ABC Baby Shower (neutral)

This baby shower was a collaboration with the mother and the sister of the "mom to be." It was so fun working with them to make it a special day. They chose a neutral theme of ABC's and we went with primary colors and green for our color scheme. The above and below pictures are of the individual cakes I made for the shower. I got the idea from Martha Stewart.

 The small plate was our vegan version of the cake.  The non vegan cake was a white buttery cake filled with a whipped cream, cream cheese, seedless raspberry jam mixture I found online. Because I have a dairy allergy using cool whip and Toffuti Better Than Cream Cheese works just as well. The vegan cake was triple chocolate. Both were covered with ganache.

To make individual block cakes like this you bake a 9x13 cake in a pan without rounded corners. Doing this will help you keep more cake from being removed when shaping. To add a filling layer divide the cake in half horizontally, fill and put the top back on. Freeze or refrigerate until stiff. I froze it for around 5 minutes. Then divide the cake into squares using a ruler as your guide. My cakes were about an inch and a half square. Freeze them again and take one or two out at a time and coat with ganache on a wire rack with a jelly roll pan under to catch the excess ganache to re-use. Use a knife to spread it on to the cake evenly. After all of them are coated put them in the fridge and make your decorative frosting. In order for all the cakes to look similar I made the decorative frosting all vegan. I used Earth Balance vegan butter sticks. Have fun decorating. Another product I love is ENER G Egg Replacer, a great substitute for egg.

 The following pictures are at the shower. We used wooden baby blocks to decorate the house.

 I designed an ABC subway art to be a gift and decoration for the baby and the shower.

 Sarah, sister of the "mom to be," found these cute blocks at the Container Store and filled them with baby pictures of the "mom and dad to be."

I borrowed this canvas with clips, from my friend Blue Eyed Carrots, to have guest put up their well wishes to the family. Guests wrote their well wishes on hand stamped ABC note cards in four different colors. For a fun craft the guests decorated baby blocks with non toxic paint for the baby to keep.

Sarah and I covered mason jars with ribbon and tags for guest to write their name on and keep for drinks. Mason jars and be purchased at any grocery store 12 for $9.99, a cheap and trendy choice for glasses if you don't have many yourself. Paper straws were provided.

Here is a close up of the subway art. To get your own free copy you can download it here.