I think it’s rather apropos to feature a phoenix (the bird, not the city) cake on the weekend of the opening of the final Harry Potter movie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  You know since Dumbledore had a phoenix…..  You know…..Fawkes……  You know what…. I’m kind of a dork!  Oh well, I’m ok with that!  🙂

My dear friend Erica has a beautiful, quirky daughter named Emma.  Emma has been sketching and dreaming about her birthday cake since I made her brother a Mini Cooper cake for his 7th birthday back in January.  That’s 7 months, people!  And when you’re turning 11, that’s almost an eternity to wait for your very own custom birthday cake.

Originally, the cake was supposed to be for both Emma and her brother Avery since their birthdays are so close together.  But Emma sweet talked (or threatened, I’m not sure which) her brother into letting her have creative license with the cake.  Have I mentioned how much I love Emma?!  I’d totally steal her if her parents would let me!  So she wanted either a dragon cake or a phoenix cake.  She and her mom perused Google and found a picture of a cake that they liked, and I tweaked it to make it my own. 🙂   Not to toot my own horn, but the resulting cake came out even better than I’d envisioned it!  I love it when that happens.  😀

Emma enjoyed her brother’s triple chocolate cake so much, that she wanted that flavor, too!  So she got a triple chocolate birthday cake with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant.  The phoenix is made of gumpaste and the feathers and plumage are made of fondant.

Phoenix birthday cake!

Back view of the phoenix's feathers

Close up view of the phoenix