Gymbo the Clown

Some people really hate clowns - mainly because they can really look creepy or because of the scare factor associated with a certain murderous character in a movie... but I find it hard to not fall in love with this cute little Gymbo the Clown character. Gymbo is a cute fun-colored clown used at Gymboree play centers which was the perfect setting for my friend's son's very first birthday party.

Her only requests were that the cake matched the party's Gymbo theme and that the Birthday greeting be written in Albanian.

I couldn't find a very clear image of Gymbo on the internet (he's not yet a celebrity) so I printed out the best one I could find and used it as a template to cut out the fondant pieces. It was tricky yet fun putting the pieces together like a puzzle.

I made coordinating polka dots to put around the sides of the cake and a matching rolled fondant border. My friend ordered super cute sugar cookies from the Sugar Bakery which looked awesome displayed with the cake!

I cut the birthday greeting from fondant with my Cricut Cake machine in advance... when I went to assemble the letters I was missing an "n" (even though I checked the spelling 100 times). I scrambled to cut another one free-hand and I bet you can't even tell which "n" was cut by me!

The cake was a 12" double layer chocolate Devil's Food cake with milk chocolate filling covered in vanilla icing and topped with rolled Satin Ice fondant.