I'm willing to share my secret to the perfect Baby Shower gift. This step-by-step guide will help you to make your very own!
1. Prepping
Like any recipe, start by buying ingredients to "bake" your cake.
HINT: Since you will be taking all the tags off the ingredients, please try to buy things that the mom-to-be has registered for or versatile items that she we be able to use. Example: Receiving blankets and heavy fleece blankets will always have a purpose. She can always use Desitin and Q-tips. Rattles and teethers will always keep the baby busy. If you decide to include bottles or bath products, make sure your buying the brand she has registered for. Most moms are picky about products they will use on their new little one!
Ingredients:Diapers - I usually like to buy the brand that the mother-to-be has registered for, however; store brand diapers are a much cheaper alternative and I'm sure they'll get used sometime! The amount just depends on how big you want your cake to be. The cake that I will demonstrate below took 140 diapers to "bake".
Fleece Blankets - I always try to coordinate the colors, but also contrast the layers. You will need 1 fleece blanket for each layer of cake you want to bake.
Receiving Blankets - You will need 1 receiving blanket for each layer of the cake.
Rattles, Teethers - These are items you will use to decorate the cake once it's "iced". You can add as many or few as you would like. I sometimes wait until my cake is finished to see how many I would like to add OR buy many and return the unused ones.
Hidden Ingredients - As you will see in the pics below. I hide ingredients such as q-tips, baby bath, desitin, etc. in the center of each layer.
Ribbons - Rubber bands are my secret to holding everything together so you will need something to cover them up. You can go minimalist or extravagant in your ribbon choice as long as they serve their purpose.
Base - As I divulged before, my secret is a table base. Remember back in the day those particle board side tables with the 3 screw in legs. They sold big tablecloths to cover them and people used them as nightstands, endtables, etc. Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond sell them for around $10. (Don't forget your coupon when you go you Bed, Bath & Beyond!) I will sometimes find old ones at Garage sales, Goodwill, etc. Sometimes the bride-to-be or mother-to-be give me the base back to reuse after they have disassembled their gift.
The cake will be heavy once it's all assembled so if choosing a base other than the table top, make sure it's sturdy.
Fabric - Just one yard or scrap of the cheap stuff. You're just using it to cover the base.
Rubber Bands - My favorite pack is sold at Target in the office supplies department. The pack has a large variety of sizes including an extra large band to fit around the bigger layers.
Pots, Pans, Hat Boxes - Raid the cupboards! Anything that could form a circle will work.
2. Baking
Collect all of your ingredients together to see what your working with.
Everything all together_______Coordinating blankets
Teethers and Rattles__________Ribbons and hidden items
Ribbons_______________ Ready to bake!
^So how to you get from the stack on the left to the circle on the right? A slow cooker pot, of course! Slowly and carefully fan the stack of diapers and form them into the pot. When the pot is full, slowly slip the diapers out and wrap it with a rubber band.
^For the second layer, use a form a little bigger than the first layer. Same technique as above. Fan, Stuff and Wrap.
^Filled a little more... and then a little more. For the first time baker, you may want to line the forms with a plastic bag or plastic wrap so you can slide the diapers out with ease.
^Flip the form over, and before the diapers are completely out of the form, slip a rubber band around the diapers. TahDah!!! Another layer is done. The ratios of diapers used to make this cake are: 65 bottom layer, 40, 25, 10 top layer.
^Remember those hidden ingredients I was talking about? Now's your chance to hide them in the cake. You can just hide the items in the center of the layers OR if you want to spruce them up and you have extra blankets, wrap the blanket around the items.
^Once the item is wrapped, insert it into the center of the layer.
Now that you cake is "baked", it is time to "ice" it.
3. Icing
If you are a baker, think of this step as adding fondant to a cake. For the rest of us, think of it as making a bed. It's just smoothing and tucking.
^Now is when you'll get to use the receiving blankets that you purchased. Lay the blanket over the diaper layer.
^Add a rubber band and smooth the blanket out. Flip the layer over.
^Begin to tuck the excess blanket into the bottom of the layer. This does not need to be pretty or precise. Nobody will ever see it.
^Follow the above step of flipping and tucking to ice the remaining layers of the cake.
^TahDah! A fully iced 4 layer cake.
Find out how to Decorate and Embellish the cake in my next post!
A How-To-Guide to Baking Your Own (Part 2)
So you've prepped, baked and even iced your cake already. Now it's time to give it the WOW factor by decorating and embellishing it! Ladies, get your glue guns ready!!!
4. Decorating
Now is the time your FLEECE blankets will come into play. Warning: I have not found a baby fleece blanket yet that is longer than 40". The circumference of your bottom layer is probably bigger than 40", mine always is. So I usually use another nice blanket to cover up the receiving blanket icing on the bottom layer.
^Fold the fleece blanket to the height of the layer of cake. As you can see in the pic above the nice, but not fleece, blanket that covers the receiving blanket icing. This one goes under the Fleece blanket. I attach these with a rubber band.
^Continue same technique outlined above with each additional layer.
^TahDah! All four layers are done. Now it's time to EMBELLISH! Collect all the ribbons you plan to use for this step.
5. Embellish
^I like to layer my ribbons to give an additional WOW factor. Hot Glue is my secret! I love my Hot Glue Gun! Glue the skinnier ribbon on top of the wider one. Cut the ribbons to fit the circumference of the different layers. On this cake I used pinks and whites. Polka dots and animal prints. Ruffles and stripes.
^Here is where the particle board table base comes into play. Recognize it now? Hot glue the fabric to the table top and cut off any excess. You will hot glue to what will be the bottom of the base.
^Affix a stuffed animal to the top of the cake to use as a topper. I try to seat belt it in by using leftover ribbons and tucking them into the rubber bands under the ribbons. Now it's time to add the teethers and rattles to finish the cake. PLEASE, PLEASE...less is more. Don't make it too gaudy!
^I always like to add an Ingredients card to the top. This card lists all the ingredients you used to bake the cake. I also include: "Baked with love by.." to the bottom of the card. This way the mom-to-be knows exactly what is inside the cake at the shower without having to disassemble it.
^I happened to stumble upon this pink basket at a local store lately. I usually just give the cake on the base, but the base sat perfectly on top of the basket and it gave the cake some good height.
^The cake really sticks out on the gift table and the mom-to-be loved it!!!
I hope this tutorial helps. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Happy Baking!
