Mickey Mouse Fondant Cake

Today marks the one year anniversary of my blog and in order to celebrate, the next few posts will be a few favourite cakes and cupcakes that I've made recently.

This first cake is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time and it's experimenting with fondant!  This cake was for my nephew who turned 2 this fall and I thought it would be fun to decorate his birthday cake with his favourite cartoon character, Mickey Mouse.  I also happen to love Mickey Mouse because I recently went to Disney World and fell in love with the magic of Disney.

I decided to use store bought fondant for my first time, since I was making the cake from scratch and intended on decorating it myself.  I'm glad that I did because it took longer than I expected to assemble everything together.  I am certainly no fondant expert, but I now feel a bit more comfortable with it and next time I may even try making the fondant myself.

The first thing I did was sketch out Mickey Mouse on a parchment paper.

It doesn't have to be perfect, as long as Mickey is recognizable.

Then I outlined the sketch with a permanent marker.

Once the cakes cooled, I started assembling the cake.

I topped it with yummy chocolate frosting.

Then inverted the other cake over it to make the top nice and smooth.

Next, the entire cake was frosted and set aside.

I used these prepackaged fondant to decorate the outside of the birthday cake.

I took nearly all of the white fondant and coloured it a pale yellow by kneading it with yellow gel colouring.

Afterwards, I rolled it out to 13-inch circle.  I used powdered sugar on my counter so that the fondant wouldn't stick.

With the use of a rolling pin, I carefully placed the fondant over the cake and smoothed out any air bubbles.  The bottom overhang was also trimmed with a knife.

For decorating Mickey, I rolled black fondant and then used my parchment as a guide and I pierced the sheet with a tooth pick to make dots along the perimeter of the image.

Then I connected the dots and cut out the Mickey head using a plastic fondant cutter.

I cut out the rest of my fondant pieces the same way.  I also used royal icing to "glue" my fondant on top of one another.

I felt that doing this layered effect gave Mickey more dimension.

Now you're starting to guess who it is.

The final touch for Mickey was piping the outlines of his smile, nose, and eyes in black royal icing.

I used more royal icing to fix Mickey onto the cake. 

The final decorative touches to the cake involved adding the writing and adding a blue fondant ribbon on the bottom border of the cake.

The following recipe is what I used for the Mickey Mouse cake and it delicious, moist, and simple to make.  This is one of my favourite cakes to eat.

All-Purpose Buttery Yellow Layer Cake
Serves 8 to 10

Ingredients
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup (7 ounces) cake flour
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces and softened
4 cups Chocolate Frosting (recipe below)

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans, then line the bottoms with parchment paper.  Whisk the milk, eggs, and vanilla together in a small bowl.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.  Using an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat the butter into the flour mixture, one piece at a time, about 30 seconds.  Continue to beat the mixture until it resembles moist crumbs, 1 to 3 minutes.

Beat in all but 1/2 cup of the milk mixture, then increase the mixture speed to medium and beat the batter until smooth, light, and fluffy, 1 to 3 minutes.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly beat in the remaining 1/2 cup milk mixture until the batter looks slightly curdled, about 15 seconds.

Give the batter a final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, smooth the tops, and gently tap the pans on the counter to settle the batter.  Bake the cakes until a tooth-pick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking.

Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes.  Run a small knife around the edge of the cakes, then flip them out onto a wire rack.  Peel off the parchment paper, flip the cakes right side up, and let cool completely before frosting, about 2 hours.

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients
10 ounces of semisweet chocolate, chopped fine
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups (5 1/3 ounces) confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened

Place the chocolate in a food processor.  Bring the cream, corn syrup, and slat to a boil in a liquid measuring cup in the microwave.  Stir the mixture to combine.

Pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate and process until the mixture is smooth, about 1 minute.

Add the sugar and vanilla and continue to process until combined, about 30 seconds.  With the machine running, add the softened butter, one piece at a time, through the feed tube.  Continue to process until the frosting is smooth and no butter chunks remain, about 2 minutes.

Transfer the frosting to a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until thick and spreadable, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Source: The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book