From the time I was a little girl I loved Minnie Mouse. There is something about her laugh that lights up a room and transform the goofy nature of something into that which is magical My youngest daughter turned 4 recently. She loves Minnie Mouse as well. I love crafts and baking. I love everything to do with both and wish I was more talented at certain things but each time I do better. Because I have such debilitating autoimmune conditions it took me 14 hours to make her Minnie Cake because my hands and feet cramp and hurt row by row by row. I pushed through yelling all day and night at this cake. I'm going to show you my step by step process. This is my Riley shown here. She loves Minnie Mouse! I created a board of her pictures over the years. Its so fun to see and to remind yourself how fast they really grow up! I ordered Minnie Mouse Birthday banner from etsy and printed them off at Office Max. Well worth it in my opinion.
This is the outfit that Riley wanted. I couldn't find this outfit at an affordable price so I got a black shirt and ordered the Minnie Mouse design iron on transfer from Etsy with a bow, cost around $2.50. Then I found the similar skirt shown here at party city for $10. She put some black leggings on and she was happy!
This is the sign the lady at ACmoore made for her after I told her our theme! She did an amazing job! I want a circuit so bad!!
Riley's board with pictures :) Now the board I got at the dollar store. The zebra background is wrapping paper that I found at party city. The Happy Birthday Minnie sign is from Etsy. I used pink card stock to tape my pictures to and cut the edges with a scalloped scissors.
Also make sure you go through and fill in any gaps with black icing.
This is the sign the lady at ACmoore made for her after I told her our theme! She did an amazing job! I want a circuit so bad!!
Riley's board with pictures :) Now the board I got at the dollar store. The zebra background is wrapping paper that I found at party city. The Happy Birthday Minnie sign is from Etsy. I used pink card stock to tape my pictures to and cut the edges with a scalloped scissors.
I also had ordered and printed the water bottle labels. They were so cute and a nice touch. I got mini water bottles since most of the time people don't finish them. The napkins and table cloth is from Walmart and the pink bowl is from the dollar store.
I was IN LOVE with this Minnie bowl. I got two of them on clearance at Target for $5!!!!
We use them now as popcorn bowls now that the party is over. Just too cute to pass up!
We had her party at Acmoore. They were awesome so much fun!
Ok, now about the dreaded cake...
We use Bob's Redmill Vanilla cake mix. Its just the best tasting vanilla cake I have found. I know Pamela's is better but Bobs is more affordable when you have three people in the same house gluten free! I believe we used two packages. I used the left overs to make mini cupcakes.
I use Wilton's round cake pans. I chose the 6in round pan for the ears and 10in pan for the Face.
First step is to make sure the cake is completely cooled. I would use shortening or some non stick on the pan as mine did stick and I forgot to put some on the first time. I also didn't know how much to put in the pan. So my first ear ended up being twice as tall so I had to cut the extra off of it so they would be the same size. Again, make sure they are cooled before.
If you make your own icing I suggest using Wilton's butter cream icing recipe.
You want to lightly frost the cake first with thinned icing because the butter cream used for piping is stiffer and does not frost well. I tend to use the store bought gluten free icing for frosting my cake. Now I used vanilla because I'm allergic to chocolate, however I would suggest using the chocolate in the areas that are black and maybe vanilla where you know its tan or you could use either for the whole thing.
Icing is no laughing matter. It is one of the most tedious and frustrating ingredients in making a cake. I always make the cake the day before, one because it takes forever and there's a ton of other things to do and two because if its a complete disaster then you have time to do plan B!
Getting the right color icing is something that frustrates many. Getting black icing to be black and not gray is something that I have learned to experiment with each and every time I do a cake. I end up adding, red and copper. Sounds weird but experiment with the color before hand and find out what works for you. Also note that the color will darken as time goes on. This is good news when you want a dark color but keep that in mind when going for a light color. Icing that has water in it and not milk can be kept at room temp for 2 weeks in an air tight container.
After you have frosted the cake and let that harden slightly you can begin designing your cake. I took a Minnie Mouse stuffed animal I had on hand and used a toothpick to make my own outline. Then I outlined the cake with black icing.
This took A LOT longer than expected.
I used a #16 I believe.
I added some cheek lines and now this looks like a cute mickey cake :)
I have a tongue now! This would be a good mickey but we wanted Minnie so we needed a bow!
I was done at 2 am so I was not about to fight with some Fondant to make a bow.
Remember i said the color darkens? Yes, this turned kinda Orange but no one cared and everyone loved it. We made a bow from fabric. For the mini cupcakes I used a 1M tip for the pink flowers.
They were super cute and everyone loves mini cupcakes!
Hope this helps someone!! Have fun!
Toodles!
