This is so exciting! Welcome to the Reader’s Lamb Cake (ish) Gallery for 2020!!! This year has been a weird and unpredictable ride for everyone, but I am happy to say that this year we had the most lamb cake entries ever! We had 124 submissions this year, which I absolutely love. Thank you so much for everyone who sent in a lamb cake, made their friends send in a lamb cake, or took a picture of their kid’s lamb cake on the sly and sent it in without telling them. It is so fun to share traditions year after year!
And thank you to everyone who sent in a cake that didn’t rise properly, that they didn’t have all the right ingredients for, or that wasn’t a traditional lamb cake. I personally am a perfectionist, and showing people my perceived failures is always very difficult for me, so I salute you! In this crazy time, we all need reminders that not everything has to be perfect, and not every lamb cake needs to have a head. Or…a body. Or be made of cake.
Lastly, thank you to the wonderful ladies from Mid-Century Supper Club, who co-chaired the contest with me this year, and who inspired the idea to have a Reader’s Choice prize(s)! It was my pleasure to share all this lamby goodness with you girls!
As I mentioned above, this year we are giving out tons of prizes for a variety of categories, so I have listed out all pertinent information in the captions. I hope. If I miss anything important about your lamb, please put it in the comments!
At the end of the gallery, there is an optional voting survey for you to fill out to help choose the Reader’s Choice Winners! Please feel free to share this post with your friends and family, so they can admire the lovely creations and vote as well! Voting is open until Tuesday, May 12th.
All winners will be announced next week! So stay tuned!
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- Sabine Trapp II – is baked with spelt flour and thus wheat-free. In addition, it is a banana and carrot cake batter, so that it only contains natural sugar from the bananas.
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- Theresa Budnik Combs
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- Amy Alvarez – Decorated by Amy’s 12-year old daughter
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- Rachel Wilson Guse – Lambie looks like he/she/they may have had a nip from the bottle in the background. Possibly the baker did as well…
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- Jean Ferguson – Daughter and I had a great time again this year … she’s stuck home from college.
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- Joan Berglund – Lentil lamb loaf and beet pickled deviled eggs. The recipe only fills one side of the mold so he had to be a flat lambie.
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- Virginia Fox
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- Danyelle Morgado
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- Felicia Ann Marinella
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- Bethany Brenner – Carrot Cake Lamb, To get it to stay upright I tinted quite a lot of coconut and I created a slope along the back of the lamb cake , probably about a third of the way up, that it could lean back against.
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- Mary Beth Danforth – ! Elton (because why not name him?) is made with pound cake and topped with buttercream and coconut, though I glazed his head with powder sugar and rim. I tried to give him a cute face but feel like I got uncomfortably close to the uncanny valley.
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- Diane Garis Davenport
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- Derek Palmer – Vintage lamb mold lamb cake( lambosaurous with coronavirus mask.) That is going to a rave with her peeps!
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- Felicia Ann Marinella
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- Rebecca Bez – . Kind of a muppetish lion-y looking lamb, but it was delicious. (Lemon cake, cherry frosting).
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- Divamarja – Title: Reposing lamb in the age of cholera
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- Ardith Johnston – peanut butter cereal bars and made it a tiger as an excuse to pipe chocolate on it. Also I had 0 chocolate chips so I MADE chocolate out of cocoa and vegan white chocolate and whatever I panic-added to make it fidget.
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- Susan Cort – I decided to make this black sheep of the family lamb cake for Easter this year.
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- Jenny Wehrt
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- Dee Harrington – I got the Coronavirus and was in bed nearly 3 weeks, and forgot to order a lamb pan 🤷♀️ Been waiting two weeks now for pan from Amazon, not sure it’ll show up in time! So I used a turkey!! 😆 It’s made out of Rice Krispie treats.
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- Anne Marie Mikołajc – It was the natural conclusion of a lambie gone wrong from the start-the cake didn’t rise to fill the mold, so it was a half-lamb, the face fell off, the frosting went awry and, ultimately, Lambie just couldn’t even anymore 😂😂😂zyk
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- Karen Horne
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- Isabela Gregg
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- Sara Marsh
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- Leslie Wilson – My son decided to decorate the cake this year, and chose a Dusty Rose color for the frosting. We present to you Adam gLAMBert.
