I made these baby full moon cupcakes for a full moon party celebration. It is customary among the Chinese community to celebrate full moon after a full month of confinement for the mother and 30 days of life of the new child. It is a way of presenting the new born to family and friends and to celebrate the arrival of a new child in the family.
Traditionally, as I was told by my Chinese friends, there were no cakes or cupcakes involved in the celebration, but just red eggs and ginger. With the passing of time, cakes and cakes were brought in and so I was asked by a customer to make a set of baby themed cupcakes to be presented to guests who come for the party.
Baby Full Moon Cupcakes Decorating Idea
She did not specify any design or color for the cupcakes, but since the celebration was for a baby girl, I decided on choosing pink and purple as the main colors and accented them with green and brown background. As for the design, I decided on 4 different designs along similar color theme – a stroller, baby bottle, infant bodysuit and rocking horse.
My customer, did however, request for 2 special cupcakes with her daughter’s name and date of birth on them and so I have these 2 made for her:
All in all, this was not a very complicated project since I had special cutters for the stroller, baby bottle, onesie and rocking horse. All I did was add some deco on these to customize them and the cupcakes were ready.
Baby Full Moon Cupcakes Decorating Idea
These were the main supplies I used to decorate these cupcakes:
- Cupcakes – The cupcakes were a combination of vanilla and chocolate ones. I used my butter pound cake recipe for the vanilla cupcakes and chocolate cake recipe for the chocolate cupcakes.
- Buttercream – I covered all the cupcakes with a thin layer of buttercream before putting on the fondant covers.
- Fondant – I used homemade fondant for this project. Get the recipe here.
- Wilton food color in pink , red , moss green and Americolor White .
- Fine tipped cake decorating brush
- Baby themed cookie cutters
- Heart plunger cutter
- Triangle plunger cutter
- Alphabet and number imprint mold from Purple Cupcakes (https://www.purplecupcakes.co.uk/)
- Plain round cutter set
- Round scalloped cutter set
- Fondant glue
And this was how I put the cupcakes together:
Once the cupcakes were all baked and have cooled down, I leveled the tops and applied a layer of buttercream on each cupcake. And then I set them aside to prepare the fondant covering.
To start with, I covered all the cupcakes with green and brown fondant. Half of the cupcake were covered in green fondant cut out into circles using a plain round cutter. The remaining half were cut with the same cutter but in brown fondant. I attached these to the top of the buttercream covered cupcakes. Next, using the same fondant colors, but this time with a smaller scalloped round cutter, I cut out scalloped circles. I attached these to the plain round cut outs in contrasting colors. The green ones went on top of the brown and vice versa. I used fondant glue to attach the cut outs together. Once all were done, I divided each set into 4 – for the 4 different designs on the cupcakes. That means that for each of the designs, half had green background topped with brown scalloped cut outs and the other half were brown background topped with green scalloped cut outs.
Design 1 – Infant Bodysuit
The first of the 4 sets of cupcakes were decorated with baby bodysuits. I used a bodysuit cookie cutter I had to cut out equal numbers of pink and purple suits. I attached each one of the fondant bodysuit to one cupcake. And then, using my fine tipped cake decorating brush dipped in white food colouring (undiluted), I drew the hem lines at the neck, sleeves, and legs. And then, using the same brush and white food color, I marked polka dots all over. To complete the bodysuits, I cut out a medium sized red fondant heart and attached it in the centre.
Design 2 – Baby Stroller
This is the second of the 4 baby full moon cupcakes design. Similar to the bodysuits, the fondant strollers were cut using a cookie cutter in pink and purple. Unlike the bodysuit cutter, this stroller cutter had lines, scallops and stars patterns on that were beautifully imprinted onto the fondant strollers cutouts. All I had to do was paint the frills in white (with my cake decorating brush dipped in undiluted white food color) and attach a cute little red heart cut out in the center. To finish off the strollers, I marked tiny polka dots on the border of the fondant cupcake covering.
Design 3 – Rocking Horse
This pretty design is the 3rd of the 4 baby full moon cupcakes design of this project. And similar to the fondant baby stroller above, the cutter had lines and dots that were imprinted onto the fondant cut outs so all I did was paint the saddle and the rocker white and added tiny polka dots in the background. To finish off the design, using the same red fondant I used to cut out the tiny fondant hearts for design 1 and 2 above, I cut out tiny 5-petal flowers and attached them to the rocking horses’ head.
Design 4 – Baby Bottle
This was the last of the 4 designs and was also cut with a cookie cutter that came with lines that were imprinted on the fondant cut outs to enhance the design. Again, all I did was paint the teats white and added polka dots to the top part of the bottle. And then I added the same polka dots to the edges of the fondant covers on the cupcakes. To finish off the design, I added a tiny red 5-petal flower to each of the fondant bottle.
Next were the 2 special cupcakes requested by my customer with the baby’s name and date. of birth.
I used pink and brown predominantly on the cupcakes and green and red as accents. To start with, I cut out 2 brown fondant circles using my plain round cutter. I attached these onto the cupcakes. I then topped these with slightly smaller pink scalloped cut outs. Before attaching the pink circles onto the brown ones, I imprinted the name and date of birth on them using a set of alphabet and number imprinting tool I purchased from Purple Cupcakes store. The fonts were small enough to fit perfectly onto my fondant cut outs. I then placed the pink circle cut outs onto the cupcakes.
For decoration, I made 4 ribbon roses using red fondant and attached 2 on each cupcake. And then I added green leaves that were cut using my triangle plunger cutter to the roses. I also added tiny red fondant hearts before completing the cupcakes with a circle of tiny white polka dots all around the background.
With that, the baby full moon cupcakes were completed. I packed the cupcakes into boxes based on design and had special transparent boxes for the 2 special cupcakes.
And that’s that. Hope you enjoyed this.
Happy decorating 🙂
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