Baseballs or Bows - Cake and Cookies

This was a pretty simple cake to put together.  It is a Baseballs or Bows theme for a gender reveal party.  I think it is going to be a girl, just because I loved how the pink bow cookies came out.

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The pink bow on top of the cake was made from gum paste, and I made the topper using my Cricut Air Explorer.  The topper was made using black and white cardstock and glitter cardstock in gold, pink and blue.  At 10.5 inches in width, the finished topper was a little large for the 12" cake, but I didn't "hate" it enough to make a smaller one.  

I used my Creality Ender 3 v2 3D printer to make a gum paste cutter for the baseball bat and for the question marks on the side of the cake.    If you want to read an intro into 3D printers for cookie cutters you can read my post HERE.  I also used the 3D printer to make the plaque on the front of the cake.  I made an embosser and a debosser version to test both methods.  One pushes the text into the base fondant, and the other has the text raised above the base fondant.

I tried it both ways and the raised text seemed a little easier and less messy to paint.

I painted the text with a mixture of petal dust and Everclear liquor.

I used the same design on the cookies and the plaque cutter, and used a Mini Portable PICO projector to shine the text onto the cookie for piping the letters. 

Here is the cookie set.  Pink bows, baseballs with blue stitching, and the plaque with the caption "Baseballs or Bows".

And here is a picture of just the bows.  I LOVE those little bows.  The are just too cute.  Here is a link to Lilaloa's website showing the decorating steps.

The only problem with the cookie design is that the narrow spot (where the four parts join together) is very weak.  I had two cookies break in that area.  If you picked the cookie up at the tails instead of the loops, it just cracked in half.  Oh the horror.  But I glued the pieces back together with some melted white chocolate. 

To keep the bow cookies from snapping during transport and party setup, I added a piece of cardboard under the cookie.  I hope this keeps them from breaking in half.

So another cake and cookie combo completed.  But I have to say that the more cookie I do, the less I like doing them.  They are a PITB, and so time consuming.  Cakes are so much easier.

Happy Decorating,

Carol