Mickey Mouse Novelty Cake

Difficulty  (3)

Shaped novelty cakes are very easy to make using specially shaped cake tins/moulds.  This Mickey Mouse cake was created using a Silicone Cake Mould my daughter purchased at Disneyland Paris.  Other shapes, such as trains, boats and Disney characters such as Buzz Light-year are easily obtainable to purchase.  However most cake decorating shops hire these tins for 3 to 4 days at very reasonable rates.

Silicone Moulds have the advantage in that the cooked sponge can easily be removed.  Cake release sprays are available, but I found that painting the inside with melted lard and then dusting with flour is very effective (see preparing a cake tin for a sponge cake).

The decoration is simply coloured butter icing piped using a rose nozzle.  The black icing is created by using chocolate butter icing.  Large amounts of black food colouring make the icing taste strange and I do not feel happy feeding children so much colouring.  The chocolate butter icing reduces the amount of black colouring required and gives a nice flavour.

Ingredients for the Mickey Mouse sponge cake are:

8 oz (225g) butter/margarine
8 oz (225g) caster sugar
8 oz (225) self raising flour (sifted)
4 eggs (beaten)
Half teaspoon of vanilla extract
Large baking tray to place filled mould on to cook as it is too floppy without
12” (30 cm) cake board

Set oven to 180 C, 356 F or Gas Mark 4

Beat the butter/margarine and caster sugar together until light in colour and creamy, using a wooden spoon or food mixer
Add the eggs and beat well
Add the vanilla extract
Carefully fold in the self-raising flour using a metal spoon
Spoon the mixture into the prepared mould and spread out evenly, especially in the ears
Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown.  The cake should be firm to the touch and starting to shrink from the edges of the mould
Remove from the oven and leave for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely

Butter Icing

6 oz (175) butter (softened)
12 oz (245) icing sugar
Half teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
4 oz (100g) fondant icing powder
Food colouring in red, black and pink
Piping bags and 2 rose nozzles, one small and one large

Beat the butter and icing sugar together until soft and creamy.  Put half into a bowl and set aside.  Sift the cocoa powder into the remaining butter icing and mix well.  This will now form the basis of the black icing.  Add just enough black food colouring to create a grey mixture.  Leave this for an hour to develop and become black.

Take the remaining butter icing and colour pink.  Take a tablespoon of this pink mixture and add red food colour until it is light red.  Again leave for an hour to develop.

Place the sponge cake onto the board and using the large rose nozzle, fill the piping bag with black butter icing.  Starting just above the one cheek, cover the top of mickey’s face with rosettes of black icing.  On the top of the ears, pipe a ring around the outer edge and then work inwards in circles.

Next cover lower half of eyes to make pupils, nose and outline of mouth

Next mix the powdered fondant icing with just enough water to make a very firm paste (which will hold it shape when pulled up into peaks) and pipe the whites of the eyes.

Using black and the small rose nozzle, pipe a black outline round the eyes and also a wavy line across the face under the eyes (see picture below).

Using the pink icing and the large rose nozzle, cover the rest of the face with stars

Finally using the red icing and small nozzle, fill in the mouth

If you want to personalise the cake with a name/age you could either pipe this onto the board or, as I have done, used some red fondant icing and cut the letters out using icing cutters.

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Posted by: Sheila | 05-07-2011 | 10:05 PM
Posted in: Cake Decorating | Novelty and Special Occasion Cakes | Tutorials | Comments (0)