In a month I'm doing a baby shower cake for my boyfriend's sister. The gender of the baby is unknown, so the cake is going to be gender neutral.


The cake will either be 12x18 or 11x15 (most likely 11x15).

At this point I don't know if they want any writing on the cake or not (I still have to find this out), but so far what I'm planning is the upper left corner of the cake, I was going to baby blocks using this mold:
http://www.globalsugarart.com/product.php?id=25263&name=Baby%20Blocks%20by%20First%20Impressions

I was going to kind of curve them a little bit.

Then a little bit in front I would going to this baby mold:
http://www.globalsugarart.com/product.php?id=22031&name=Small%20Baby%201%20Mold%20by%20First%20Impressions


So, with that in the upper left corner, I have a lot of space to fill. If there's writing, then that will take some space in the center portion.

I don't know if that'd be enough or if the cake would still look too blank?

I don't want to make the cake too busy or too crazy. My skills aren't the best, so I'd rather it be more simple and nice rather than trying to do so much that it just ends up looking bad.


Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I could do to the cake?
With writing?
Without writing?


I'm really excited about doing this cake, and I really don't want to screw up (not that I ever do, but especially for this one). I just don't want to take a cake that's too busy (and one that possibly looks bad if something is outside my abilities, but for some reason I still decide to try it) or a cake that's too blank.

Do they want a sheet cake? Not my favorite to make. Perhaps a square cake that feeds the same amount of people may be easier to decorate.
Just a thought.
How about making the top of the cake look like a nursery. Make a cradle or crib out of gumpaste to put the baby in, a little "rug" on the floor with a "stuffed" animal sitting outside of cradle.
You can do a search for "Baby shower cakes"...you'll get lots of ideas there.

I did a gender neutral Baby shower cake.. I took the pic from the invite and added that...
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1994094
Do you have an invite you can take any ideas from?

I agree. I like to use the invitation for inspiration. Once I used the baby quilt and took colors, figures and flowers from that.

How about doing the sheet cake in a quilted pattern with squares of different pastel colors using either fondant or buttercream (whichever you are planning on using)? That way it would have a design and not look blank without having to make other figures to put on the top. And you can still write over the quilted design if they decide they do want writing on it. Something like this:

http://classyconfectionsinsc.blogspot.com/2010/04/baby-quilt-cake.html

You could also fill it in some by doing multiple borders. Start with a bolder border around the outside then move in a little and put a slightly smaller border etc. Three rows would look nice. You could use all the same color or different colors based on the color theme for the shower. Then inside that you could put your blocks and baby and you wouldn't have so much left over space. Turn your cake pan upside down and try different patterns until you find one you like. Also, there are lots of cute little plastic accessories like rattles or pacifiers in the cake section, that you could place at the corners to add something, if you wanted to. Just a couple of ideas that would be eary to do.