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.  

The top layer was made to look like Andy's room of course!  

The birthday boy really wanted a big 5 candle.  I added two of his character toys he already owned and the cake was finished! 

Ta-dah!  One Toy Story Mania birthday cake!  It's not anywhere near perfect but when Reese saw it he said it was "exactly what he wanted".  I'm thrilled that he liked it so much.  Let's just hope next year's request will be one I can manage.  I'm hoping for a pirate cake....I can definitely do a pirate cake...