Nail Polish Bottle Cake(with Buttercream Icing)

What a cake this was.. I searched high and low for  a cake design that I needed to make for my niece who turned 9 years this October. I found few ideas that were adorable and do-able in short time, the cake needed to be transported around 40 miles from my place, so it needed to be sturdy and one that could take the humidity on that particular day. The day started with few rumbles and then rain and then suddenly it all stopped. I was hopeful that may be it would clear up and we will have a typical NJ fall weather, I really needed some cold air that day...the icing was butter cream but different recipe than Wilton, which I would have preferred, but the Wilton icing is way too sweet, so I have no options but to twist the icing recipe and make my own, my kids dislike fondant and I was warned to use that only for decoration and not on the cake by my son who loves cake , but only homemade and no Wilton  buttercream icing for him.

I had to choose the design from three options,
a. Sleepover party cake
b. nail polish bottle cake
c. Mermaid cake
at 9 yrs, I thought options a. and b. made more sense than c., so I sought help from my most trusted blogger buddies and unanimously they pointed towards the Nail Polish Bottle cake, but the designs I found on the net were very tricky for my specifications and all of those were made from fondant, so I went back to my childhood memories and then remembered my Moms had  a similar nail polish bottle when I was a little girl. I get my infatuation for painting my toe nails from my Mom. Only difference is that she paints her toes with top coat, and I paint mine with nice loud colours like chocolate, wine, berry and sometimes French, if I have the time to pamper myself.

My niece as her name on the cake Sejal is crazy about nail polish. The story goes a long way back when she was less than 2 years and almost all of our playdates ended with me painting her toe nails. Even now when she visits me, I paint her nails and she likes those stickers as well on her nails. I shop for her and anytime I find nail stickers which I feel she will love, I pick them up only for her. Lucky for me, her mom is pretty cool about our relationship and admires my work of art however shabby it may be and encourages me to do so more. Love K for that. So after this ongoing thing between us, I could not think of doing any other cake design for my lovely niece, than a Nail polish Bottle cake. She is so much like I was when I was her age, except that I was not techno smart.

Every nail polish bottle has to have a label and  a logo, she is the girl of today, so I made that from Fondant and she kept that as  a Souvenir of the cake. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the cake and the roses on the logo. She made me proud and my efforts a success by writing a "Thank You" email from her own email address, with her mom's help.
 The cake was a Vanila Buttermilk Cake and The icing was Buttercream.

Buttercream icing
1 stick butter
2 cups confectioner sugar
1 tbspn vanilla
milk as needed to make it spreadable

use room temperature butter and whip it well with little sugar at a time. add milk as needed if the butter+sugar gets lumpy. add vanilla and whip for 3-5 mins till the icing is spreadable and all butter and sugar is well Incorporated.

I sincerely hope that you all like my cake design and all the thought process that goes in making such cakes.

Love Ash.