I made this cake for Sayer's first birthday. I was trying to decide on a theme to base the cake on, I was trying to think about Sayer and what he likes. Well, he LOVES to take baths, so I went with the rubber ducky theme. I found this cake online, just by browsing through pictures. It was just a picture, and nothing else, but I thought it was so cute, so I just decided to make it up as I went along.It is a three layer yellow cake (2 8 inch, 1 9 inch) with buttercream frosting. The picture that I saw used fondant for the bucket and bubbles, but since I don't have any fondant or anywhere to buy it, I decided to make english toffee for the bucket. After I made the toffee, I thought how I could have used graham crackers or pretzel rods, and it would have been much easier. Oh well. I thought the toffee looked cute. It was kind of hard to work with, but it all worked out in the end.
For the grass I just used buttercream. The bubbles are whipping cream, which I whipped until it was pretty stiff so that it would keep it's form. I also made some chocolate plastic, which is just white chocolate and karo syrup, and rolled it into balls for rounder looking bubbles.
For the strip around the bucket, I just used foil, which isn't edible, and not super creative, but it worked and looked pretty good I thought.
The cupcakes are just from a box, frosted with buttercream, dyed chocolate plastic for the bubbles and peeps for the "ducks".
The yellow cake and buttercream recipe I used were from Bakerella. I know, I'm branching out from Epicurious! I thought they both turned out really yummy, and the cake was moist!
