When my little niece Bella’s 2nd birthday started to approach, I offered to make her birthday cake. My sister would typically buy birthday cakes or stick with cupcakes and I wanted to do something special for my niece. When I found out that her theme was frogs I was immediately excited and looked over Wilton.com for some frog cake ideas.

While I do love the 3-D cakes, I knew I would be doing a 3-D dinosaur for my son’s 3rd birthday was just a week after her party.  I decided to stick with a 2-d cake to avoid over doing it and because frankly, I thought the Leap Frog Cake ^[1], shown first above, was the sweetest looking of them all. Perfect for a two year old!  I laugh now because this cake was just as time consuming as the 3-D dinosaur cake I made for my Warren.

The results were so worth it!

While this cake isn’t extremely difficult, it does have the extra step of creating a sugar cookie face, which I did two days before the party. This is made easier by the printable frog face pattern included at wilton.com. I stuck with the recommended roll out cookie dough recipe ^[2] and it worked like a charm. After rolling out the dough simply use a sharp knife and printable pattern to trace the outline of the cookie. You can place the pattern directly on the dough as I did or use a toothpick to outline first.

Normally I would say with a cookie as large as this it would be easier to do the cutout directly on the cookie sheet to avoid moving it at all. I wasn’t willing however to risk cutting marks in my Wilton cookie sheets so I was forced to transfer it. What worked best for me was using a cake lifter to give it more support with one hand and a large cookie spatula with the other. You will definitely want to make at least a few faces to be on the safe side.  Because the cookie does expand as you bake it, I recommend not putting more than one frog face on a single sheet to give it plenty of room. I used these Wilton bug metal cookie cutters ^[3] I had on hand that worked well with the frog theme. The ladybug cutter worked perfectly to create turtles.

I also used my small fondant circle cutter to create circles as toppers for our cupcakes. This cutter is a quick and easy way to use the excess dough without having to roll the dough out numerous times.

The day before the party I covered every nook and cranny of the butterfly cake pan with Wilton cake release ^[4] using a silicone pastry brush before pouring a single prepared cake mix into the pan.
After it was finished baking and it had a chance to cool a bit (about 10-15 minutes), I leveled off the top so the cake would sit flat on the cake board.

By using the cake release, when I flipped the cake over onto a wire rack it came out so easily. The butterfly itself is just beautiful!

For decorating projects like these I like to use Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Decorator Icing ^[5]. Before you rake me over the coals for not making a homemade icing, I do this because not only does my family really like the taste, it is one less thing for me to have to make and I can concentrate on the decorating. The bonus is I don’t have to worry getting just the right consistency.
After getting my work area ready with filled decorating bags and proper tips, I followed the Wilton decorating instructions for this cake. I outlined cookie and facial features with tip 3 before pipe in whites of eyes, pupils with white and black icing the and nose with tip 3 (smooth with finger dipped in cornstarch) using my darker green color. I then outlined his mouth with tip 3 in black and outlined and piped in nostrils with tip 3 with dark green.
I then covered my cookie with tip 16 stars in the lighter green.
And before I knew it, I had a frog cookie face, just begging me for a body!
To start the cake, ice sides of cake smooth with blue icing. This took a bit longer than I expected simply because of all the curves found in the butterfly shape. 

I then outline frog’s body with tip 3 in dark green before I covered his  body with tip 16 stars.  Be sure to create some spots for your frog by outlining in dark green with a tip 3 and filling in with dark green tip 16 stars. I added some leftover white icing to the back of the frog cookie head and attached him to the top of the cake. ^[6]Overpipe legs with tip 3 and cover with tip 16 stars to build up.  Use the 233 grass tip to add pull-out grass bottom border. I had fun pulling mine in every which way to create a natural grass look. This was one of my favorite parts of the project!
Before I knew it, I had finished and had to take a step back. I’m still a little amazed that I pulled off this cake given I was forced to ignore the butterfly on the cake and draw in the frog myself. It was actually a lot easier than I thought but it did take some time and patience!
In the end, it was all worth it because I created this fun cake table for my darling little niece who couldn’t have been more thrilled!

To see more, including how I created the mini cupcakes with sugar cookie tops and the happy birthday girl, see my post on Baby Loving Mama ^[7].

Be sure to enter to win this Wilton Leap Frog Cake prize package ^[8] which includes everything you need to make this frog cake yourself! Giveaway ends 4/5/11.