My coworkers and I threw a baby shower this week for our dear friend Kim. She and her husband Dan have a little boy on the way. No offense to all the men out there, but boy baby showers are a lot harder to plan than little girl showers where all you need are different shades of pink, some polka dots, cute girly baby outfits, eww’s & aww’s, cupcakes, and you’re set.Mary, my coworker, came up with the theme for the shower— The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and it turned out excellent! Cupcakes still made their appearance at the shower, there were  plenty of cute little boy outfits, and an abundance of eww’s & aww’s!

The idea for the cupcakes came from Coco Cake. It is a lot easier than it looks. In order to create this, make cupcakes (we had 48 total). It has become a staple in my kitchen to use Cake Love‘s recipes for the chocolate cupcakes (LaTonya, another coworker, brought in the vanilla cupcakes). To decorate the cupcakes, I use the Wilton Dessert Decorator Pro—it makes icing cupcakes super easy. Drop different shades of green in the dispenser to add some variation in color as you ice. I made a cream cheese buttercream (cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, a dash of salt, and food coloring). After icing, use brown long sprinkles along the outer edge of the cupcakes for his hair. Now, onto the head. It does get a little trickier here. You can buy fondant and color it. Or, you can make it. Can you guess what I did? I had to try it myself, of course, allowing a little too much room for disaster to occur the night before the shower. Thankfully, it worked. To make the fondant, get a jar of marshmallow fluff (7-8 oz.) and add lots and lots, I mean lots, of powdered sugar. The recipe I used called for 2 cups of powdered sugar, but that had to be a lie. I used at least double. You need to get all the sticky out of the fluff so that you can roll it out smoothly without it sticking to your surface.After you have a good consistency, add in your food coloring. When rolling the fondant out, don’t be afraid to dowse your surface with powdered sugar. You can brush it off afterward, or, if you let it sit overnight, it will soak in. Decorate your head as you please, and voila, you now have a Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake!

Photos taken by Craig Taylor, a coworker of mine.