Toy Story Cake and Cupcakes

I loved making this cake!  7 Toy Story characters:  Woody, Jessie, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky the Dog, Buttercup the Unicorn, Ham the Piggy Bank, and Rex the Dinosaur.  Plus, 2 dozen assorted cupcake toppers, 2 cubes with their ages on it, a wood grained board, a name banner, a bracelet, and Happy Birthday piped in the Walt Disney font...phew!

Woody's and Jessie's head and torso were modeled using RKT (Rice Krispy Treats) and the recipe I used can be found here under the Barney and Friends Cake as well as under the How to Make Modeling Chocolate post.  They were then covered in modeling chocolate and molded into shape by hand.  Modeling chocolate works wonderfully in filling in all the grooves and creveses from the RKT and at the same time, gives you a smooth surface and easy surface to mold and model.

 

The bodies were covered in modeling chocolate then decorated with MMF mixed with Tylose.  The stripes on Woody's shirt were painted with gel paste food color mixed with almond extract (you can use vodka).  I used bamboo skewers down the body and into the dummy to dry (and into the cake later) to help support them in place.

 

Woody's boots were hand molded (I made it up as I did them trying to find a way to make them light weight since they were going to be attached to the side of the cake...They turned out and worked perfectly).  Woody's legs slid right into the boots and I used clear piping gel to attach it to the legs and up against the cake.

I also made 24 Cupcake Toppers using a 1.5" round biscuit cutter.  These were done 3 days prior to allow plenty of time to dry hard.

Made Mr. Potato Head piece by piece with MMF mixed with Tylose...same thing with each of the other characters.

Covered the board with MMF.  I marbled MMF in different shades of tan and brown then cut it out into 3" wide panels and laid them side by side to look like a wooden floor.  Once it was all dried, I dusted it with Dogwood Brown Petal Dust to give it more depth which you can see in the final photo below in the assembled cake.  I also have another post about wood panels named, Wine Bottle in a Crate Cake.

 

The red tier is a RKT rather than a cake since they originally didn't need much cake (4 days before the due date, we added 2 dozen additional cupcakes and I just kept the top tier as a RKT).  The top tier is also covered in Red MMF made with candy melts.  See post called, Red Marshmallow Fondant.

I was not happy with how the blue MMF on the bottom tier turned out.  It was very humid and the pieces were rather heavy.  I had covered the cake and let it sit for about 4 hours before decorating it but it was still really soft and the decorations stretched the MMF and made it look saggy and wrinkly - I had never had this happen before and was really bummed out (the back of the cake looked perfect).  Luckily the cubes were placed on either side of Mr. Potato Head and helped to disguise it a little bit.  The cubes were made with RKT and covered also in modeling chocolate.

The cake was a 9" round Chocolate/Vanilla marbled Sour Cream Cake filled with Oreo Buttercream.  The top tier was a 6" round RKT.  Chocolate and Vanilla cupcakes were topped with Oreo Buttercream.


Recipe:  Oreo Buttercream is one of my favorite.  Just take Oreo Cookies, scrape off the cream center and crumble the cookie in a food processor (the more cookies you use the stronger the flavor).  Fold into your buttercream or IMBC/SMBC, spread and enjoy!

Tip:  I also crumb coat the entire cake with the Oreo Cookie Buttercream then add a final layer of plain buttercream over it (as you can see in the photo above) so that any crumbs of the cookie won't show through the MMF - you don't have to worry about any "chunks" showing through.  For tips and photo's on how to get the tall, straight sides and really flat tops, see my post named, Covering a Cake in Ganache.  I use this same technique with buttercream, IMBC, and ganache.