Baby O's Mickey Mouse-Themed 2nd Birthday Cake

This is what has been occupying whatever left of my time and energy over the past few weeks...

The good side of the Mickey Mouse cake

And the whole thing which took hours and days to set up, was all over in just a few minutes!

This is a chocolate sponge cake layered with fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries decorated with fondant. My very first fondant covered cake. An unsuccessful one that is! I underestimated the time and skill required to just roll out the light blue fondant and cover the cake! On top of that, the whipped cream didn't set hard enough and the humid weather here in Penang just took the opportunity to melt the fondant on the cake before we could cut it.

I actually started molding the Mickey and Minnie figurines less than a week before the party. I had initially wanted to just buy the figurines off eBay or the toy store. A lot of eBay sellers don't ship to this part of the world (sigh!) and the toy stores don't seem to stock just Mickey and friends figurines in their original attire! Seriously didn't know that before! So I ran out of time and decided to just mold the figurines. Only Mickey and Minnie instead of all the characters from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto as I was already short of time and didn't want to challenge myself further. So using a piece of cut plastic straw, I managed to mold Mickey's head which probably was the hardest bit. Was quite pleased with the result although dear hubby calls him Mickey's cousin!

Mickey or Mickey's cousin?

Replicated the procedure and made Minnie. Then added the body, legs, shoes and arms.

The only close-up picture of the two that I took of the couple

I actually molded the Mickey Park arch, a 2D Clubhouse, stars on skewers with Baby O's name on it and other bits and bobs the following nights. Unfortunately, I now realised I have not taken a photo of them! 

The night before the party, I baked the chocolate sponge cake. I took the recipe from a friend's friend's blog. Someone I know who bakes a lot and have very successful bakes. She referred us to Kitchen Corner's fool-proof chocolate sponge cake. I only understood part of the instructions on the video but found it really helpful to see how the texture should be after each procedure! Will write what I did in another post when I find the time (and energy). Anyway, if the cake had failed, I would have gone to Secret Recipe the next day, buy a cake and just put the figurines on it!

On the morning of the party itself, I  whipped about 500ml whipping cream with a tablespoon of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla till it is stiff and used it to layer the cake with some sliced strawberries. Then covered the whole cake with whipped cream and dunk it in the fridge to set. The layers added height to the cake which I was really glad!

Love the colour contrast

While setting, I rolled out the fondant, and rolled out again as there were cracks, then rolled out again as the size wasn't big enough, and rolled out again cause some other thing happened..... When I finally got the fondant rolled out nicely, and was putting it on the cake, the fondant split. Well, like I said, I took very much longer than anticipated and was late to go and set up the place with not long till the guests arrive. Yikes! So I gave up and just left the back as it is, all patched up... 

Oh! No! Dear me, dear me!

At least the front was decent enough...

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Then it was off to the party venue and to finish assembling the rest of the items there.

The melted cake...

Anyway, the cake wasn't the highlight of the event of course but I had a lot of fun putting it together. It was something different for me to do to occupy my time. It was almost therapeutic and I certainly look forward to doing things like these though glad that the party is over and I can rest now!