My youngest is a year old today.

Being the youngest of 5 may have a few drawbacks (hand me downs, siblings always in your face), but she’s pretty lucky to have us I think.

I don’t skimp when it comes to my kids. I like to bake from scratch and really put as much time and effort into everything that I do for them, so as our littlest little one’s birthday neared I had fun with the balloons and decorations, but mainly the cake!

Because, as always, the cake is a labor of love and I can’t help but stay up late trying to get it right.

My littlest lady is a music baby. I mean, she kind of has to be with two musicians as parents, but I really mean it. She is all about making music, dancing to music, and enjoying music.

I had originally planned to make her a little guitar cake, since both my husband and I play guitar and she has the cutest little pink guitar that she adores playing with, but my eldest boy asked me to write music on her cake.

My eldest agreed with him, being a little bit of a pianist herself (very little bit) so I set to work: I call it sheet music on a sheet cake! Or something like that haha

I figured it would be easy.

Nothing to cut. No worrying about multiple crumb coats or constructing weird dragon wings (yes, I’ve done that)…

I thought it would be easy to transfer the notes. I’ve iced many a cake, but boy was I wrong.

My icing tips kept getting clogged, drawing lines on a cake is insane, and of course… it’s a CAKE, not a perfect smooth flat surface.

Thank every God for toothpicks because I used dozens just trying to fix all the sweet snafus.

I also had to slightly alter the music to make it properly fit the sizing (if you can spot the change, I owe you a cookie!)

But it was totally worth it and delicious musical fun.

I always make my grandma’s applesauce cake for my children’s first birthdays, complete with cream cheese frosting.

Thanks Grandma, I miss ya!