Today we celebrate a special little birthday girl!

Happy 1st birthday to my dear niece, Tess Trina!!!

I don’t know how you are already one, though. I’m not sure how the past year has flown by so quickly. 

It seems like yesterday I was answering the phone very early, the morning of March 17, to hear the news of your safe arrival. And hearing that your Momma named you after me (okay, your middle name is after me, whatev, details…). And then I practically ran over the hospital as soon as I could to make sure I was one of the first to cuddle you. 

What a fun year it has been! You always seem to be full of smiles, especially for your big sister, Nina.

Of course, I couldn’t let Tess have her cake smash without being the one who gets to make her birthday cake.

It has been such a joy to get to know and watch this little pumpkin grow and develop over the past year. One of the things that stands out is that we have learned Tessie LOVES her chocolate cake. So, naturally, her cake-smash cake HAD to be chocolate.

This is a from-scratch cake recipe (I’ll post the recipe in a few days after I’ve used it again to make her birthday cupcakes), which is super moist and especially chocolately.

Her cake was covered in basic buttercream and then decorated with fondant. Colours for her cake smash were mint green and gold.

Over on Periscope (@tgallop), I shared my tutorial for both icing the cake with a smooth crumb coat and then covering a round 8-inch cake with fondant. I love playing with luster dust when I’m decorating cakes and this was the perfect excuse to go all out with the gold!

Tess was a pretty dainty eater when it came to her cake smash, which I think surprised both myself and her Mom (who took all these beautiful photos of Tess and her cake).

I can’t wait to get together with you this weekend and help you eat more cake and celebrate dresses your birthday!

Happy birthday Tessie! Your Uncle Matt and I love you to the moon and back.