The Bake More: Easy Minnie Mouse Cake

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Easy Minnie Mouse Cake – Just ears and bows

I’ve have been making so many cakes lately, I haven’t had any time to blog. Honestly I’ve been getting a little overwhelmed by cake request: baby showers, birthdays, engagement parties. Cakes are just a hobby of mine, so I have to be careful not to let it slip from being an enjoyable pastime to a chore.

Anyway, here is a little cake I made from my sister-in-law’s sister’s step-grandchild. Does that make sense? Happy Birthday, Molly.

The poor little girl’s birthday fell during the height of the 2018 Mardi Gras season so her mom couldn’t find a bakery willing to make a cake. FYI: During the Mardi Gras season, bakeries in New Orleans turn their shops into King Cake making assembly lines. Apparently King Cakes are more profitable than regular cakes and pastries. Strangely in the Cajun/Creole city of New Orleans the hottest selling King Cake is made by a Vietnamese bakery name Dong Phuong. DP went from selling 80 King Cakes in the 2008 season, to selling 80,000 in 2017. In 2018 they won the James Beard Award for American Cuisine, and demand for their cakes sky rocketed. People have been lining up outside the bakery and waiting in line for 2 hours to get one of their King Cakes. No telling how many Kings Cakes they will sell this season. Congrats Dong Phuong.

So little Molly is crazy about Minnie Mouse, and her mom requested a simple cake with ears and a bow. For the free standing ears I just cut out circles from black fondant mixed with a little Gum-Tex. I cover the fondant with plastic wrap so that the top edge would have a rounded look instead of sharp edge.

I attached a bamboo stick to the back and let it dry for a few days till it hardened. The letters I made using a cute Funky Alphabet cutter from CK Products.

The bow was next. I wanted a polka dot bow so I pushed white dots into the pink fondant.

I cut out a strip about 2” wide and 11” long. Folded the ends over toward the center.

Crimped the top edges, and then stuck the crimped side to the flat bottom piece.

Instead of crimping the bottom section to make it match the top, I just trimmed the bottom section to a size that was slightly smaller than the top.

I wrapped a 1/2" piece around the center to form the “knot”, and then stuffed plastic wrap inside the bow to hold the shape as it dried.

For the little bows I just made a paper template, and stuck the fondant cutouts together.

I used cotton swabs (wrapped in plastic wrap) to hold the bow open as it dried.

The cake assembly was really easy. I just cut out some mouse silhouettes out of black fondant and stuck them to the cake. The hardest part was making sure there was an equal distance between each silhouette.

I glued the little bow to the silhouette with a bit of melted white chocolate, and used the same white chocolate to make the dots on the little bows. Next I put the ears and the big bow on top of the cake, and finally a border and a few pick flowers to completed the cake.

So cute, and actually one of the easier cakes I have done. Happy Birthday, Molly!