Mission: Minnie Mouse Cake

  A few weeks ago, my friend Tye asked me to make her daughter Cadence's birthday cake. I gladly excepted because I haven't done much baking since Luci was born. The cake turned out pretty well and everyone at the party seemed to enjoy it. 

Mission: Make Minnie Mouse theme cake to feed min 50 people. 

Colors: Hot pink, white and black

  I am super proud of how the cake topper turned out. Tye and I browsed some photos online and gathered ideas. My main focus was making sure the ear hat looked real and I really think I accomplished my goal. 

  The hat was made of rice crispy treats formed by one of my cereal bowl. I let it cure for a few days and then covered it was royal icing. Royal icing is like the cement of the cake decorating world. Since I wasn't able to apply it completely smooth I had to basically sand it smooth. I them had to make black fondant which was not easy. It took almost half of a Wilton black dye bottle to get a very small amount of fondant black. The ears are black fondant rolled thick, cut with circle pastry cutter and a lollipop stick inserted while wet. I had to use a nail to puncture a hole in the royal fondant.

For the bow I used a large circle of fondant and crimped it in the middle. 

The added a "ribbon" of fondant in the middle.

Pink royal icing polka dots in varying sizes.

They were dried for a few days. The added texture and 

a contrast of color.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

  I decided to go outside of my norm and make a Swiss meringue buttercream instead of traditional buttercream. While it was fun and challenging to make I won't use it for cakes again. Swiss meringue doesn't "crust" like a traditional buttercream. While fine for a cupcake it isn't so great for cake decorating.

The Top Cake Layer:

8 inch Chocolate Cake with Nutella Buttercream Filling.

Bottom Layer:

12 inch White cake with Traditional Buttercream

Tye managed to write Cadence's name in the Disney Font 

thanks to a great website we found (printers were not working).

I then traced it onto the hat and piped it on.

The Birthday Girl

Mission complete!