Hi all, I am totally new to this forum, but am planning my baby girl's 1st birthday party for a month from now. We are doing a Clifford the Big Red Dog theme. I made some very novice cakes years ago but am going to have to rely on a bakery for this one. But, I need some advice for what to ask for. We will ask for a cupcake as her smash cake, so I am trying to piece together my ideas for the main cake (the photogenic one )
I have done a lot of research online and there seem to be very few figurine cake toppers for Clifford and only one or so edible cake pieces, none of which I really like. I'm reluctant to have the bakery draw Clifford on the cake (I think you'd have to be really good) but am not sure how hard something like a fondant Clifford or chocolate transfer Clifford would be for a bakery to do? I was thinking of a cake like the one below, same color scheme, and maybe add some fondant paw prints. My biggest uncertainty is how to have them do Clifford! Thanks for any help!!

I would think that most bakeries can do transfers. If you give them an image they scan it in and print it on an edible transfer. I think if you find a picture you like, they should be able to print it. I like the idea of paw prints around the sides.

So, why rely on a bakery? Why don't you find a local home based cake business that can show you examples of their work and you can feel confident right from the beginning? You haven't mentioned where you are from in your ID, but maybe if you let everyone on the site know, you could find someone here with amazing talent to do your cake for you. Just a thought!

I would love to find a home based bakery- I haven't had a whole lot of luck on my websearch. Anyhow, I am in the Denver area. Thanks!

Some bakeries MAY print any edible image that you want, but most that are abiding by copyright laws, will not. The picture of the cake above looks to me like an edible image that some bakeries may have if there has already been one made by cake supply companies (like the ones you are seeing online).

I would think an edible image is going to look better (and be WAY cheaper) than trying to get a bakery to make a clifford out of fondant (which would, in fact, be a problem b/c of copyright).

Here is just one site with an image of clifford that you can buy.
http://thepartyworks.com/index.php/cPath/3_10/sort/products_sort_order/page/2

In my past experiences with grocery-store bakeries, they won't do anything freehand like Clifford, or much else for that matter, anymore. They'll hand you a book of options and you pretty much have to go with what's inside.

unless you are going to do the cake yourself, you will have to go with a licensed image. The bakery can't just scan a picture of the clifford and put in on the cake for you, cause as was said thats illegal, and no legal bakery should be risking thier business, for a $20 cake.

Now i'll just get down off my soap box,

Good luck to you finding something you like.

We did a clifford b-day party for my niece's 2nd b-day....at the time I wasnt decorating, so it was store bought, but I thought it came out pretty cute (no pics of it cause we were not digital then). My sister just used the image they had and asked for a different border than the book used.

No problem lovemyparrots! I say you just buy yourself a licensed edible image and go for it yourself!!!! YOU CAN DO IT!

What about going to the Toy department at your local store and picking out a clifford toy yourself? You can then have the bakery make a cake with a Dog theme (in clifford colors of course) then Add clifford yourself.

HTH

Leily

Clifford was my son's favorite also, so I made him (two) Clifford cakes using bath toys that I found at Toys R Us. They were really simple and he loved them - and I had no idea how to decorate (this was before taking cake classes). Good luck - let us know what you do!

I personally think edible images taste funny but kids don't seem to mind. I would bake a simple cake and buy the edible image yourself and put it on there. Or the small toy idea posted. You can usually find small figure sets cheap at the toy store.

Any grocery store type bakery won't do anything that isn't in the book, not only from lack of time but copyright issues. They don't do fondant or transfer type work. As for regular bakeries, they may do fondant or something different but with copyright stuff they can't do clifford.