Rainbow Unicorn Pusheen Cake

I had been looking forward to making this Pusheen cake. Not because I'm a Pusheen fan myself. (Actually I had no idea Pusheen even existed prior to this...ha!) It's because I haven't done a 3D carved cake in a while. I've mostly been doing tiered cakes with fondant figurines, so I'm missing doing something "bigger". 

Unicorn Pusheen Cake

Both the Pusheen cake and the 10" cake it's sitting on are red velvet cake, filled with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. The Pusheen cat is actually 5 layers of 7" cake rounds stacked together, which I carved into the right shape with a steak knife! I used the rounded tops of excess cake which I cut off from baking the bottom tier and some cake scraps to form the cat's bum area. I mixed together some cake crumbs and a little frosting and shaped them for his ears. (kinda like making cake balls!) After filling, I crumb coated covered everything with a layer of buttercream to seal in the crumbs and provide a smoother surface for the fondant to sit on.  I really wish I had taken a photo of the dirty-iced Pusheen cat before I covered it in fondant! It already looked pretty cool at that stage.

3D Pusheen cake

Pusheen's rainbow hair, tail and horn are made out of a 50-50 mix of fondant and gumpaste, because that dries much harder than fondant alone. I didn't want anything sagging or dropping. I used a fondant quilting tool with a straight blade to add the rings on the unicorn horn. For the hair and tail, I dyed the gumpaste different pastel colours, and then rolled them out, section by section, attaching the neighbouring strips by brushing a little bit of water in the area where the colours met. I drew and cut out the shape of the hair and tail on some cardboard and used that as a guide to cut them out the fondant using an Xacto knife. 

close up of Pusheen's face

Pusheen's face, stripes and strips of hair are freehand cut from some black fondant. I used a large round piping tip to cut circles for his eyes. It was pretty challenging to roll out one large piece of grey fondant and cover the 3D Pusheen in one go, especially around his ears. I'm pretty happy with how I've managed to smoothen it out though. Some cracks started to form at the tips of the ears, but I was fast enough to be able to squish the fondant back together for a smooth finish. Pusheen is just a teeny bit bumpy. Perhaps it would be better to put a layer of ganache over the crumb coat so that the fondant has an even smoother surface to sit on. Unfortunately, every little bump shows through fondant, so it's important to have a smooth buttercream or ganache coating underneath it.

That Pusheen cat is pretty heavy, so it requires support dowels or else it'll sink into the bottom tier of the cake it's sitting on. The Pusheen cat has its own cake board to rest on, which I cut into shape so it's flush with his body. There are also two dowels running through both the Pusheen cake and the bottom tier cake so that it is stable for transport. 

dowel supports on the bottom tier

The bottom tier is decorated with pink fondant and 4 sizes of fondant hearts all around. I cut out fondant letters using some letter cutters to spell the happy birthday message and the birthday girl's name. I wanted her name to stand out so I added a second layer of letters, cut out in the same rainbow colours as the unicorn's hair and tail. 

fancy fondant name and lettering

Unicorn Pusheen Cat cake

I'm really glad to hear that the birthday girl and all her guests really loved this special cake! Here's a pic of the Pusheen cake, courtesy of the birthday girl's sister. Happy 21st birthday, Valerie!

Happy 21st Birthday, Valerie!
(photo courtesy of the birthday girl's sister)