Emerald City Dreaming

Last week was my friend's daughter's 3rd birthday. Did I say that right? Sounded weird? Whatever...

Anyway, Becca (my friend) asked me to help her make a Wizard of Oz birthday cake as Eden (the birthday girl) is obsessed with all things Wizard of Oz. She's 3 and she'd take Dorothy over a Disney princess any day! It's refreshing actually. I really love that about little Eden.

Anyway, having never decorated an actual CAKE before (I tend to stick to smaller confections) I did my best to re-channel all of those Food Network challenges I've seen time and time again and Becca did some research online to find the perfect cake to replicate.

After about a week of research and pre-making about a million fondant poppy flowers, this was our end result...

Not bad, huh?

And I have to admit, I had some help. Becca did the baking, my friend Michelle has an eye for placement so she came over to help us figure out where everything should go on the cake and well, I had the cutest little assistant when it came to making the fondant decorations...

Ain't she cute? Poor thing. Worked to exhaustion. We don't play around at the Cortez house when it comes to fondant. We just don't.