Up Cake

My nephew is celebrating his 1st birthday later in July and he's going to have an Up-themed party! I wish I could be there to make his birthday cake for him, but he lives 10,000 miles away! But, I did get the opportunity to make this Up cake for another lucky little boy. 

Up Cake!

The most notable things from the Up movie are the gazillion balloons and the floating house, of course, so naturally, these made up the main elements on the cake. Both cake tiers are made of 9 layers of vanilla rainbow cake, with silky vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream sandwiched in between the layers. Each tier was just over 4" tall!

9 layers of rainbow vanilla cake!

Now, normally, I'd start stressing out about how to get a smooth fondant cover over such tall cake. But, thanks to Carma's Massa Ticino Tropic Fondant, I don't have to worry anymore! 

smooth fondant covering, with sharp edges

This Swiss-made premium fondant is so easy to work with. It's elastic and is made for hot and humid weather. It can be man-handled and rolled really thinly and you will be able to get a perfectly smooth fondant-covered cake, no matter how tall or how large the cake! The best part is that it tastes delicious, like the insides of Oreos!

lots and lots of colourful balloons

For the balloons, I cut out lots of ovals out of 7 different colours of fondant, and let them dry hard so they wouldn't bend or lose shape when placed on the cake. 

front of the house

The Up house was completely hand-cut from fondant, using a sharp X-acto knife that I only use for fondant. I used a round piping tip to indent the "shingles" on the rooftop and a straight-edge ruler to indent the "panels" on the house and the bricks on the chimney. The toughest part was cutting little squares out for the railing. The fondant kept stretching out of shape. It would've helped a lot had I had a mini square cutter of some sort! 

fun colours and details on the Up house

The only non-edible thing on the entire cake is Kevin, the "Snipe", a large tropical bird in the Up movie. I printed Kevin on high quality photo paper, stuck it to a cake box, cut it out and used a piece of fondant to help it stand on the cake. 

view from the side

back of the cake

To assemble the cake, after stacking the two tiers, I added a border of royal icing at the base of each tier, and then used more royal icing to attach the house and then the balloons, starting at the top of the cake, working one balloon at a time. When it came time to add the balloons at the front of the cake, I had to wait a few minutes in between each layer to let the royal icing dry, so that the weight of the next layer of balloons wouldn't pull down previous layer of balloons. I like how the royal icing adds to the 3D effect. 

royal icing helps to "pop-out" the balloons

To finish the cake, I added a "Happy Birthday" message, cut from fondant using plain font Tappits cutters. Tappits can be frustrating to use, but the trick is to roll the fondant really thin, until you can almost see through it, and then let the fondant dry a bit before pressing the cutter onto it, so that it's easier to tap out. 

I love how this cake turned out. Nice, happy rainbow colours on a sky blue background, with the Up house front and centre! I think it's perfect for a little boy celebrating his first birthday.  Happy 1st Birthday, baby Cyrus! 

Happy 1st Birthday, Cyrus!

Update: Cyrus' mummy sent me these pics of the dessert table she set up for his birthday! The rainbow macarons we made together with the Up cake are so colourful! And check out the rainbow letter candles spelling the birthday boy's name on the cake!

rainbow macarons*

Up Birthday Cake*

simple Up dessert table*

*pics courtesy of the birthday boy's mummy