Buzz Lightyear Cake
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Star commander will approve this Buzz Lightyear cake design. For my son’s birthday he wanted to take his friends to watch the new Toy Story 3 movie. As this movie empire keeps expanding to shorts and spin off movies and shows, the Toy Story characters and birthday themes really are a classic choice. I thought that it would be tough to put all the characters on the cake to make a toy story cake, so I asked my son which character was his favorite. He told me that Buzz Lightyear was his favorite. This is when I started to figure out his party and cake ideas and designs. This is a stunning action hero cake designed with piped buttercream icing to complete the look. |
Buzz Lightyear Cake
We ended up hosting a Toy Story Buzz Lightyear party. When designing the cake I went off the idea that my son’s favorite character is Buzz Lightyear. This was the beginning of the Buzz Lightyear cake.
I was lucky to discover that there is a Wilton cake pan shaped as Buzz Lightyear. This was a no brainer for me. The design is very intricate and I was able to use this cake pan to create the basic shape of Buzz Lightyear. When using the shape pans from Wilton you really need to be careful to grease the pan accordingly. Let the cake cool for approximately 10 minutes, or until the sides shrink in independently. Once this shrinkage happens take a cookie cooling rack and place it on your cake inorder to help flip the cake. It will pop out on its own. At times it might take a few minutes, but often it will pop out right away. If your cake has risen too much in the center you may need to cut that section off to level the cake before you flip it. Now on the side of caution, if any pieces pop out or crack just use a small amount of icing to reattach it together.
Once the cake has fully cooled you want to add an extremely thin layer of icing. This will be like a crumb catcher and help the look of your finished product as there will not be any gaps in the icing. The difficult part was that there are lots of lines to create on the Buzz Lightyear character. The first and most important step that I did was to use black icing with tip #3 (which is a small thin line) to create the outline of all the small and large details on this Buzz Lightyear cake.
Once the lines were on the cake really it was just like color by number and fill in all the pieces. I had pre-made all of my icing that I was going to use for the Buzz Lightyear cake. I put all the different colors needed into the piping bags and then I store it in a tupperware container in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cold. I find icing when piping works best when it is cool.
I must admit I felt like there were lots of colors to go on the cake (black, blue, white, green, red, yellow, purple and gray). I mixed all the colors myself using the Wilton colors into my homemade buttercream icing and it was really easy!
I also used my new toy, the Wilton Trim n’ Turn Ultra. It was fantastic! It is like a medium sized turntable. This way I was able to stay still and turn the cake to the angle that best worked when icing. I was actually surprised how often I turned to cake to look at it from all angles. It also made it much easier to jump around the cake to apply all of the different colors. What a great discovery the turntable was for speed and accuracy while icing the Buzz Lightyear birthday cake.
When applying the different colors I use the piping tip that has slits around the tip. I used tips 1, 3, 13, and 21. As it is mainly different colored stars that are repeated, once you get the knack of it, you just keep repeating the star shape over and over. As a suggestion try a few stars on a plate to test before attempting the design on your cake.
My little space ranger loved this Toy Story cake. The Buzz Lightyear party was a success and my son and his friends had a blast. If you are looking for some great Toy Story party ideas please check out our selection of party ideas. Best of luck with your cake. I truly believe that Star Commander would approve of this Buzz Lightyear cake.
Star commander will approve this Buzz Lightyear cake design. For my son’s birthday he wanted to take his friends to watch the new Toy Story 3 movie. As this movie empire keeps expanding to shorts and spin off movies and shows, the Toy Story characters and birthday themes really are a classic choice. I thought that it would be tough to put all the characters on the cake to make a toy story cake, so I asked my son which character was his favorite. He told me that Buzz Lightyear was his favorite. This is when I started to figure out his party and cake ideas and designs. This is a stunning action hero cake designed with piped buttercream icing to complete the look.
Buzz Lightyear Cake
We ended up hosting a Toy Story Buzz Lightyear party. When designing the cake I went off the idea that my son’s favorite character is Buzz Lightyear. This was the beginning of the Buzz Lightyear cake.
I was lucky to discover that there is a Wilton cake pan shaped as Buzz Lightyear. This was a no brainer for me. The design is very intricate and I was able to use this cake pan to create the basic shape of Buzz Lightyear. When using the shape pans from Wilton you really need to be careful to grease the pan accordingly. Let the cake cool for approximately 10 minutes, or until the sides shrink in independently. Once this shrinkage happens take a cookie cooling rack and place it on your cake inorder to help flip the cake. It will pop out on its own. At times it might take a few minutes, but often it will pop out right away. If your cake has risen too much in the center you may need to cut that section off to level the cake before you flip it. Now on the side of caution, if any pieces pop out or crack just use a small amount of icing to reattach it together.
Once the cake has fully cooled you want to add an extremely thin layer of icing. This will be like a crumb catcher and help the look of your finished product as there will not be any gaps in the icing. The difficult part was that there are lots of lines to create on the Buzz Lightyear character. The first and most important step that I did was to use black icing with tip #3 (which is a small thin line) to create the outline of all the small and large details on this Buzz Lightyear cake.
Once the lines were on the cake really it was just like color by number and fill in all the pieces. I had pre-made all of my icing that I was going to use for the Buzz Lightyear cake. I put all the different colors needed into the piping bags and then I store it in a tupperware container in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cold. I find icing when piping works best when it is cool.
I must admit I felt like there were lots of colors to go on the cake (black, blue, white, green, red, yellow, purple and gray). I mixed all the colors myself using the Wilton colors into my homemade buttercream icing and it was really easy!
I also used my new toy, the Wilton Trim n’ Turn Ultra. It was fantastic! It is like a medium sized turntable. This way I was able to stay still and turn the cake to the angle that best worked when icing. I was actually surprised how often I turned to cake to look at it from all angles. It also made it much easier to jump around the cake to apply all of the different colors. What a great discovery the turntable was for speed and accuracy while icing the Buzz Lightyear birthday cake.
When applying the different colors I use the piping tip that has slits around the tip. I used tips 1, 3, 13, and 21. As it is mainly different colored stars that are repeated, once you get the knack of it, you just keep repeating the star shape over and over. As a suggestion try a few stars on a plate to test before attempting the design on your cake.
My little space ranger loved this Toy Story cake. The Buzz Lightyear party was a success and my son and his friends had a blast. If you are looking for some great Toy Story party ideas please check out our selection of party ideas. Best of luck with your cake. I truly believe that Star Commander would approve of this Buzz Lightyear cake.
