enough time telling right from left. {kiddingnotkidding}

So when it comes to cakes - same deal. I never know how much I'll need by way of icing. I've started to try and keep notes, so I don't forget stuff.

I thought I'd share, by way of being helpful. To future me. Who will forget by the next time I need to do a large cake...:-)

For this Elephant Cake (for a baby shower) - I have 3 tiers. 12", 8" and 4" (two cakes per layer, so one filling layer per size). The Mommy-to-be has a favourite dessert...strawberry shortcake. So this cake is a nod to that!

I rimmed the cakes with a stiff buttercream, filled the center with whipped cream, and fresh strawberries. (This cake MUST be refrigerated, and must be made as "last minute" as possible. I made this 24 hours before it was served. I would say, 2 days at the max, or else you'd have to stabilize your cream with gelatin, and that would likely only get you another day or so)

I whipped up 2 of these, adding vanilla and icing sugar to sweeten. I had some left over after filling all three layers

8" layer

I went back, after stacking the cakes, and filled in (with the "rimming" buttercream), all the areas where strawberries and/or whipping cream were showing through. I don't want any leaks.

For crumb coating, all three layers, it used 2 recipes of buttercream - with this much left over

To sum up:
To fill (rim only, all three layers) - 1 recipe of buttercream

To crumb coat - 2 recipes of buttercream

To decorate:
Bottom layer - 1.5 recipes of buttercream.
Middle - 1.5 recipes of buttercream
Top - 1/2 recipe of fondant

The elephants on the top...aren't they to die for?! They are so unbelievably cute! They are made of fondant, and I didn't make them. Well, I made the fondant:-) My friend Abbey, who is very much more artsy than me made them. She can actually sculpt, and I knew mine would definitely NOT look cute. I stink at playdoh, so I know this about myself. Abbey was gracious enough to help me out and give this cake the adorable final touches. (I made the balloons, haha!)

The theme of the shower is...you guessed it, Elephants!

Cute Mommy and Baby bums!