Carson’s birthday theme is Toy Story, not patriotic even though his birthday is the 4th of July.  I made Toy Story Birthday Invitations, and I am making a Toy Story birthday cake from scratch.

Day 1 – So I searched online in Google Images for Toy Story Birthday cakes to get some inspiration and decided on doing a three tier cake instead of just a simple sheet cake decorated like Andy’s bed.  Since I moved to Omaha, all my cake decorating supplies didn’t make it here, long story, I took this opportunity to go ahead and plan two cakes with the same pans (Becca turns 16 3 days after Carson turns 1) and with a lot of the same colors.  So I got to go shopping for new cake decorating supplies. The supply list for Carson’s cake:

• 10 inch square Wilton Cake Pan
• 6 inch round Wilton Cake Pan
• 8 inch round Wilton Cake Pan
• 1 Package Wilton Dowel Rods
• 12 – 16 inch disposable decorating bags
• Pure White Rolled Fondant
• Star Fondant Cutters
• Wilton Cake Leveler
• Wilton icing colors – yellow, blue, lime, purple, black
• Decorating Tips (exact ones used I will post later)

For the accessories to decorate it, I chose to use, Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Rex and the Army Men. We did go back on forth between Rex and Bullseye and decided that Rex would be more fun for Carson to play with right now. So he won out.

I found a cowboy candle set at Hobby Lobby and little green alien sugar pieces there as well, so I am using those if I need to fill any space on the cake.

Now usually I would make my cake from scratch, but I just don’t have the time this weekend.  So I am using Betty Crocker Butter Yellow and Butter Chocolate cake mixes.  Now I must make this clear, I think the butter mixes taste more homemade and I love the texture over the standard oil cake mixes.  Since I am trying to manage my time as best as I can with the need for multiple cakes this week, I chose to use two Yellow mixes and two Chocolate mixes.  This will give me enough for all three tiers of Carson’s main cake, a second 6 inch cake for Carson’s destroy it cake and an additional baking of the 8 inch round for Becca’s cake.

When preparing the cake mix, I am very exact in my process.  Regardless if I am making my cake from scratch or a box, there are certain things that must be done in order to turn out a moist delicious cake.  I take out my butter and eggs and let them sit until they reach room temperature.  I will then combine all the wet ingredients before adding the cake mix.  I also add in a box of pudding to my cake mix, chocolate in the chocolate cake mix and vanilla in the yellow.  Now sometimes I will mix that up and add a flavor like coconut cream pudding or banana, but for Carson’s cakes I am sticking with the standards.  I then beat my batter for around 4 to 5 minutes, it should look like a thick chocolate mousse and not be runny at all.  It should require the use of a spatula to put in the pans.  And speaking of the pans, I either use Pam spray or Crisco shortening in my pans, and then dust them with a little of the cake mix and not flour.  It makes for a better taste and no extra white flour on the outside of the cakes.

I made the 6 inch round and the  10 inch square both chocolate, and the 8 inch round yellow.  After those have baked, I let them cool completely, and I mean completely, in the pans on a wire rack.  Once those cooled, I flip them out and start the process of getting them prepared to be decorated.  For my style of decorating, is a two day process.  It could be shorter, but I don’t like being rushed when putting together a cake, so I try to plan for three days for any cake that is going to be more than just a sheet cake.  I level the top of the cake, using the Wilton Cake Leveler, once the top is nice and flat, I go ahead and move the wire down to a position so I can split the cake into two layers.  Once it is cut, I place both pieces on wax paper and stack them.  I continue to do this for all the layers, once all cakes are cut and stacked, I put them in the freezer.  This where they are all at right now, freezing solid for tomorrow’s next steps.  The filling, stacking and icing.

Day 2 – I am going to go ahead and start this portion of the post, as it requires planning.  Since I am layering each tier, I have to decide what I want to use for my cake filling.  I can tell you that this can be more difficult when you are not just thinking of what you would like.  For instance, I would LOVE to do an Espresso Buttercream filling for the top chocolate layer, but not a good idea with a bunch of kids.  So after much debate I decided on two very kid friendly Cake filling choices.  For the chocolate cakes I am making and filling them with Cookies and Cream Buttercream cake filling, and for the Yellow cake tier, I am making and filling it with a Chocolate Ganache filling.  Both fillings are easy enough, but the Ganache does take more time to set, so I will make that first thing in the morning, so it is ready later in the day when I am ready to work on the cake again.  I will post the recipes tomorrow for the filling, as they need to be in a separate post so I can make sure to give exact details on how to make them.

Recipes - Buttercream Cake Filling Recipes – Chocolate Ganache Cake Filling Recipe

Ok so it is the end of Day 2 and I got a little head of myself and finished the three tier cake today.  I still have his destroy cake to finish, but I will do it tomorrow.  So here are the next steps in completing the Toy Story Birthday Cake.

If you follow my instructions on the Recipes page for the fillings, then you will be all set.  So for this particular cake:  I made a single recipe of the Chocolate Ganache filling, and filled the yellow middle tier and Carson’s personal birthday cake with it.  I still have leftovers of it as well, which I will use on Becca’s cake.  For the two chocolate tiers, I used the Cookiesand Cream Buttercream cake filling.  I doubled the basic buttercream filling recipe, because I needed some for the filling, and more for icing and decorating.

It is always a good idea to taste test your icing as well, and at my house I don’t need to ask…. After passing everyone’s approval, the cakes were ready to be filled.

I took the cakes out of the freezer, and filled each tier:

After being filled, each tier was put back in the freezer to set, and I started coloring the buttercream icing.  The first tier to get  iced was the bottom.  After icing it, it was placed back in the freezer and each of the other layers were iced and also put back in the freezer.  I also measured my dowel rods at this point and had Pat cut them for me.

After they set, I took them out of the freezer and placed the dowel rods in.  I then took a chunk of fondant and colored it with black Wilton coloring.  Making a cow print blanket out of fondant is a little complicated because you want nice crisp edges to your black.  I rolled black shapes and white shapes, put them together and then using a rolling pin, rolled it out to get the size I wanted.  After I was happy with my “cow blanket” I placed it on the bottom tier, then stacked my additional tiers.  From there I went ahead and piped a shell border in three different colors along the edge of each layer, and wrote on it.

So I went ahead and did a “mock” run with all the toys in place to see how the final cake would look, and here it is: