One groovy girl: a retro first birthday, three ways

"ONE GROOVY GIRL" — and she really was one, which is the whole joke.

First birthdays usually need more than one cake, and this one came as a set of three. Same colors, same daisies, three different jobs.

The sheet cake

Pink, orange and white washed across the top in wide horizontal bands, blending where they meet rather than sitting in hard stripes.

The lettering is fondant, cut in a fat retro font and outlined in pink so it lifts off the orange behind it. Daisies with yellow centres are scattered around it, and the border is piped in all three colors at once — pink, orange and white shells running right around the top and bottom edge.

The smash cake

This is the one she was allowed to demolish, and it's covered head to toe in piped grass — thousands of short strands pulled straight out of the tip, in pink, yellow and orange running diagonally around the cake.

It takes a while. It's also exactly right for a one-year-old, because there's nothing hard on it to work loose. A fondant 1 on the front and a single daisy at the base, and that's it.

The cupcakes

A dozen, three designs repeating: a white daisy on yellow, a peace sign on orange, and a little rainbow on white with clouds piped at each end. All the same 60s palette, so the tray reads as one thing.

What's inside

The cakes and the cupcakes are all marble with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Marble is a good call when you're feeding a room that can't agree — everyone gets some of both.

Happy first birthday

Hope this groovy girl had the best day. (She's not the only one this year — there was a groovy 10th back in August too.)