Toy Story Mania Cake

It's tradition!  I always make birthday cakes for my children's two best friends' birthday parties.  Each year they "put their order in" and look forward to having a fancy cake to go along with their birthday theme. Apparently they think I'm some kind of professional baker because the requests are getting harder and harder.  I usually panic at first and decide there is no way I can possibly make the cake they requested (this is also true for the cakes my own kids request) but then I quickly realize that the kids don't really care if the cake is perfect which allows me to relax a little and get to work.


For Reese's Toy Story cake I knew I didn't want to attempt making a specific character.  I also work strictly with buttercream so getting that perfectly smooth fondant look is usually out of the question. 


For the bottom layer, I decided to go with a Buzz theme.  I used a butter knife as a straight edge for my lines and a large decorating tip to make circle indentations.  Then I went back and iced over them.

Bottom layer completed!

The second layer was Woody inspired.  I don't usually make layered cakes so luckily I remembered to use dowels in the two bottom layers (something I learned the hard way on a previous cake) and I put a glob of frosting underneath each layer to adhere them together.