Mama and Baby Duckie Cake

          So I am helping throw my best friend a baby shower this weekend. Congrats Aubrey! She is having a little girl and I am so excited! Once the baby comes, Aubrey will be staying at home with her, meaning we will be able to get together and hang out more often. Yay! And our girls will grow up to be best friends. The end. ANYhoo, I decided that I wanted to try and make her a super cute cake for her shower. The theme is mama and baby farm animals, so I thought a mama and baby duckie cake would fit the bill. I still consider myself quite an amateur when it comes to cake decorating, but I'll just keep practicing! I have learned that having any type of hobby that may require a little time or concentration is pretty much pointless when you have three little kids running around. I had to stop making this cake literally every ten minutes or so to deal with "Mom, my pee sprayed out of the toilet," or "Rosalie is calling someone on your phone Mom," or "I'm starving, can I have another snack even though I've already had a bajillion today?" Ok, so I might have exaggerated that last one a bit. Not by much though. Anyway, long story short, I believe it is an amazing feat that I finished this cake at all. Whew. Anyway, moving on . . . So, this is a 9x13 double-layered cake. I crumb-coated the entire cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and then tinted some blue to frost a layer for the water and tinted some green to make the grass. The "flowers" on the grass are daisy sprinkles. I just couldn't make Aubrey a baby shower cake without representing some baby girl colors--hence the purple and pink star piping around the sides of the cake. In case you're wondering--and you probably are-- the ducks are made from mini brownie bites that I rolled into balls and covered in white melting chocolate. The feet and wings of the baby ducks are daisy sprinkles, their eyes I drew on with an edible black marker, and I piped on their orange beaks. The mama duck has a piped-on orange beak as well, but I also piped on her feet because I think using the daisy sprinkles like I did for the babies would have looked too small to scale. Maybe not. I don't know. Too late now. For the mama duck's wings, I cut two mini marshmallows into triangle shapes and adhered them with a dab of white melting chocolate. So that's mostly the breakdown! I really hope I can drive this cake to the baby shower on Saturday without it getting destroyed on the drive! Wish me luck!