Minnie Mouse Cake Design

🧾Supplies Required

• Cake – this was a 7-inch round cake, baked using my chocolate cake recipe. And Minnie Mouse's 3D head was also cake. I baked it in a stainless steel bowl, also using my chocolate cake recipe.
• Buttercream – I used buttercream to fill the bottom tier as well as to crumb coat the entire cake.
• Fondant – I used Satin Ice in 3 colors, namely baby pink , black and white .
• CMC – I used CMC to help my fondant set firmer and harder. I added CMC for Minnie Mouse's ears, the bow on Minnie’s head, and the name plaque in black around the cake.
• Flower plunger cutter - I used this cutter to cut out tiny flowers that were placed on the cake board to hold the candles.
• Extruder tool – to pipe out the pink strip of fondant for the birthday girl’s name.
• Round cutters – I used these for Minnie Mouse’s ears as well as the polka dots on the Minnie Mouse cake design.
• Lollipop sticks – These were what I used to hold Minnie Mouse’s ears in place.
• Disney font template – I did a search on the internet for Disney font, printed the letters that spell the birthday girl’s name, and used it as a template for my cake.  Before printing, I resized to make sure they are in the exact same size I wanted them on the cake. Click here to learn how to resize images for cake decorating.
• Fondant glue

👩‍🍳How to Make

Step 1: Make the Bow for the 3D Minnie Mouse Head Cake

I did the bow for this cake design in advance. I made it using fondant that has been added CMC. In making the bow, I used the stainless steel bowl I used to bake the semi-circle cake (i.e. Minnie's head) as a guide so that once set, the bow could fit well on Minnie Mouse’s head. You can refer to this tutorial to learn how to make the bow.

Step 2: Make the Name Plaque

I also did the name plaque for this cake design in advance. To do this, I cut out the letters I printed and arranged them to make the birthday girl's name. I glued the name to a large piece of paper. And then, I drew a line one inch away from the letters. This was how I decided on the shape of the black name plaque. I cut the shape following the outline and used it as a template to cut out my black fondant piece.

To form the curved shaped for the plaque, I rested the black cut out on the sides of a 9 inch styrofoam cake dummy to allow it to set in a curved shape. Before kneading and cutting the black plaque, I added CMC to it so that it dries hard.

Next were the letters. Again, I used my printouts as a guide to form each letter. I used my extruder tool fitted with a small circle disc and piped long strips of pink fondant. I then guided the strip by hand to follow the shape of the letters on my template. Where there are joints or connections,  I used glue to connect them. Once all the letters were completed, I left them aside to set a little. And then, I slowly lifted them and arranged them on the name plaque which was still on the cake dummy.

Next, I carefully applied glue to the bottom of each letter and attached them to the name plaque. I left the plaque with the letters on it to set and dry completely while decorating the rest of the Minnie cake.

Step 3: Make Minnie Mouse's Fondant Ears

Next were Minnie Mouse’s ears. I also made these in advance so that on the day I put them on the cake, they are all set and firm and able to hold their shape. These were cut out using large round cutters in black fondant.

Similar to the bow and the name plague, I kneaded some CMC to the fondant. I attached a lollipop stick to each ear so that it is easier to hold them in place on the cake.

Step 4: Assemble the Minnie Mouse Cake

As for the cake, once completely cooled, I leveled the tops. for the bottom round tier which consists of 2 cake layers, I filled them with buttercream and crumb coated with a thin layer of buttercream.

For the semi round cake, I was just one layer, hence I crumb coated it with buttercream. I covered both the cakes with fondant, separately. For the bottom tier cake, I used pink fondant. And then I added white fondant polka dots randomly all over.

For the 3D head shaped cake, I used black fondant. And then I tier constructed it on the base cake (with bubble straws).

For the cake border, I attached a thin black strip for the top tier and pink strip for the bottom tier.

Next to go on the cake was the fondant plaque. Since it was heavy, making it stand upright without any support was quite hard. I had to support the front with a strip of white fondant at the base.

And then I added 2 layers of the fondant strip at the back of it. And I used fondant glue to hold all the components together. While waiting for the glue to set completely, I supported the plaque with my food coloring bottles. I arranged them in a row, on the front and back so that the plaque set straight.

Step 5: Attach Minnie's Ears onto the Cake

Once the plaque was stable, I completed 3D Minnie Mouse themed cake tier by poking the ears into place and gluing the bow. The bow was attached using fondant glue. The fact that Minnie Mouse’s ears were at the back made it so much easier to attach the bow as the ears helped to support the bow while the glue was drying.

Finally, I cut out tiny flowers in pink fondant. I attached them to the cake board, at the back of the cake. And while the fondant was still soft, I poked the candles into the center of each flower. For this purpose, I cut the flowers quite thick.

And that's pretty much how I completed my Minnie Mouse cake design.