Making a Minion Cake {Beyond the Oven}
Making a minion cake is so much fun! The little ones in your life will love this whimsical cake, and you will too, because it is delicious.
Hey guys! A few weeks ago I made a minion cake for my 13- year old niece’s birthday party and posted it in one of my weekend series. You all loved it and loved it even more on Facebook. With all the requests for a HOW-TO, I figured I should let you in on how easy it was to make this minion cake so you can WOW your loved ones too! But first let me start by saying, I was not planning on blogging this, so I did not take detailed step-by-step pictures of everything. So please bear with me as I explain in words where the pictures do not go.
First of all, here is what you will need to make this minion cake:
1) – Your favorite chocolate cake recipe, baked to make:
- 3 6-inch round cakes
- 1 6-inch cake, baked in a hemisphere pan (aka a ball pan)
- I used my chocolate cake recipe to bake three 6-inch round cakes, one 6-inch half-ball and a few cupcakes for display.
**Note: if you want a bigger cake, use 3 8-inch round cakes and 1 8-inch cake baked in a hemisphere pan and double the recipe above.
2) – Your favorite frosting, colored yellow. Find mine HERE.
**Note: I decided not to cover the entire cake in fondant because I dislike the taste of fondant and would rather have people enjoy the birthday cake. So I went the frosting route. Feel free to buy more yellow fondant to cover your cake instead of yellow buttercream frosting.
3) – Fondant:
- 1 pound white, 1 pound yellow, 1 pound blue fondant
- OR 2 pounds white fondant (instead of buying the individual colors, you can color the white with blue and yellow gel color pastes)
- Black gel coloring, blue gel coloring
Directions:
- Bake your cakes the day before. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill overnight. It’s always easier to work with chilled cakes.
- The next day, make your frosting. I used my basic whipped vanilla buttercream colored with a few drops of yellow Wilton Icing Colors
- Fill your cake with your frosting.
Crumb coat your cake with frosting. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Frost cake with a thick coat of frosting. Smooth frosting as much as possible. Chill frosted cake for an hour or two to harden frosting. It must be hardened before you can proceed. (Again, you can cover your cake in yellow fondant if you choose to here and skip frosting the cake. Just get a pound of yellow pre-colored fondant)
While the cake chills, make all the features to bring the minion cake to life.
First you will need to color your fondant as needed using gel paste colors. You will need yellow, blue, black and gray. Here are the components:
- One white circle for the eye (with blue pupil!). Some people do two eyes, so you can here.
- A gray band for the goggles which I wrapped around to make it 3-D
- One black headband. I’m going to call it a headband, but it’s the black band you see coming from the goggles.
- Two arms with attached black hands. Here just roll out logs of yellow fondant into sausage like rolls and for the hands, we just sculpted them free-hand.
- Tongue and lip: free style sculpt these
- Blue overalls: For this we had four blue rectangular bands detailed with a toothpick. Two squares (one big and one small) for the front of the overalls. And two buttons. Note the front mirrors the back but you do not have to do the overalls at the back.
- Two feet. These are just two blue stubs that were sculpted to look like feet.
- Black hair: small rolls of black fondant on toothpicks. I used the toothpicks to attach them to the top of the cake.
Finally, assemble all the parts. I used edible glue (gumpaste dissolved in water) to attach the fondant to the cake.
So there you have it. The completed minion cake. It looks wonderful doesn’t it?
Again, I apologize for the lack of pictures of the assembly. But I hope the step-by-step descriptions will help you. I had tons of help from my husband in the assembling and that made it easier to hold things down. If you have any questions please let me know in the comments below.
On close look, it’s not perfect (torn band, uneven edges etc) but that doesn’t matter. My niece loved it!! She was over the moon and everyone at the party was amazed by the cake. Hope you will make this cake for a loved one who enjoys the minions or at your next minion themed party. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below. Oh: this cake served up to 25 people at our party with plenty leftover.
Tools I used in this recipe: (some affiliate links included)
**This post contains affiliate links. Just FYI!**
Read more at https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2014/03/april-kitchen-challenge-eclairs.html
Read more at https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2014/03/april-kitchen-challenge-eclairs.html
Love the cake! Did you use any kind of reinforcement between the layers?
I added one dowel in the middle to hold the cakes together. But you can add some more if you think you need more reinforcement 🙂
Totally just made this cake for my daughters first birthday, not as pretty as yours but it is the first cake I have made and makes me happy. I also only used fondant for arms and legs I improvised for every thing else. Thanks for the basic outline=).
Theresa I’m so glad to hear this!! Your girl is going to love it because it’s full of love! Using less fondant is such a good idea…I dislike the taste of that thing. Less is best. Thanks again for letting me know how yours turned out!!
I just made this cake for my daughters 6th birthday party tomorrow. Thank so much for posting this, as I copied it as far as I could. I would put a photo but not sure how??
Anyway, it was easier than it looks and didn’t take as long as I thought it would. And it looks awesome!
Cath, thank you so much for letting me know!! I am so glad to hear the instructions were helpful and your cake turned out great. Hope your daughter has a wonderful birthday party! Feel free to email me a photo (I would love to see it) at blahnikbaker@gmail.com
Thanks for the guide and pics – this is super helpful. I made this cake this week for a friend’s birthday and it came out great – everyone enjoyed it.
http://oreouk.livejournal.com/247322.html should you want to see.
Thank you so much for letting me know! Your cake looks AMAZING! So glad that everyone enjoyed it!
Such an adorable cake! Thinking of trying it for my son’s 3rd birthday if he doesn’t change his mind on the theme again!
Just wondered, you said you used liquid edible glue to attach fondant to cake- did you have to use any extra reinforcement to hold the eye? It looks a little heavy- did you need toothpicks or anything extra?
Thanks!
Hi Andrea, I used the edible glue (gumpaste and water) to attach everything except the hair on the top that’s toothpick. But what a great idea to reinforce the eyes with some toothpicks. That will help a lot. I hope your son loves the cake 🙂
About how many people would you say this would feed?
We fed about 20 people and there was quite a bit left. So I will estimate 25 people.
This cake is amazing! I’ve been looking for a minion cake to make for my brothers birthday and I will definitely be making this one! Just the perfect height and with butter icing 🙂
I hope you get to make it soon!!
Hi, this cake looks amazing! What did you use to make the dome part of the head? I’m thinking of making this but only have regular cake tins
Hi Meg, I used a ball cake pan to do the dome part. Wilton makes one and I bought mine at Micheal’s craft store. Hope that helps.
Awesome! I am copying your cake for my son’s birthday this weekend. Thanks for the instructions.
Yay! Let me know if you have any questions as you make it!
This is a great cake! Going to make it next summer for the new Minion movie coming out! What tip did you use for the frosting on the cupcake?
Thanks!
I hope you love it when you make this! I used Wilton tip 1M for the cupcakes.
Great cake! Just a little tip…if you want your icing to look perfectly smooth like fondant, after you smooth as best you can with your spatula, let it “crust” a bit (5-10 minutes air dry) then take a small, non-porous, sponge paint roller and gently roll over the buttercream-smooths it to perfection! You can also use a plain, non-quilted paper towel to blot/rub it smooth, but I personally think the roller is easier/better.
Hey, I loved this! and my son just turned two yesterday and we are having a small gathering on Saturday and will be trying to make this since he love the “bananas” like he calls the minions! Yours looks amazing and hoping ours comes out the same way!