The celebration of a baptism is a beautiful thing. It symbolizes a public commitment to follow Jesus, our old self dying with Christ, being raised with Christ, and entering into God’s family.

A few weeks ago, I got to see a family friend get baptized on a cold winter day in a hot tub. It was a cause for much celebration, and certainly cake! I wanted to make a cake that represented the land, and the water coming up over it, and my cake came out fairly close to what I envisioned.

Just a heads up, I’m mostly going to talk about the decorating process here, not the actual recipe.

I decided to make Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake. If you have not had this cake before, go to the link and make it ASAP! It is so so so good. I think the magic is in the hot cup of coffee you pour into the batter. It pairs perfectly with some peanut butter icing. I didn’t use a recipe, I just mix some peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar, and a little bit of milk, until I get the flavor and texture I want. (I’ll have to do another post on that some other time I guess 😉 ).

I actually made the cake the night before so I could decorate the following morning. I made two 6″ rounds and two 8″ rounds. I wrapped them in saran wrap so they would stay nice and moist.

I made the peanut butter icing, and put a dollop of it on the cake stand to help the cake stay in place on the glass.

Then I placed the first 8″ cake on the stand.

I spread a thick layer of the peanut butter icing on top.

Now, I should have trimmed the tops of my cakes, but I didn’t, they seemed flat enough, but I still should have done it. If you want to know what I’m talking about, head on over to my A+ Cake and you’ll see what I mean. It helps the cake stay nice and level.

Repeat the steps, until you get your nice two tiers of cake. 

Once I reached the top of my cake, I used the rest of my peanut butter frosting to cover as much of the cake starting from the top, and working my way down as I could. I didn’t quite make it to the bottom, but that was okay because that is where I planned to put the “water”.

I really like how much the peanut butter frosting looks like sand!

I made a basic white frosting with powdered sugar, butter, and a little milk.

I then put a thin layer on the entire bottom of the cake and had it creep up to the second tier, I was going for a foam, ocean wave effect.

I added a tiny bit of blue and green food dye to make the slightest color change and added that on top of the white.

Then  I went a bit darker, and added that colored frosting to the bottom of the cake, creating an ombre effect.

Then I added a little bit more food coloring to make some beading at the bottom edge. I put the frosting in a baggie and cut the tip to make a piping bag.

I thought the little dots gave it a more finished look.

I found this wonderful chocolate cross at the dollar store! Even though it was February, the dollar store had all of their Easter stuff! So I just lucked out! I love the Dollar Tree! 🙂

It made a beautiful topper for the cake!

I also went ahead and put our friends name and the date he was baptized on the cake so he would have it in pictures. 🙂

When I gave the cake to our friend, He was so excited and said “How did you know I LOVE the beach!?” He said the beach is where he wants to live and was so excited that the cake looked like a beach.

Thanks for reading along! I hope this inspires future baptism cakes, or maybe even some fun beach themed cakes! 😉