Minnie Mouse Cake & Cupcakes

A friend wanted to have a Minnie Mouse cake for her daughter Phoebe's upcoming 3rd birthday celebration at school. Phoebe has a Minnie Mouse swim suit, so we decided to combine Minnie Mouse and swimming! Phoebe also likes to pose with her chin resting on her hands, so why not make Minnie Mouse doing the same thing?

Minnie Mouse on swimming float

The Minnie Mouse cake is made of Devil's Chocolate Food Cake, filled with dark chocolate ganache and chocolate French buttercream. Her ears are cookies sandwiched with and then dipped in dark chocolate. Her bow is made from chocolate covered cookies as well. She is completely iced in vanilla buttercream, except the black bits, which are chocolate buttercream. (The amount of food gel needed to dye the buttercream black is scary.) I was able to make her eyes, nose and the dots on the swimming float smooth by patting down the icing after it had crusted using a finger dipped in cornstartch. 

Here's Minnie half decorated, chilling out in the fridge. I always like to work with cakes when they are nice and cold and firm. Makes for easier decorating. You'll notice in the bottom tier that there are 5 holes peeking out in the center. Those 5 holes are actually straws, which are very important because they will support the weight of Minnie's head. Without them, Minnie's head risks sinking into the cake below. Minnie's head is on it's own cake board, and when assembled, there's actually a chopstick running straight down the middle of her head down into the bottom tier to keep everything in line.

The Minnie Mouse cake was almost 4kg in total after decorating in buttercream, but it's not enough cake to feed all of Phoebe's classmates. For the other kids, they had Minnie Mouse cupcakes! 

Minnie Mouse Cupcakes

The cupcakes are chocolate blackout cake, frosted with strawberry Swiss Meringue buttercream. Boiled down fresh puréed strawberries were used to tint the frosting pink, with a couple squirts of Americolor Electric Pink food gel. I love Americolor's "Electric" food gel dyes. Such bright colours!

Spot the difference?

The ears are mini Oreo cookies, though you could use dark chocolate drops or black candy melts or even cut out fondant circles. The bow is made using fondant hearts with a pink sugar pearl in the middle. Vanilla buttercream was used to make the dots on the bows. I thought the cupcakes looked prettier with pink sugar pearls sprinkled around the frosting to resemble Minnie's dots.

All boxed up and ready to go.

Wishing sweet Phoebe a very happy 3rd birthday and a fun celebration with family and classmates and school! And also a very happy birthday to Phoebe's mummy, who happens to be celebrating her birthday tomorrow!