In today’s video, you will learn to make the CUTEST baby shower/young birthday cake topper-Converse-style Baby Shoes!
This gum paste cake topper is much easier than you would think to put together, and the design options are endless! Just think of the great patterns, colors, and cut-outs that you can experiment with!
Our cake in this tutorial is covered with fondant buttons, and accented with a sweet frog! I’ll demonstrate how I made these also. I hope that you enjoy this simple, fun, yet impressive design.
Materials
We used 2 fat (2 inch) White Almond Sour Cream cake layers (Cake was approx 4″ tall.) This is an 8″ cake.
Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream- For filling & frosting beneath fondant as well as button “thread”. (Royal icing could also be used for thread.)
White Fondant (your preferred recipe/brand) I used Satin Ice brand to cover my cake.
Gum Paste-If you do not have gum paste, knead tylose powder into fondant. (I don’t recommend Duff’s or Fondarific brand for this baby shoe project…too soft, even with tylose.) I use Satin Ice gum paste.
Colors: Whatever shade/brand you like–but I used: Americolor Leaf Green, Pre-colored Satin Ice Red (but Super Red coloring/white fondant would work too!),
Piping Tips- Wilton 3 (or any small round) for piping thread, and for creating holes in buttons, etc., Wilton 2D (optional) for cutting large fondant buttons
Stitching Wheel- I used Wilton’s, but there are others. You could also create stitch impressions by hand with a toothpick, scriber needle, etc.
FMM Multi Ribbon Cutter- I used this to cut even strips of fondant, especially helpful for the long strip around the base of the shoe. (You could also do this by hand with a ruler.)
Tylose Glue/”Sugar Glue” – (or your glue of choice.) –This glue is made by combining 2 Tablespoon water with ¼ teaspoon tylose
Floral wire for frog’s tongue (optional). I used 20 gauge but it was a little hard to bend. 24 or 26 would have been easier.
Vodka or Lemon Extract (flavoring)- optional. I used this to create a “paint” for my frog.
Americolor Black Food Coloring pen (or any brand)– optional. I used to outline my frog.
Miscellaneous: X-acto knife/sharp knife, rolling pin, vegetable shortening (optional) for preventing sticking, pedestal or cake cardboards for your cake
**TEMPLATES: Click for BABY TENNIS SHOE template & FROG template
A Few Notes
Allow at least a few days for your gum paste shoe to dry, to be on the safe side. I dried my sole cut-outs 24 hours before starting. (Making several soles at a time for later use would be a great idea.) – My shoes were firm enough to pick up and use after 24 hours, but I used straight gum paste and there was little humidity to deal with. You may need longer than I did.
Look up baby tennis shoes or baby Converse shoes online for more design ideas!
I didn’t mention this, but to be on the safe side, secure your shoes to your fondant covered cakes with a small amount of dampened fondant, gum paste, or royal icing. If attaching to a buttercream cake, apply just before the event to be on the safe side, and attach to crusted buttercream with a little bit of fresh buttercream as your “glue”.
Measurements that you may have missed as I assembled my shoe:
— The white gum paste band around the bottom of the shoe– ½ inch wide, approx. 10 inches long.
— My shoelaces were approximately ¼ inch wide. Each loop for the bow was formed from a strip approx 1 ¾ inches long.
Please let me know if you have any questions!
Did you know that we have another great video tutorial on CUTE baby shoes? Find it here!: Sweet Gum Paste Baby Shoes
I’m going to try this one out since it’s so cute! Great Job Melissa!
I love all of your cakes, but this is one of the best. Love the contrast of the green and red on white and, as you said, the simplicity!
Super cute!! Can’t wait to try this out :)
With your fluffy buttercream did you hi ratio or Crisco this time?
Thanks so much, everybody! @Tammy–It was made with butter/hi ratio. ;0)
Adorable. I just finished watching. I love this site. You make everything so simple. I want to upload some of the pictures of cakes I have done in the past.
Love this cake and decoration, simple but beautiful. I have been trying to make tennis shoes but could never do it, you’re tutorial is realy easy, I will try it again. Melissa do you think you can have a tutorial on how to make a cup and saucer?
