Dusty Planes Cake

My friend had been on back to back to back business trips and she would only have exactly 24 hours to get things ready for her son Julian's Planes-themed 4th birthday party! I really wanted to help her out but I had cakes to make! She asked me to make Julian's cake, with the request that it be "kept simple" and to minimize fondant. 

Disney's Planes Cake

Both cake tiers are "Cookies & Cream cakes", which is Devil's Food Cake, filled with vanilla bean German buttercream and chopped Oreo cookies. Vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream was used to ice the cake, dyed sky blue for the top tier, and orange for the bottom tier. 

Cookies & Cream!

It still took me a while to get a smooth buttercream finish on the cake. I think it actually takes me longer to smoothen buttercream than it does for me to cover a cake in fondant! Swiss meringue buttercream is non-crusting buttercream, unlike American buttercream, so the Viva paper towel method cannot be used to smoothen the surface.

smooth buttercream finish

Since the party was Disney's Planes-themed, the cake had to feature the central character from the movie - Dusty! I didn't want to just have a fondant figurine of dusty on top of the cake. I did toy around with the idea of making a 3D Dusty-shaped cake, but Julian's mummy said to keep it simple. So I went with making Dusty's eyes and propeller out of fondant and sticking them onto the orange cake. 

It's Dusty!

The lesson I learned with this cake is that if fondant decorations are going to go on a cake with a buttercream finish, the fondant must be put on as soon as the cake is pulled out of the fridge. Or else, condensation forms on the surface of the cake and when you try and stick fondant to it, it just slides right of! I had a heck of a time trying to keep Dusty's eyes in the middle of the orange buttercream tier cuz it kept sliding down! Gaaah. And the buttercream had warmed up enough to where it was squishy. All that hard work getting a nice smooth surface was ruined with the sliding fondant. At least I finally managed to get the eyes to stay put. 

Hand-cut name, "Planes"-style 

Anyway, since the bottom tier is Dusty the plane, the top tier of the cake is suppose to be the sky. The white buttercream swirls are clouds, simply piped with a round nozzle. I hand-cut the Planes logo out of fondant and added Julian's name in the middle of it. It was pretty tricky to roll a white fondant snake long and thin enough to border the Planes logo, but it was worth the effort. I think it looks great! And this time, I stuck the logo on the cake as soon as it came out of the fridge, so no condensation and sliding problems here. Hooray.

view from the side

The cake board was decorated with a fondant runway strip, with light brown sugar on the sides for "sand". I think it's fun to decorate the cake board as well as the cake. Gives everything a more professional finish. 

Julian's mummy was definitely happy with how the cake turned out. Julian was a little cranky when we sang "Happy Birthday" so I couldn't tell if he liked his cake or not! My son ate two slices of cake, so I guess it must've been good. But then again, my son is a greedy little oinker...Anyway, Happy 4th Birthday, Julian! Thanks for inviting us to the party to celebrate with you! 

Happy 4th Birthday, Julian!