A Toy Story Cake for Jack

Jack is my adorable nephew. He makes me laugh all the time. Jack is turning 5 and requested "Hudis make my cake, Mommy. You help." Who could say no to that??

If this were a post on how to make the most amazing, adorable, fun, and true to theme Toy Story party boy would I have a lot to write about. My sister put together the cutest party ever!! Luckily for me my job was just the cake.

My awesome sister!

We decided to do a 3 tiered cake using a different character as the theme. so the top would be a Buzz layer, the middle a  Jessie layer, and the bottom would be for sheriff  Woody. 

Step 1: Bake two round cakes of each size. 10" 8" and 6". If you are using cake mix, bake one mix for each 10" and one mix will be enough for a 6" and an 8" so you will need a total of 4 mixes. 

Step 2: Fill and stack each size and frost with a crumb coat. Use a cake plate for each cake.

Step 3: Refrigerate each cake for 20 -30 min

I usually work in shifts in order to fit everything in my fridge, so I do fill, stack, and frost the 10" put it in the fridge. Then fill, stack, and frost the 6" put it in the fridge, then the 8". So by the time I am done the last cake the first one is ready to be covered in fondant.

Step 4: color about 36oz of fondant a golden yellow. I mixed lemon yellow with orange to achieve the desired color. Roll it out and cover the 10" cake. I used a roller tool to emboss stitching in a grid pattern. Mix about 2-4 drops of red food coloring with 1-2 tsp of water and paint over the embossed lines. To make the letters roll out white fondant and add black fondant in blobs sort of like this:

Then use cookie cutters to cut out the letters trying to get some black and white on each letter. Attach to cake with a moist paintbrush. Tint 2-3 oz of fondant a gold brown. I used some of the leftover yellow mixed with brown. Roll out and use a 5 point star cookie cutter to cut out two sheriff stars. Roll tiny balls of fondant for the point of each star. Attach with a moist paintbrush. Paint the stars with gold luster dust. Attach to cake with moistened brush on both sides of the child's name. 

Step 5: Roll out 24 oz of white fondant to cover the 8" layer. using different amounts of black fondant form freestyle blob like shapes to make a cow pattern. attach each black patch with a moistened brush. Be careful you place them since it it very hard to remove the black traces from the white fondant. 

Step 6: Tint about 10 oz of fondant a bright green color. I used kelly green with a little leaf green mixed in. Roll out and cover the cake. Tint 3 oz purple. Roll it out and cut stars in different sizes. Do the same with white fondant. Attach stars with a moistened brush. I made 2-3 stars in each size and color. 

Step 7: Prepare cake plate by gluing 3 14" cake circles together. cover with a red bandanna. Place the 12" circle on top of that. 

Step 8: Insert dowel rods into the bottom two tiers for support. Stack cakes and put on prepared cake base. Insert a sharpened  chopstick (use a pencil sharpener) or kabob stick into the top and hammer it through all the layers.

Step 9: Pipe colored frosting around the edges where each cake sits on the next tier. I used green white and yellow. Attach plastic figurines with frosting. Insert star candles on the top and pipe around toothpicks. 

Enjoy!