Thank you, Helen! You should definitely try again. I may make the cup and saucer one day! Thanks for letting me know you would be interested.
This is super cute! Like you said, sometimes simple is best. I have a shower cake coming up soon, and there just may be a little pair of pink tennies on top! Thanx so much!
This is really cute, I love it and I love the colors, I enjoyed watching this video,
as usual, thanks so much Melissa and BeBe.
Thanks so much Luanne & Manal!!
This is so cute. I’m going to try real soon.
Cute, cute, cute. Another job well done! Thanks to you and BB.
where did you get your frog cutter?
where can I get the templet for the tennis shoes? luv all your tutorial… ;)
Hi Chrissy, here is the link: https://www.mycakeschool.com/images/2012/10/baby-tennis-shoes-template.pdf
The templates are found in Member Resources on the homepage, just above Melissa’s picture, select the page, Templates
i would like to know where you bought the frog cookie cutter. Thanks!
Thank you so much for this tutorial. I have made these shoes before and always had such a hard time with the laces. Thanks for making it so simple. This cake is so cute.
I got ahead of myself again, as my hubby would tell me…lol…As soon as I get an email about a new tutorial, I will watch the video then read the article on it, but today could only watch a quarter of it then had to run, but of course wondering how to get the template…Just got back on to read the article and seen the download…lol…Thanx for the extra help for this old lady…lol…but hey I learned something new, I now know where to go for the other templates…You’re great BeBe and Melissa is aaawwwsssoommee… ;)
Thanks everybody for your continued nice comments on this! Hope you all find it easy and fun! @Chrissy- I am the same way, no worries! ;0) — @Carolina, I found what looks like our cutter here–(or you could just use our template)
http://www.karenscookies.net/Frog-2-Cookie-Cutter_p_1495.html
@Cheryl- thank you!
I absolutely love this tutorial! I just made a pair of super cute pink shoes. I found that 1/4 in thickness was too thick and seemed to be thicker than what you did. I think 1/8 in works well. I used my purple guides on my Wilton 9 in roller. Thanks so much for a super cute idea. I can’t wait to do some in glitter for my niece!
Hi Alison! I’m so glad that you liked it and thanks so much for your feedback. I don’t use the bands to measure width and so it’s nice to hear your perspective of the exact measurement that worked for you! I love the idea of some sparkling shoes for your niece ;0) Take care!
Just watched your video on the tennis shoe and frog cake. That was so cute. I have never worked with gum paste or fondant so I am learning through you. I will need to buy supplies for me to be able to make cakes like this. Can you give me a list of what I will need to pick up. Also, what is trilose? What does the vodka do? Do you make sugar glue or do you buy it?
Hi Delores- We like to use pre-made Satin Ice gum paste. We prefer to use gum paste for things like modeling, making flowers, and other custom toppers like this one.
Rather than buying gum paste, some decorators prefer to just keep fondant on hand, and knead in tylose powder whenever they need a gum paste-like consistency. Adding tylose powder increases the fondant’s elasticity, makes it firmer which is easier for modeling, and speeds up the dry time. I like this method (with the exception of Duff & Fondarific brands of fondant, which never seem to take on the consistency of gum paste for me.). This method does work well though with Satin Ice, Liz Marek fondant, etc.
Since we keep gum paste on hand, we usually just use straight gum paste for modeling projects. However, gum paste only comes in white. So, if we need red or black gum paste, we use our pre-made red or black fondant and knead tylose into it to save time.
Vodka is what we use for painting. You can create a paint by mixing coloring gel with a tiny bit of vodka to apply painted accents to cakes. You can do the same with petal or luster dusts, combining with a small amount of vodka for a thicker paint. The alcohol quickly dries and evaporates, leaving the color behind. If you don’t want to use vodka, you can substitute with an alcohol based flavoring, like lemon extract.
We make sugar glue by combining a small amount of water with tylose powder. 1/4 tsp. tylose combined with 2 tablespoons warm water will do the trick. Piping gel makes a good glue as well. Let us know if you have any more questions!