The Birds-in-a-Nest Cake {Tutorial}

Daughter A. loves birds. I teased her for at least a week that I was going to put a big ugly grackle on her cake. Unbeknownst to me, she wasn’t sure that I was kidding. So, at the last minute, she changed her cake to a baby bird cake, just to be safe. Normally, I don’t allow cake changing so near the Big Day, but in this case, she was changing from a harder cake to an easier cake, so I ever so graciously made an exception.

This was a three layer butter cake. Yes, from a box. {Sorry, Hayley. I really wanted to make one from scratch but I never had time to try out the recipe!}

For fill, I simply used buttercream frosting. I often do this if I don’t have something along the lines of raspberry jam on hand. I took a few scoops of buttercream–enough to frost the top of the cake–and added a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder and a little milk, which made for a nice, light-chocolatey top. Since I mixed this up by hand, it sort of looked like dirt. Being that I am not a perfectionist, I didn’t care.

If you care, then mix your frosting with a mixer.

I did a quick crumb coat of plain white buttercream, and then popped the cake in the fridge for a while to harden up. Meanwhile, I tinted all of the remaining frosting a pale blue color. The frosting turned out really bright in the photos, but it was quite a bit more subtle than this.

This is a very easy cake. It’s inspired by Martha Stewart’s Nesting Baby-Bluebird Cupcakes {and a variation of it that I now cannot find my link to}, all the way down to the toasted shredded coconut! The main difference was that I put it on a full-sized cake and therefore added a couple more birdies to the nest. The beaks here are cut from berry fruit leather.

So, to go on with the tutorial, I frosted the sides, being careful not to actually touch the chocolate layer on top. I popped the coconut, which was spread out on a cookie sheet, into the oven to toast. Next, I added the border around the bottom using my largest round tip. When the coconut was nice and brown, I shaped it into a nest, and used the same round tip to make the baby birdies. After that, I piped on the top border.

I slipped the beaks onto the birdies, and then melted the chocolate for the eyes, a la Martha Stewart. Sigh. I was once again reminded of how poorly I work with chocolate. The eyes came out looking like tiny chocolate chips instead of nice round beady things. Oh well. A-Age-Eight was delighted nonetheless.

And that’s it. I liked the cupcakes idea, but frankly, I really wasn’t up for making two or three dozen bird nests. This simple cake was much more my style.