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- Joe Pinkowski II
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- Jenny Burr
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- Stephanie P. – Due to flour scarcity, I tried a rice krispie treat lamb this year with excellent results! No head falling off, no overdone or underdone batter. I may never go back to cake…
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- Jonelle Kapsa Wehrman – Ernie, looked a lot like our dog, Oscar, so we decided to dress them alike.
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- Jason Bronstein – I did not decorate this little lamb because I just wanted to test the brand new pan! I used the Renalde recipe, but substituted sour cream. I followed all other instructions. Tastes amazing as is without frosting!!!!
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- Ardith Johnston III – almond poppyseed osterlamm cake
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- Robin Anderson – We made the chocolate pound cake recipe this year and really enjoyed it. My daughter decorated the cake.
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- Karen Reau
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- Kimberly Ricardo
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- Kristin Sedivec
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- Amy Knoll Lashmet – Couldn’t get my Lambie to stand up this year. This seems appropriate.
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- Julia Cort – Supplies were short, so we didn’t have as many bells and whistles – or coconut grass and chocolate – as we normally would, but we did scrounge up a mask for the lamb.
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- Banana Bread by Jenny Burr
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- Kate Gillespie – Rice Krispie Lamb
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- Kylene Grell
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- Chelsi Gobeil – I had to improvise with some icing ingredients that I couldn’t get at the store, but it still worked out! 😊
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- Dixiedoll Mary – From My House Is Cuter Than Yours – My lamb cake’s innards aren’t too special, a prefab cake mix and icing, but it’s fur facade is Crunch n’ Munch
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- Kim Silva
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- Angela Young
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- April Wood
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- Elizabeth and Ellen Flatt
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- Lisa Reynolds
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- Jean White
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- Mary Garis
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- Tyler Davis
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- Sommer Hamm – Here’s our worried quarantine lamb cake. He’s a carrot cake with greek yogurt buttercream. We really wanted cream cheese frosting but had to use what we have 😊
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- I Heart Hearts
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- Anna Qestout – I forgot to buy pound cake box mix. I didn’t want to use a dozen eggs on a scratch recipe, sometimes eggs are hard to find. I did have red velvet box mix, thought I’d try the lamb cake without the pound cake. Well, I’ve included pics of the lamb hemorrhaging from the head while in the oven. Surprised that it was in ok shape inside the mold! All it needed was a little bandaid on the head, and well, the eyes are still red, but it takes awhile for them to go white again.
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- Ardith Johnston – Rice Krispie Treat Lamb with Marshmallow Wool
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- Cynthia Kane – My first lamb cake!
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- Anastacia
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- Jennifer Moore
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- Lisa Boyce – No Wool, But He Has A Sweater
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- Cynthia Nabity – My friend Karen and I created this lamb cake over the weekend 🖤
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- KellsbellsCali – We have a long tradition of strange and terrible Lambie Cakes.
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- Corinna Knepper Troth II
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- Lena Dansdill II – LAMBYCHELLA
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- Rebecca Nunn -We tried the golden nun cake this year (Our namesake 😂) I made a tiny mask for her and my son Alex frosted ❤️
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- Beth Morgan – My first lamb cake. Made from doctored cake mix with vanilla pudding.
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- Natalie Heitkamp Curtiss
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- Cheryl Wright
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- Alexandra Rose Imperl
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- Allegra Yeley – (gluten free) yellow lamb cake with lemon buttercream on the front and coconut on the back, because why not?!
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- Corinna Knepper Troth – We’ve got snow here today don’t lamb has a scarf and hat, and attitude.
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- Nami Kurita – This is my very first lamb banana bread!
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- Caitlin Smith -We didn’t have jellybeans for the face this year, so we went with what we had. Our lamb is very silly.
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- Liz Cakelmann – By Let Them Eat Cake and Macarons
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- Natalie Huber – That is “Black Betty” the black sheep. That is a pound cake soaked in Bourbon with cookie crumb dirt and white chocolate coated pretzel cigarettes. (She sent in a Video! I link to it below!)
