Ducky Cake

Cake artist Julie McOrmond of Rochester, NY, designed a ducky cake she shared in the 2008 baby cakes contest.

I started with a 1/2 sheet single-layer rectangle cake. I iced the sides in white buttercream and did a light coat of icing on top, since it will be covered. Then I piped a small top and bottom border with light green icing, using a small round tip.

Then, for the pond scene on top, I used my small spatula to spread light blue/white striped buttercream pond. It was in the shape of a kidney bean/oval.

Then I used my grass tip to pipe green grass surrounding the pond to the edges of the cake. There are drop flowers in the grass.

The fun of this cake are the buttercream duckies in the pond- they are made by piping a base body with tip 10 (large round).

Pipe a round ball which tapers off into a point. Then, using a smaller round tip (like #4) pipe a little round ball on top for the head, and little tapering wings on each side of the body.

Then, using orange buttercream, and small leaf tip (#352s), pipe a little beak. And lastly little dot blue eyes. I made varying size duckies to look like mommies with ducklings!

I pipe each duck on a piece of wax paper, on a flower nail, and then pop it into the freezer. It hardens enough so you can take it off the wax paper with fingers or scissors to place on the pond.

Lastly there are little lily pads and flowers. The pads are made on a flower nail with petal tip, making a round shape. Same thing as the duckies- freeze and then position.

The flowers are with white buttercream, with a star tip, pull out in a circle to make a spikey flower. Then pipe a little yellow star in the center.

This ducky cake is one of my favorite cake designs to make for baby showers!