Damon's Elephant Cake

If you know me, you know that I love making first birthday cakes. I love how colorful and playful the themes tend to be. For this cake I was given creative freedom to do whatever I wanted, as long as it fed 20 people, mango was used in the filling and had an elephant front and center.  Easy peasy!

The cake was made from my favorite vanilla white cake recipe (sans the oreos) and filled with very ripe champagne mangos that I cut up into small pieces, added a little sugar, fresh lime juice and just a tiny bit of water. The swiss meringue buttercream had a little bit of lime juice in it too. It was a great favor combination. Light and fun... just like the cake itself.

In making the elephant, I challenged myself to make the entire body and ear out of one piece of gum paste. I rolled it a bit thicker than normal, cut out the ear and moulded it into shape and then went back and carefully flattened out the section behind the ear so that it would look seamless. It took a few tries but eventually I got the look I wanted. I was very pleased with the result and Damon's mom, family and the rest of the party goers loved it too.