Minnie Mouse Cake

Happy birthday to Madison! She turned one year old on Saturday. Her lovely parents threw her a huge party and I was honored to make the cake for them. They chose a Minnie Mouse theme for the party because Madi loves Minnie. Who can blame her? Minnie is so stinking cute! I really loved seeing Madi's face when I dropped the cake off at their house. She lit up! I think she liked it...

This cake was a fun one to design and put together. The design is based on their party materials - invitations and decorations ordered for party. The bottom tier is 8 inches and 4 1/2 inches tall. It is chocolate with oreo buttercream filling (crushed oreo cookies mixed into vanilla swiss meringue buttercream), milk chocolate ganache and fondant decorations. Yum! Let me tell you, it takes self-control to put together a cake like that and not dig into it! The top tier is 6 inches and is also 4 1/2 inches tall. It is yellow (vanilla) cake with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream, strawberry puree brushed onto each layer, and fresh strawberry slices. This is one of my absolute favorite flavor combinations. It is moist, flavorful and perfectly balanced. Yum!

I also made a little smash cake with the yellow cake combination. It was a little 4-inch cake and I think it is adorable. You can judge for yourself.

For the decorations, I hand cut with an exacto knife Minnie's face for the smash cake. The letters for Madi's name on the larger cake were cut with cutters - funky alphabet letters by FMM. The circles were cut with various-size circle cutters and the large end of a piping tip. The smallest circles were also cut with a piping tip. The stripes were cut using a Wilton cutter. I must say, I don't like that cutter very well. While it's easier than using a ruler and exacto knife, the Wilton roller cutter gets caught a lot and either loosens too much or tightens up depending on what direction you are rolling. I am looking for a better cutter or a DYI solution to make this easier in the future and so I can get my fondant strips perfectly even.

Overall, I'm happy with how this one turned out. I hope you enjoy it too!