Hello Kitty Cupcake Decorations (and Amazing Mold Putty)

I made these cupcake decorations for a friend and had them shipped across the country.  She was baking some cupcakes for her daughter's birthday and using these to top them with.

The sitting Hello Kitty is 2" tall and was made out of modeling chocolate and used to top the birthday girls cupcake with - loved how she turned out!  I dusted her dress and pink bow and ribbon with some luster dust to add some shimmer.

For the bows, I tried something different and for the 1st time, made my own mold.

I hand sculpted a large bow (1-inch wide) and a small bow (5/8-inches wide) using Sculpey III Polymer Clay (see photo above, clay pieces are on the left).  Baked them in the oven for a couple minutes to get rock hard then molded some Amazing Mold Putty (found at Michael's Arts & Crafts) over them to make a silicone mold.  Once the mold was cured, I popped out the clay bows and had a perfect mold to use (see photo above, yellow rectangles).  I just pressed some MMF into the mold, popped them right out and dusted them with some shimmer dust.  So much time saved over hand cutting each one out - I love this stuff and they turned out perfectly!

I used various petal cutters to cut out the flowers in an assortment of colors and sizes and made 8 cupcake toppers using a 2-inch round cutter.  To make the Hello Kitty faces, I used a 1 1/2 inch round cutter, shaped it into an oval and added some of the bows I had made using the mold and the other features with MMF.

Everything was packaged very carefully and shipped across the country arriving all in tact!  Phew!  Here's a picture she sent me with the decorations on the cupcakes - so cute!

Photo courtesy of Holly K.

Leopard Printed Hello Kitty Cake

I love, love, love how the cake turned out!  I made a similar one a few months ago for my daughter who turned 3 which was all in pink (and without the leopard print).  With Meilaneeh turning 11, I wanted to make Hello Kitty a little older and found a perfect picture of her over the web wearing boots and with long lashes so I had to recreate her.  The tutorial on how I made the characters can be found here.  I dry-dusted Dogwood Brown and Buttercup Yellow Petal Dust directly onto the cake free hand to create the leopard print:  I wanted a light, dusted effect and not something that would be bright and overpower the characters that I had spent so much time making - hah-ha!

Characters:  Keroppi, Kuromi, Hello Kitty, Badz-Maru, Tuxedo Sam all made in MMF mixed with Tylose to help  it harden and dry faster.

I also made some Hello Kitty Bows that were randomly placed around the cake.  This is how they were made:

Step 1:  Make a triangle
Step 2:  Use a ball tip tool to indent it
Step 3:  Cut off the tip
Step 4:  Pinch the corners together
Step 5:  Repeat 1 more time the add a round piece in the middle.

Finished off the cake with a fondant ribbon around each tier, ribbon roses, and a fondant shaped "11".

9" and 6" round Vanilla Butter Cakes (a very heavy cake!) filled with Fresh Banana Cream Buttercream and Fresh Strawberry Buttercream.

Hello Kitty & Friend's Cake

This was for my daughter who loves Hello Kitty but then again, it may be all because of me since I grew up loving and owning practically anything Hello Kitty.  She was very adamant about having these specific characters on her cake:  Tammy (monkey), Keroppi (frog), Pochacco (dog), and My Melody (bunny).  I had done all of the characters except for Tammy one night, and when showing them to her the following morning, she right away asked, "but where's Tammy?" Just too cute!

The cakes were a 9" and 6" round, Strawberry/Vanilla Marbled Sour Cream Cake.  Filled with fresh strawberries and covered in Strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) - it smelled and tasted delicious!  The recipe for the IMBC is posted under the last cake I did, the 80th Birthday Music Themed Cake.  All the decorations were handmade with fondant (actually MMF mixed with Tylose).

I traced out each character over a piece of parchment paper and used them as a stencil to mold each character by hand.  With a little bit of shortening on your fingers, you can rub each piece of fondant smoothing them and shaping them easily (just like the teeth on my denture cake).  Use a little bit of either water or piping gel to adhere each piece to one another.

When ready to add them to the cake, poke the back of each character with a piece of dry spaghetti (around 2 inches long) at an angle that will point down into the cake - I never use toothpicks in any of my cakes or decorations!  and slowly and carefully attach each pieces.  Since the cake was covered in IMBC, I didn't need to add anything else behind it to help it stick.

Note:  I made these characters 2 days prior so they were still a little soft.  If you make them much earlier, you may want to stick the dry spaghetti into them or at least make a hole for it before they dry rock hard.

I finished off the cake with a purple, fondant ribbon around each tier, approximately 60 fondant ribbon roses in 3 different colors and a fondant butterfly added above her name which was dusted in pink luster dust.

I loved the how these characters turned out and Caitlyn was very, very happy.  Next year, she wants Strawberry Shortcake....hmmm, we'll see, that's 365 days away but it's never too early to start planning :)