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- Christine Baron
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- Kristina Ramos – jello lamb dessert
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- Alexa Gallishaw
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- Cas Le Blanc – Lambert
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- Katie Nelson-Kleiber – I made brownies in each half and “glued” together with frosting. Kids decorated!
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- Sara Benz
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- Iris Henry
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- Joe Pinkowski
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- Sophie Reynolds
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- Katsarsir
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- Cherie Savoie Tintary
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- zoe mcmanmon
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- Sabine Trapp
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- Janice Bird – Made with a box of gluten-free Funfetti cake, which was all that was left in the store
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- Robin Murena
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- Jocelyn Sertich
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- Lisa Nieman
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- Blanche DeBris – 2020 Covid Edition lamb cake, which had to lie down this year due to exhaustion and a lack of gluten-free flour.
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- Camilla Hammer – My sister and I are quarantined together in our parents house – our mother passed away when we were kids and used to bake a lamb cake every year for Easter. The tin she used has been sitting in our kitchen cabinet for decades untouched, and since were here for Easter we decided to finally give it a shot. It was a smashing success, and we have you to thank!! What makes this even sweeter is that it turns out the tin belonged to our grandmother, who’s in the hospital and not likely to stay with us for much longer. We got to FaceTime with her yesterday and show her the lamb cake we made from her tin. She was very proud.
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- Laney Hawes
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- Natalie Zent
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- Lena Dansdill – NURSE LAMBY
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- Sarah Zaccardi – banana bread in the lamb mold this year (thanks for the inspiration), though we went with a cream cheese frosting instead of chocolate.
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- Gregory Wei
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- I Heart Hearts – This one is a “cake” featuring wool made of a Rice Krispie “skin” and marshmallowy Cap’n-Crunch with Crunchberries for guts!
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- Karen Finlay
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- Matt Madison-Clark – Make Do Lamb, the chocolate cake on the Hershey’s cocoa box, so we have a laying down version instead of a standing up version
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- Lauren Sullivan – Here’s our lamb cake from this year, decorated by the 7yo and 4yo 😂
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- Jeanie Tweedy – Anyhoo, here is my lamb cake. The best I’ve ever made. I didn’t use sticks inside, I used ganache on the head and body, before piping “mystery/magic” frosting on it. The flowers are fondant.
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- Michelle Belschwinder – This year’s lamb cake almost wasn’t. For some reason the center wouldn’t bake. I was about to throw it away but the head and shoulders were fine! Luckily there was extra batter for cupcakes and they baked up just fine. So this lamb’s body is constructed from cupcakes.
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- Ellen Watson – Since we couldn’t have our usual party the plan was to cut up the cake and drop off a few “parts” to a couple of our families. My cousin said she just wanted the head. I sent her a photo and then she said she couldn’t possible eat it because it was so cute. So I changed it’s appearance before bringing it to her. Meet “evil lamb.”
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- Amanda Birling – This year I made a Fruity Pebbles lamb. I thought it would be cute and colorful, but it is not as appealing as I hoped! 🤣
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- Melissa Oquendo
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- Baby-Doe von Stroheim – This year we made our cake in our honor of our health professional hero’s! #greenscrubs
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- Heather Stratton Williams – : Baa Baa Black Sheep
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- Deborah Rieth – Here’s my lamb for this year. My mother always made one, and I’ve inherited her pan and recipe. I’ve been making my own for 30 years now. Wow. This one is in honor of all my friends who are essential workers, especially those on the health care front lines.
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- Sarah Blask – Like so many things this year, my lamb cake didn’t work out as planned. I had visions of little strawberry pink lambs, but they were too dark on the outside, so I used the leftover batter to make a base. I bought “classic white” cake mix, but that also turned out too dark, even though I only included the egg whites and I slightly underbaked them.
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- Tanya Picou Faia
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- Hollis Marzario Weston
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- Karin Herrick – Delias x Fernet Candyland Lamb
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- Natalie Huber II – My kids made the white lambs. I forgot to get jellybeans so, we had to improvise. LOL
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- Ashley Beison
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- Natalie Huber – My kids made the white lambs. I forgot to get jellybeans so, we had to improvise. LOL
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- Nicholle Ventura
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- Wink O’Connell – One slightly saggy lamb, because Swiss buttercream is difficult to make when the world is falling apart and the supermarkets are out of BUTTER so you have to sub coconut oil. Still, not too bad! Or baaaaaaaaad. 🐑
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- Pasch Justin – Our lamb is strawberry flavored, this year. I didn’t get enough rise into the back, so it is a portrait. My husband and son decorated it and added a sunshine.
