Toy Story Tiered Fondant Cake

I ventured into new territory this week for my son's 2nd birthday: tiered fondant cake. It took me three days to make, but totally worth it for my little man.  This was my very first tiered cake EVER, so I'm happy that it didn't fall apart on me!  I was terrified when putting it together, but it was easier than I expected, to be honest.

He's crazy about the Toy Story movies- especially Buzz Lightyear.  When he saw the cake, he began squealing, and all he wanted to do was get really, really close to it.  I ended up having to put it back in the refrigerator before the guests arrived- he kept wanting to touch it all!  Only a few minutes after the guests arrived, we lit his two candles and cut the cake just so he could play with all the cake and toys on it.  A little backwards for a birthday party timing-wise, but it was all about making Cameron happy on his big day.  :)

The cake and frosting were store bought mixes. The fondant and gumpaste were home made. The characters were store-bought, and completely made the cake.

The stars were made with Wilton's star fondant cutters, but you could use any old star shaped cookie cutter for the same effect.  For the ones on the dark blue cake, I used yellow fondant and brushed orange matte edible dust on the tops of them.  If you look at the stars on the wallpaper in Andy's room in Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, you will notice that they have this type of coloring on them.

For the four stars on the wires at the top of the cake, they were also made with yellow fondant, but I added some Gum-Tex to harden them up a bit.  I rolled the fondant to about 1/4" thick so I could push the floral wire through them and still have stability of the decoration.  I brushed a gold iridescent edible luster dust on them to give them a shimmer effect.

The "Happy Birthday" lettering was made with cookie cutter letter shapes, using a fondant and Gum-Tex mixture.  The white clouds on the base layer of the cake and the "Cameron" lettering were cut by hand.  Using a similar font as in the Toy Story title, I printed onto paper two copies in the size I wanted of "Cameron".  I then cut out the letters- one set of letters was of the larger blue parts, and the other set of letters was of the smaller yellow letters.  After that, I rolled out my fondant to about 1/4 thick, and let it set for a bit to harden up just slightly (easier to cut!).  Using an exacto knife, I carefully traced the fondant letters around my paper template letters.  I then used a bit of water to glue the blue and yellow letters together, and let them set out overnight to harden up.  The same method was used for the number 2 at the top of the cake.

The rope detailing at the base of the top two tiers was created using a clay extruder (used only for fondant, of course!).  I used a clover-shaped piece to get the initial long shape, then gently twisted the length into a rope shape.  It was easy and quick, and made for a nice finish to the edges of the cakes.

I found a great rolled fondant recipe on allrecipes.com, which I used for the fondant and gumpaste.  The fondant was a breeze to roll out and place on the cake because I used a product called The Mat.  Check it out in action on Youtube here.  The Mat has squashed my fears of getting fondant on a cake!  I'm so confident with my fondant skills now, I can't wait for another big event to make a cake for!