I love making birthday cakes for friends and family. This cake design was perfect for my grand daughter Zoe’s 4th birthday. She is young, sweet, clever, and very imaginative. She loves making up stories, and playing outside. Her fantastic imagination could certainly make the characters in this cake come to life!

I started with 3 – 8″ cake layers (2 chocolate, and 1 vanilla).

I “carved” them all with a long serrated knife, into space-ship like discs. I rounded one side, then flipped it over and rounded the other side.

I made several facial parts by melting some white melting chocolate, and forming the shapes on parchment paper. These parts included ears, mouth, beak, and teeth. For the curved shapes, I used a rolling pin. These will be applied to the cake using excess frosting.

I made 2 batches of my cream cheese buttercream, and made 1/3 into a chocolate buttercream. I left some of the frosting white, then tinted the rest of the frosting teal and orange.

The bottom cake layer would be the “teddy bear layer”. This was simply frosted using a small offset spatula, with a scraped pattern around the layer. The base for the mouth was placed in the center of one side. Add M&Ms for the eyes. Pipe on the mouth and nose. Insert the ears into the cake. Chill the bear cake layer.

The next layer was going to be the “fox layer”. This one was carved slightly smaller than the bear layer, and frosted with white frosting. It was chilled to firm up the frosting, then centered on top of the bear layer using a long off set spatula.

Add M&Ms for the eyes, pipe on the nose and mouth, add the pre-formed teeth and ears. Chill the cake while you work on the top layer.

Also carve the top layer slightly smaller than the bear layer. Frost this layer for the owl, with the teal colored frosting. Place on top of the fox layer. Chill the cake. Apply the petal design around the cake, leaving the “face” smooth. Take apart 2 Oreo cookies, and use the frosted side out for the owl eyes. Apply 2 M&Ms using excess frosting, for the center of the eyes. Then set the beak in place. Place ears on top of the head, behind the Oreo eyes. Top the owl’s forehead with a few piped on dollups of teal frosting.

Finally, pipe on the orange frosting for the fox fur, using a small star tip. Chill cake until ready to serve.