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- John Broscoe – Even though I didn’t get to celebrate with family this year, making this cake made me very happy.
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- Pete Garcia – I frosted it with buttercream frosting but I grabbed the red food coloring bottle instead of the vanilla!! Chocolate chip eyes. Decorating was minimalist due to supply.
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- Jenna Parshall – Grammie Lambie
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- Marnie Candido – Here’s my Golden Orange lamb cake from your recipe! I used the real orange rind and juice in the cake and the butter + milk in the frosting…DELICIOUS! (My teenage daughter made the cookies.)
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- Caroline Garis
This was fun. I have 3 different lamb molds, all antiques. Maybe next year one will be tried out.
I can’t choose any one detail or lambie cake — I so enjoyed looking at all of them, especially those with stories or “fails” — none of them are true fails. What a great way to celebrate. Thank you for this, especially this year.
These made me so happy!
I enjoyed looking at all the lambs and reading the fun captions! They’re all delightful!
So many cute entry’s. It’s hard to choose.
Virginia Fox bunny cake!
I love Beth Morgans. It’s so cute.
I love Grammy Lammie’s poufs!
I chose the cake by Alexandra rose imperl!
Thank you for hosting, I have so much fun every year. This year my vegan lamb laying in the dandelions.
Seeing all these great “creations” made me so happy! Love the creativity and sense of humor. Thank you, Ruth for encouraging everyone to make lamb cakes and holding the yearly gallery/contest.
Virginia Fox bunny cake
Loved them all, but I had seven favorites (no particular order)
– Marnie Candido (the golden light, gentility and peace evoked)
– Jeanie Tweedy (eyes and fondant flowers)
– Camilla Hammer (the story)
– Kristin Sedivec (the concept of sacrifice)
– Tyler Davis (colors blue, green and yellow, and the ribbon)
– Natalie Heitkamp Curtiss (the simple and elegant piping)
– Ardith Johnson III (classic /elegant/simplicity, fruits and flowers – like a still-life painting)
Lisa Neiman
One more category, please!
The Ones I Most Want A Taste Of:
Heather Stratton Williams’ Baa Baa Black Sheep
Natalie Huber’s “Black Betty”
Ardith Johnston III’s almond poppyseed osterlamm cake
The glossy finish and colorful fruit decoration make Heather Williams Ba Ba black sheep look so yummy. These all look fantastic though.
Heather Stratton Williams!!! Baa Baa Black sheep. Looks great. And delicious.
So many beautiful cakes!!! I love seeing everyone’s ideas every year! I really think the creator of Rice Krispie Turkey deserves special award for cooking after Covid.
Side notes re: my Baa Baa Black Sheep…he was made MCM’s chocolate pound cake recipe and All Recipes one-minute chocolate icing, which turned out more like a shiny hot fudge sauce but was certainly delicious. Baa Baa also did double duty as a 14th birthday cake, but I took photos before plunging the candles into his back.
Caitlin Smith!
My vote is for Beth Morgan, too cute
Virginia Fox Has the cutest bunny cake! I choose her for the win!
What fun. I vote for Anne Quetout. Because she had to do triage on the lamb paying homage to our 1st responders out there in the front lines during these crazy times. They were all fun to see and read! Thanks for doing this.
Katsarsir Tiger King Lamb gets my vote!
They are all great. Just draw the winners randomly.
Wonderful!
Heather Williams Ba Ba black sheep gets my vote.
What fun it was to look at these great creations. And read the accompanying stories. I like Tyler Davis’ lamb because it looks like what I think a lamb cake should Love the colors, too.
Jenny Wehrt has my vote. 🙂
Melissa Oquendo
Did the winners get announced? I never saw. Where can I find this info please?
Here you go! https://www.midcenturymenu.com/and-the-9th-annual-lamb-cake-winners-are/