I am completely drawing a blank. My bff's daughter is turning 1 on Saturday and I have complete liberty over cake design. She picked the flavor combo. So I should really start baking tonight, but I don't have any idea what I want to do, so I'm sorta stuck. There will just be 4 adults and the baby, who will have her own smash cake. Mother is a cancer survivor and very particular about artificial coloring and flavoring, so my initial desire to do a panda cake is out (no black). I could get a little color in there on the borders or something so that it can be picked off. I just don't want food coloring in the majority of the cake. Baby's smash cake will just be banana cake with white whipped cream frosting.

Parents want to try my "Elvis" cake, which is peanut butter and banana. I could just do a simple round cake with chocolate ganache and no theme, but there's not much decorating to that, which is kind of the fun part. I suppose I could just carve a 1...? A little boring, but at least more interesting than an 8" round. Any other ideas?

Would it be too odd if you did your panda idea but instead of using black you used chocolate? If you did a fairly dark chocolate you might come close enough to black that it could be really cute.

I know its over done on this site, but what about the rose cake everyone is making these days from the 'I am baker' blog? Simple, cute, easy. Or this last weekend I made a smash cake with a piece of fondant on top and a pirate design. The parents only wanted the fondant on the top of the cake so they could peel it off before giving it to their one year old. Maybe something like that? What about maybe royal icing flowers or silk flowers? It adds color, but can easily be taken off... I am just trying to think of something that can be removed before service...

oh oh! what about using blueberries to get a purple blue coloring? its natural!

Since it's a b-day for a girl, you can naturally color icing pink in a variety of ways using beet juice, or pureed berries...maybe do a cake with a simple ruffle-y design or flowers....but if you want panda's I agree with the poster above...chocolate ganache is practically black AND DELICIOUS

You can find natural based food coloring in the natural/organic stores if you have any near you... They are all plant based. I agree with the other posters and also incorporate chocolate. Maybe even natural candy too?

How does mom feel about colored fondant accents? Maybe you can do fondant accents that can be peeled off before eating?

I always did my panda using chocolate. We did this cake years ago, and the camera wasn't the greatest, but from these two views you can see what it looks like using chocolate frosting. The only color that was added was to do the bottom of the feet and the mouth. And I'm sure you could adapt something natural to get the color for that small amount of color
http://s314.photobucket.com/albums/ll426/ShelbyLynnCakes/?action=view¤t=2.jpg#!oZZ438QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs314.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fll426%2FShelbyLynnCakes%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3D1.jpg
http://s314.photobucket.com/albums/ll426/ShelbyLynnCakes/?action=view¤t=2.jpg#!oZZ437QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs314.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fll426%2FShelbyLynnCakes%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3D2.jpg

you could do a strawberry puree buttercream. kind of a strawberry-banana type thing going. then you could do like the above poster said with the ruffles. would be really cute and simple. maybe do the panda on top with chocolate and white.

Doh! Why didn't I think of using dark chocolate ganache for the panda! That's what I shall do.

Thanks for pointing me to the rose cake. I'd never seen that.