This was a Dora the Explorer Birthday Cake I made for my daughter’s 1st birthday. I used 2 8″ layer cakes for the base and 4″ round cake for the balloon basket. I cut a 2″ round hole in the 4″ layer of the cake to make it look more like a basket although it made icing more difficult and next time I think I would just leave it a solid piece.
The icing is all butter cream ( recipe on wilton.com) and food dyes from Wilton. I used a basket weave pattern (technique found on Wilton website) for the basket. I found the figurines at the local toy store. Fisher Price made some in a tube bought in 2006.
The flowers, vines,leaves, and grass were all piped buttercream and the different required tips techniques were all found on the web (most at wilton.com) and I just practiced them on parchment until I was confident enough to do it on the cake.
The balloon was held up with a bamboo skewer which I placed into the cake to provide stability. I used 2 pieces of string around the balloon and 4 vertical and tied them to some plastic crafting needles (I found in the knitting/cross stitch section at Micheals)and stuck them into the 4″ cake.
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Love your balloon idea. And the cake looks awesome. I might even try it for my niece’s birthday in September.
Loved your idea-great looking cake. I might try to make a balloon on my sister’s baby shower cake!
Your Dora cake is beautiful! I wanted to know where you found the round balloon though.
Hi! I wanted to do this cake with my daughter’s 3rd bday this January. Just want to ask where did you get the Dora toppers?
I would like to make this for my granddaughter’s 2nd birthday, which is the 23th of this month. Where did you get the Dora cake toppers.