This was the first cake....
and this was the second one...
And cookies too...
And now a third cake - my family sure does love Toy Story....
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Construction of the cake started with Buzz's wings and Woody's star and buckle. I made them ahead of time using a combination gum paste and fondant mixed with Tylose Powder.
The cake itself started with the cake drum that I covered in strips of fondant made to look like planks of wood. I used (leftover) shades of brown, black, and yellow to give it a multi-toned look. I rolled out the marbled fondant, impressed it with a wood-grained mat, and then cut it into strips.
I then placed the strips onto my drum. I don't like to waste fondant, so I didn't decorate the section that would be covered by the cake. The round piece of parchment paper under the fondant shows where my cake will be place so I know where to place my strips of fondant.
I pushed the round tip of a paint brush into the fondant to simulate nail heads, and as a final step I dusted the "nail heads" and the edges of the strips with black powder food color to give them a weathered look.
Now onto the cake. For this cake my first tier would be Woody. I covered the front section with some yellow colored fondant. In hindsight the yellow section was much bigger than it needed to be. With the yellow in place I made some thin red strings using Red Fondarific and my trusty fondant extruder, and then I stuck the red strings to the yellow base using a tiny bit of water.
See all the yellow and red - I covered way too much of the cake with the yellow but I didn't realize that until later. After the shirt was in place I added a strip of blue for the pants and a strip of brown for the belt. I put a little texture on the belt using a texture mat, and punched a few holes to mimic the holes in a belt. I also added a little bit of "stitching" on the pants using a stitching tool. I was just trying to make it look realistic.
Next I glued on the gum paste belt buckle so I would have a reference when I positioned Woody's vest.
But before I put on the vest, I placed the top tier on the cake and added a ribbon of purple fondant along the seam between the two cakes. The fondant ribbon was made with my trusty fondant extruder and some Purple Choco-Pan Covering Chocolate. After the top tier was in place, I rolled out some white fondant and draped it over the yellow to represent Woody's vest. But see how far apart I had the two ends of the vest? After I had EVERYTHING in place I realized the ends needed to be closer together. Stupid, STUPID, me! I had to take the completed vest off and start again. I also realized that the red strings where showing through the white, so I removed most of the string before I put the white fondant back on.
I made the black and white trim of the vest by extruding thick strings of fondant and then twisting them together.
Here is the twisted trim going on. See how far apart the two ends of the vest are? When I tried to position Woody's star I realized I had a problem.
Here is the vest after the fix. I put the ends closer together, trimmed the edge of the vest with the rope of twisted black & white fondant, and added random black cow spots.
The top tier was going to represent Buzz and I used some simple cutout of electric green colored fondant, some circles of red, green and blue, and some images I printed on wafer paper and then glued to thin pieces of gum paste. I put my wafer paper images on gum paste to stop the images from running and smearing due to moisture from the buttercream.
The final step for the Buzz tier was to added those blue, green and red buttons, and to some purple accents.
Buzz's wings and Woody's star were the last elements to attach to the cake. At this point the cake was finished, but the top of the cake looked a little plain so I made a simple topper using my Cricut Explorer. I also added a red ribbon around the cake drum for the final touch.
On the other cake I made Buzz the bottom tier and Woody the top tier. Everything was pretty much the same construction-wise, with the only major difference being the decorations on the cake drum. The name Leland and the clouds were cut out my hand, and I used some discontinued Wilton letter cutters for the "Birthday".
So I think they turned out well. My grand-nephews and their moms seemed very happy with their cakes.
Happy Decorating,
Carol
Supply List:
Cake Drum
Gum Paste
Fondant
Tylose Powder
Wood Grain Impression Mat
Wilton Ribbon/Strip Cutter
Black Powder Food Color
Wilton's Buttercup Yellow Gel Color
Americolor Electric Green Gel Color
Choco Pan Purple Covering Chocolate
Choco Pan Bright White Covering Chocolate
Fondarific Black Fondant
Fondarific Red Fondant
Food Safe Extruder
Cricut Explorer 2
