Minion Cake Tutorial

Who like Minions? MEEEEE!!!!! One of the best part of my jobs is to make cakes fun, and especially when it's a fun cartoon character. :)

Recently I've got a request to make a Minion cake. As a cake decorator, I find myself to be very picky when it comes to replicating a design that is well known. The proportion and shapes have to be right; otherwise the end product will look awkward. It is different than if you were to create something, the design is totally yours, there's nothing else to reference to. Therefore, I'm sharing with you tips on how to make the the foundation cake.

1. Figure out the size of your cake

- I'm making the cake approximately 10" tall.

- I printed out an image of the Minion; make sure the body comes out approximately 10" in length (height). Then measure the width, which came out to be 7". Now you get an idea of how big you're making your foundation cake; by using 7" cake pans, and bake however many layers that it takes to build up to a 10" tall cake.

- Your cake layer maybe 3/4" thick, or 1", or 1.5". Just make sure you have enough cake layers. - Cake out the shape of Minion's body and its outline as template for later use.

2. Stacking and crumb coating

- Carefully stack and crumb coat the cake layers evenly.

- In this photo, I've trimmed off the side of the cake, to make the cake smaller than the 7" cake board. - Chill the cake for at least a few hours, so it will be a lot easier for you shape the cake later.

3. Trim the cake - Use the Minion body template, you'll get an idea of how much to trim on top of the cake and bottom of the Minion body. - Notice most Minion cakes out there keep the cake as a tube with just a round top. Trim the bottom edge gives your Minion cake a nice touch of detail! Give him a butt will ya?! ;)

4. Crumb coating the trimmed cake

- Before chilling the cake, seal it. Crumb coat the cake with a thin layer of buttercream. I used two different bench scraper. Use the large one to do an over all body shaping, a small one that does a rough shaping for the head and butt area.

5. Frost - Add a nice layer, of buttercream to help giving the cake more structure. - Chill the cake over night.

6. Measure - Take your Minion body outline template next to the frosted and chilled cake. Get an idea if you need to fix anything, check the shape of the Minion head, straight lines on the side of Minion's body, curve on the bottom of the Minion butt. - Cake right now is nice and chilled, perfect timing to make sure the surface is smooth, free of cavity to prevent air pockets.

7. Fondant

- Cover the cake with fondant and trim fondant.

8. Set it on stage! - Set and glue the cake on a cake board. - Make sure to let it sit for a bit, let glue dry, so the cake doesn't move.

9. Cover cake board and put Minion's pants on! - Roll out a wide strip of fondant and cover the cake board. - Roller another thin strip of fondant if the edge wasn't perfect; in this case, I had to do this layer to make sure the edge was nice and clean. - Use your Minion body template, the guide will tell you how wide to make a blue strip to cover around the bottom of Minion's body. PS. My #1 cake board rule is ALWAYS cover the cake board. Not only the final presentation looks good, the cake board won't out shine your cake! Literally! :) And don't forget about the ribbon too!

10. Decorate your Minion - Now the body is all done, rest is up to you guys! One eye, two eyes, hats, flower, any type accessory, etc. - Use plastic wrap like your best friend. You can't hold their little arms, legs, and feet until they set in place. Use the plastic wrap, wrap around the body to help holding their arms and feet up. - Paint the goggle with silver dust.

11. Finishing - Customize it, add any kind of extra decorations to your Minion. Make the over all design look fuller, then you're all set! :)