Baking project no.1 - Beach-themed cake

TADAAAAH!!!!!

This Mama did bake!!! After many, many, many hours nipping and tucking (including some sacrifice of sleep), this is the result! I thoroughly enjoyed piecing everything together and would definitely do it again! It's not perfect but I'm satisfied with it being my first attempt.

I chose a beach-themed cake for my niece since it was celebrated at Hard Rock Hotel, Batu Feringghi. It is a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and toasted walnut bits sprinkled on top to make them look like sand on the beach and finally decorated with fondant characters. I got the inspiration for the decoration from this image found online by jsantoso.  There are some amazing decorated cakes there! The bikini girl here is soooooo cute! Mine is no where near even though I made not one but three girls before I called it quits.  My girl has an unproportionally big middle and her face cracked a little from the erm.. lack of moisturiser and too much sun???? ;-P

The little crab is my favourite. It might have been my niece's favourite too as it went straight into her mouth! I also like the little white and red float, sand bucket and rolled up towel. The octopus kinda collapsed on me a bit...

I really like the part where I get to put on the little details such as the bikini ribbon on the girl's back and the embossing on the towel.

I couldn't find black colouring in the shops for the hair and eyes so I had to mix all the colours I have to get a somewhat greyish-black colour.

The carrot cake tasted alright but it was a little on the hard side. Not rock hard but not soft enough. I wonder if it is because I had to bake it earlier and put it in the fridge overnight.

We only had a small party so I didn't mind the height of the cake but would have preferred if it had been double the height. 

The birthday girl blowing out the candles