Because he LOVES puppies….

and he just turned one!  This is a cute, relatively easy cake to make for the puppy lovers in your life!  I can’t take any  credit for the cute design…I found a photo of it on Cake Central and copied it as best I could.  If you’d like to try to make a similar cake, here’s how I did it:

First, I began with three layers of cake instead of the traditional two.  I’ve lost my cake leveler so the cake wasn’t as high as it really needed to be, which leads to my first tip in this tutorial:  Buy a cake leveler. And if yours is missing, buy a new one.  You’re welcome.  (You’ll also need one six inch round.)

Tip #2:  After assembling and icing the cake, stick it the freezer for 20 or 30 minutes. This will make carving it much easier.

After the cake is chilled, remove it from the freezer and carve away a bit of the cake from the top to give the cake a slightly more rounded look.  Ice it again to cover the part you’ve carved then cover it with fondant.

Depending on the height of the cake, you might cut away part of your six inch round.  (I probably cut a fourth of it off to get the height I wanted for the face but would have preferred to use the whole round…go back to the cake leveler tip for why I didn’t.)  Ice and cover what’s left.  Tip:  Stand it on the flat end and cover front and back.

When both cakes are covered arrange the six inch in front of the larger cake, like so:

Now, form paws with white fondant, using toothpick to create the indentions for toes and then decorate with black, white, light copper and red fondant.  I just formed “spots” with black fondant, a tongue with red and the cheeks with a light copper.  Then I used an icing tip to make the marks on the cheeks.  Feel free to use a cake board that’s too small, as I did, but I would suggest going with one a little larger.  I just used what I had on hand…

I’d love to see some of your birthday cake creations!  Post a link in the comments!