Of all the novelty cakes we create our favourite to make are minion cakes! Who doesn’t love those insane, fruit obsessed, nonsensical and cute little hench-people in the Despicable Me movies? This week we had lots of fun creating a cake version of the ‘evil’ purple minion of Despicable Me 2 for a birthday party. We loved this little misfit so much we just had to post some photos of it on the blog!
We used a small 6″ hemisphere cake pan to bake the domed head and the rest of the body was made from 1 inch thick layers of three 6 inch circle cakes; all vanilla flavour. Each layer was sandwiched with our lovely and silky vanilla pod infused buttercream. We crumb coated the stacked layers and iced with custom coloured fondant / sugarpaste before transferring to a ‘metal sheet’ decorated cake drum.
Our favourite parts of the minion included creating the fun hair, ‘knobbly’ teeth, stitched pocket and rather nonchalant eyeball! Of course, we enjoyed every other aspect of this cake; from the silver lustre dust painted board and dungaree buttons to the stretched, floppy arms.
When it comes to minion cakes we love how customisable they are. We love the idea of adding towers of baked treats next to an especially gluttonous little minion or adding some fun personalised costumes for them to wear! If we had to create a pair of minions to represent the both of us they’d be balancing cake orders in fetching yet impracticable tweed ensembles. What would your minion version look like?
As discussed in June’s development post our inspiration for this month’s cake was tart, fruity flavours. Our lemon, lime and passion fruit combination naturally lead us to create a fresh, vibrant colour palette full of tonal yellows, oranges and green! The ombré buttercream technique we used combined the summer hues of lemon and yellow perfectly and baked inside the cake are flecks of lemon and lime zest to add extra flavour and bursts of bright green.
Makes approx. 2-3 x 8″ circle layers depending on thickness of each layer
7-8 free range eggs by The Happy Egg Co. depending on egg size
453g self raising flour
453g caster sugar
453g butter
Zest from 2 lemons (optional)
Zest from 2 limes (optional) Natural Lemon Extract Natural Lime Extract
Pre-heat an oven to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C.
Cream your butter in a mixer then add the sugar. Add in the flour along with half of the happy eggs for around one minute. Once half of the happy eggs are combined add the remaining eggs. Mix for about 5 minutes.
Separate your batter into two or three clean bowls (depending on how many layers you’d like) and flavour each with either lemon or lime extract (and zest if you’ve opted for this… do bear in mind that having the zest inside your cake is a little like choosing orange juice with ‘bits’).
Pour batter into an 8″ cake tin/pan around (we aim for the batter to reach 1 1/2 to 2cm in height in the tin) place on the top shelf. Bake for around 40-50 minutes or until ready. Repeat this step to create your second and third layer. When all layers are baked leave them to cool fully as you prepare your buttercream!
For the buttercream you will need…
453g butter (don’t use margarine as the water content is higher and not suitable for buttercream)
453g – 553g icing sugar (choose your own consistency and taste) Natural Passion Fruit Essence (flavour to taste)
Add half of the of butter into your mixer and cream. Then gradually add icing sugar and the remaining butter (cut into cubes) until you get a smooth, creamy texture.
Add in the passion fruit essence to taste. Separate the buttercream evenly into three clean bowls and colour each a darker shade than the last.
The ombré buttercream technique
Achieving an ombré technique with buttercream is much simpler than with fondant as any mistakes can be improved.
Step one: Before you apply your deeper toned colours use some of your lighter coloured buttercream to apply a crumb coat; this will secure any crumbs so they won’t spill out into your design.
Step two: Now your cake is covered in a thin crumb coat begin to work in bands of colour from the top down. Use a large cranked spatula to apply the remainder of your lighter coloured buttercream to the top of your cake. We were intentionally messy when decorating the top of our cake as this is a fun and simple way to add texture!
Step three: Add your two remaining colours in the same way and use a straight edge scraper to blend the buttercream on the sides of your cake for the perfect ombré finish.
This cake could be created using any three colours so don’t be afraid to experiment with your design.
We created this super fun iPhone cake yesterday! We designed this cake to have the iPhone angled out of an iPhone box to create height, dimension and a bit of amusement! Underneath it is a delicious chocolate chip cake filled with milk chocolate buttercream and smothered with chocolate ganache.
Everything sat upon this cake is handmade and all of the apps are completely edible; not to mention tiny! The iPhone apps on this cake measure 1.2cm by 1.2cm and took four hours of hunching over our design table to create them individually by hand cutting and painting each one. We included the apps for Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter too!
At the last minute we then thought it’d be playful to add a set of those iconic Apple headphones plugged into the phone. These too are edible and hand made by yours truly!
We had a lot of fun making this cake despite the hours of treatment we might need on our necks and backs. Cakes like this are exciting for us to create. They are LONG jobs (this cake took a total of 15 hours from start to finish), but when all of the little pieces begin to come together it’s a bit like magic happening!
