1st Birthday Minnie Mouse Cake

I was asked to make a 1st birthday Minnie Mouse cake for a special little girl turning 1. I happily agreed and here is how it went.

I know I wanted the top of the cake to have a classic Minnie bow and ears, but I had never made a bow before, and I was intimidated about the ears because I feared my fondant would not harden enough and flop over. So, of course I searched YouTube for bow tutorials, and found one that I was able to replicate.

I made the bow and ears a week in advance, placed them in a box and put it at the top of my closet to harden. I used regular fondant (I use a LMF recipe – you can google it and it pops up) and tinted it black. The bow was tinted with Wilton rose colored frosting. I used my biscuit cutters to cut out the round ears and broke a wooden dowel rod in half, then put another round ear over each other to sandwich them down in between.

Assembling the 1st Birthday Minnie Mouse Cake

When it was time to make the cake, I used regular chocolate boxed mix. I used 3 boxes in total. The bottom tier was three 8 inch round cakes, the middle one was two 6 inch round cakes, and the top tier was two 4 inch round cakes.
After I leveled them all off, I cut out round circles out of cardboard, that were proportionate to the 6 and 4 inch round cakes so I could ice and fondant them while separate, and then carry them over to layer at the end (if you YouTube search how to make a wedding cake, it shows you how to structure your cake so it is sound and so that it does not collapse on it’s self with all the weight).
I crumb coated the 3 cakes with buttercream, trying to get them as smooth as possible, then placed them in the fridge to firm up.
I then softened my fondant and tinted most of it pink (with Wilton’s rose color gel), but left some white.
I worked on the bottom cake first. I had bought a silver pack of metal round cutters, but the reverse side had a little soft curl in it, so I knew I wanted that to be the petticoat for under the dress. I cut out the pieces. They were about an inch wide, and I placed them on the bottom 2 inches of the base cake.
I then rolled out a 14 inch circle and draped it over the cake and let it fall naturally to make the skirt.
I covered the top 2 smaller cakes in pink fondant and used a fondant smoother to get them sleek.
I added fondant polka dots, a fondant ribbon belt and balls of fondant on the top tier to resemble a pearl necklace.
I hand cut out a number 1, and then the cake was done!

This was my first all fondant cake!

Assembling the 1st Birthday Minnie Mouse Cake

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