two are due! beach-themed twin baby shower cake

My friend Susan's younger sister and her husband recently became parents to beautiful twin girls. The proud dad - clearly a golf enthusiast - sent out a very cute email announcement with all their stats listed in golf lingo. Before they arrived, Susan hosted a beach-inspired baby shower with all sorts of great plays on the twin theme... Doublemint and Double Bubble gum (did you know you could still find those?), two-packs of Walker shortbread cookies (a tie in with their last name)... and she asked me to bake the cake. She asked for twins, surfer, beachy, and bright colors (not too girly-girl). I figured surfboards, palm trees, sand and sea would do the trick.

"Two are due!" was Susan's inspiration, and I thought it worked perfectly. Since there was nowhere obvious to write on the cake, I made a removable fondant banner held up by lollipop sticks on either end.

The palm trees are fondant wrapped around a drinking straw, anchored by a lollipop stick. I didn't realize super-long lollipop sticks existed, so the straws gave me the height I needed. However, they were not strong enough to support the weight of the fondant, and since they were wider than the sticks, the trees rattled around. This made driving across town more than a little nerve-wracking, since the palm fronds were balanced (and glued) on pretty precariously.

I LOVED how the surfboards came out. The colors were exactly the bright contrast I had envisioned, and I liked the simplicity of the striped design. And the sand? Graham cracker crumbs! I have also seen brown sugar used, but I thought that would be less pleasant to eat. The crumbs held together like slightly damp sand, which was perfect.

This was my favorite fishy. Something about the shape of his tail (insert joke here). Oh, and I made some molded chocolate and white chocolate shells for an extra touch. I realize they are pretty disproportionate to the size of the fish, but the whole cake is hardly to scale!

I used a star tip and piped the frosting in concentric waves, filling in all the gaps and then starting new swirls. I figured it would give the cake some ocean-like motion.

Wise girls, they are chocolate fans. So I called on Martha again for her one-bowl chocolate wonder cake, and I used my usual vanilla buttercream recipe. Twinfully, sinfully delicious! Congratulations, Susan, on your new nieces, and biggest and best wishes to the brand new mom and dad!

Print chocolate cake recipe.
Print vanilla frosting recipe.