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
How did you cut it for serving slices to your guests? Actually I’m not aware of how to slice a cake shaped like minion or doll cake… Can you please guide me..and did you use dowls for securing the cake?
Hi! I did use dowels to secure the cake. I was able to cut it starting at the bottom. The bottom cake is a round cake so easy to slice. I am not sure why it is hard to cut. It’s a cake…just slice it when it is time to enjoy the cake!
Hi. I LOVE this cake!! i want to try it for a friends birthday next month. But i was wondering, i always read that you should wait till the very last minute to put fondant decorations on a cake. could you please tell me why? how long before eating the cake did you put the fondant on? could i do it a few hours before the party? Thank you so much for you help!!
Have a great day 🙂
Hi Amanda! I haven’t heard that before but I don’t work with fondant very frequently. Since this cake has fondant just for the decorations, you can do it the day before and still have it being fine. I made this cake the day before the party and the fondant attachments were just fine the next day. My guess for that reasoning would be that the fondant ‘sweats’ on a cake that is completely covered with fondant. But that would depend on whether the fondant was attached with gumpaste glue or just buttercream. Either way, this is not a concern here.
So I made this cake Zainab and it was amazing! Didn’t look as good as yours but was pretty good and also your chocolate cake recipie was amazing – one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever eaten! Thank you so so much! I would show you but I’m not sure how to post pictures.
Ps my two year old son who is minion obsessed, loved it!
Sonia! I am so happy to hear that. So glad it came out great. I would love to see it. It could be easier to post images on Facebook or Instagram and tag me (@blahnikbaker). Thanks for letting us all know you loved it!
The cake recipe you posted is for 8″ rounds. Did you use a deeper round pan for the extra cake batter for the 6″ rounds you made, or did you use 6″ x 2″ ? Thank you.
I used a 6 x 2 for the cake rounds and had enough extra cake batter for the dome top and cupcakes.
Up to 25 with a 6″ how many do you think with a 8″ I am using center support and putting two layers a board then top two layers! I am covering in fondant so will be heavier than just icing
Cathy, are you asking how many people it would serve? Close to 35 is my guess but you will have to use your best judgement.
I cant wait to make this cake for my sons 1st birthday…. looks easy
Great looking minion! I am about to make this for my grandson’s 7th birthday. How did you cut the cake to get so many pieces? That is the only thing I am having trouble imagining – did you cut it in half from top to bottom and then cut slices? Would love to know. Thanks!
Hi Susan! I hope your grandson loves the cake. I cut it from top to bottom just as you imagined and it was easy.
Beautiful cake!! Can you please tell me how deep your 6 inch pans are?
I am going to make this cake but considering getting 2inch deep pans but I see there are also 3 inch deep pans.
Thanks soo much!!
My 6-inch pans are 2-inch deep and they were fine. I hope it turns out great!
I’m going to attempt to make this cake for my niece and nephew’s bday party. I got all the ingredients but I did not get a dowel for support. I’ve never made more than a 2 layer cake. Is internal support absolutely necessary?
Cindy, they are helpful for structure and support with transportation. If you wont be moving it much then I will say they are not necessary. But you could also improvise at home…I actually used skewers to hold mine together but recommend you use dowels since they are stronger.
Thank you so much for sharing your gorgeous minion cake. Your minion cake was my go-to reference and inspiration for my child’s birthday cake. I’ve never made anything like it before and there were some hiccups along the way but ultimately we ended up with a sweet little Bob minion, a bit rough around the edges but loved and adored all the same! I would love to try this on a mini scale with rounds cut from a slab (tray bake) cake and stacked together in the same way. Thanks again and happy baking!
Karen, I am so happy to hear you made this cake!! So glad it turned out great and was loved. Who cares about the imperfections? Your baby I am sure did not! Thanks for coming back and sharing 🙂
hello love the cake it’s amazing, I just had a quick question. Is the recipe you have given enough for the three tins plus hemisphere tin too? Thank you in advance :).
Hi Gee. Yes the chocolate recipe above is enough for the three tins (8-inch tins).
I am going to make this cake for my son’s bday. He has food allergies so mine will be a bit more customized to follow his dietary needs. I was wondering how you stored the cake once completed. We will be going to a jump house place for his party and it will need to teavel. I am assuming it will be too tall do the cake container I have and possibly ly too tall for the fridge. Did you wrap the finished cake in plastic?
Hi Laura! I’m glad you are going to try this. I stored the cake in the fridge overnight…I had to remove one shelf from from the fridge for it to fit. And I just held it in my hand for travel…my husband drove and I had the cake (on a cake board) on my lap the 1hr drive to my sister’in-law’s. However I will suggest you put it in a large box. And make sure it fits snuggly in the box and place that box on the floor of your car. It should be safe. Hope that helps. Oh and no I didn’t wrap it in plastic when I stored it. It was just overnight so I wasn’t too worried for the cake.
Thank you! Made this for my sons first and it was a hit. He burst into laughter when he saw it.
I’m so glad to hear you loved the cake!!