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
This is precious! I made one too for a doctor’s son I work for! Turned out great thanks to your tutorial!!! Wish I could post a picture of mine!
I am so glad to hear the cake turned out great!! I would love to see how great it turned out. Please feel free to post the picture on my facebook page (www.facebook.com/blahnikbaker) or tag me on Instagram/ Twitter @BlahnikBaker
Hi Zainab! I love this cake so much, and am going to attempt it for my niece’s 2 year old birthday next week! Did you buy the gray fondant in that color for the goggle or were you able to make it with the gel colors?? I apologize if this was already asked and I missed it! Thanks!
Hi Liz! Thank you! I bought just white fondant and colored it with a little black gel paste to get the gray. Do let me know if you have any other questions! And I hope you love the cake 🙂
How tall did this end up? Concerned about transport, but I really want to do 3d rather than a sheet cake version.
Hi Joy! It’s hard to tell how tall the cake is because unfortunately I didn’t measure it. I placed it on a cake board and put the whole cake in a box. And I had my husband drive as I held the cake on my lap. I hope that helps!
thanks for the response. i planned to do it a little shorter so it would fit into my cake carrier. I have not ventured into transporting in large boxes yet, as i am not delivering to things other than stuff I attend anyway. My friends get to be the guinea pigs for my practice. They think everything is amazing even if i don’t. The only things i have sold, were cupcakes and small two layers that i could easily put into boxes.
I just trimmed as i leveled the cakes and eyeballed how to scale the decor. (all about drawing on cakes with toothpicks!) My fondant came out really soft, so the ends on my straps were not as neat as yours, and his arms are gonna be droopy, but this is my most intricate cake so far, so i’m not that concerned. I have only done simple squares and circles for fondant before.
I am still in progress, so i will try to send a pic when i finish. i live in the humid south, so that may be part to blame for the extra softness. i still prefer this MMF over rehydrating the regular fondant in my pantry!
FYI, i feel a little kinship with you as i see you are a scientist. I stopped at a master’s degree in chemistry as research was not really my thing. You are obviously very smart and talented being able to keep all this going while married and keeping up your website! Cake decorating is one of my creative outlets that also helps me fight my perfectionism. I have learned a lot about not stressing over imperfections, but also taking a little pride in seeing what i can create.
I also just saw that you have a new baby. Wow! congratulations, and double thanks on answering my question when you have so much more to focus on at the moment. I just finished my cake. I put a partially eaten cookie in his hands since this is not for a birthday and i didn’t make extra cupcakes. I actually am making this for an adult as an end of year thank you type of thing for our church group. So, no need for kids parties to have a reason for minions!
Hi joy! Thank you!! It’s crazy busy right now with a newborn but I am sure things will fall into place eventually and I will get to be around here more. I am so glad to hear you made the cake!! Yay!! And even better that it’s for an adult party..who said kids should have all the fun?? The half-eaten cookie is such a great idea 🙂
I’m doing this for my 1yr old’s bday tomorrow and I’m new to this but don’t like fondu at all so I am trying to use all frosting. I hope it turns out.. I used blue velvet for the bottom and funfetti then banana of course lol I have to work at 1pm tomorrow and the party is at 3pm. Not caring if it’s so detailed.. Just hoping it looks like one. 😀
Amber, so glad to hear you are trying this for your 1yr old. Perfection is not the goal…just the love of a homemade cake!! He will definitely love it! Hope it all goes well 🙂
could you use frosting for the whole cake instead of fondant?
Yes and that is what I used. I used frosting for the whole cake…the yellow base and used fondant just for making the decorations.
This cake looks amazing. Thanks for the instructions. I’d like to try and make it. I havent made a cake, only the basic Betty/Duncan boxes/icing. Never worked with fondant either, only ate it :). I bought 6 boxes of the higher end Duncan mix, didn’t think I should try making a cake and decorating at the same time since I never have. I was going to do a trial cake first. Do you think this cake would be somewhat easy to do if you never have made one? Would the amount of fondant you mentioned be enough to make this cake 2x?
I love the Betty Crocker mixes for cakes as they are always fast and as you said a sure bet. Just make sure you bake them in either 8-inch or 6-inch cake pans for this cake (depending on what size your pans are). I think the fondant will be more than enough as I had lots of leftovers. but to be on the cautious side, get a bit more fondant so you are not stressed if you run out. Hope it all goes well!
i love the minion cake but wonder how you cut it to serve it. Help please???
I’m going to make it in a couple weeks to take to my granddaughters when I visit.
Bette, the cake is all edible so you can really attack it anywhere you like. I started at the top and worked my way down. Hope that helps!
Great cake! Thanks for sharing! I love the detailed instructions too.
As a relatively beginning baker, I have one question that is probably obvious to most of you – when cooling the cakes before frosting, do you leave them in pans and cover, or take them out? Sorry if that’s obvious lol!!
I usually let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and cooling completely on a wire rack at room temperature. You can also wrap the cakes in plastic wrap once they cool down and refrigerate it.
Great job!! I am going to try this for my son’s 4th birthday. Amazing really!
I am so making this next week for my son’s 7th birthday!!!
Been looking for s minion cake and instructions for a month noe and yours is so cute!!!
Hope it’ll turn out as cute as yours!
Thank you so much fir posting!!!
Yay!! Do let me know how it goes. And if you need help for prep or while making it feel free to reach out here or on Facebook. Hope your little man enjoys his cake 🙂
Ya know a taster way.. Do not use fondant!! Use molding chocolate! Its taster and easier to work with.. Use NOTHING that is wilton.. That is probably why you do not like fondant.. It is also easier to MAKE your fondant and molding chocolate.. When i make cakes i use americolor colors, mericks chocolate, MY own molding chocolate and marshmellow fondant I make myself..
oh my gawd, Z!!! I love this!!!