Character Cakes

Back when I was a kid, character cakes were very popular. Wilton had an extensive line of cartoon- and muppet-inspired pans, including Winnie the Pooh and Cookie Monster. I don't remember ever having one for my birthday, but my sister remembers having two -- Mickey Mouse and Oscar the Grouch. In contrast, the cake that stands out in my memory is a snowman cake that came from the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library and was made from two rounds. 

It is still possible to buy character cake pans today and you actually are able to rent them from Bulk Barn -- Elmo is currently hanging on the wall of the location nearest to me. Over the past twenty years, however, novelty cakes have generally become more and more sophisticated. These days, they could be intricately carved or sculpted to look like something else, employ a comic book style with black outlines that make the cake appear two dimensional, or create the illusion of the cake floating or defying gravity. Particularly popular for a few years was "caking" the giant version of favourite candy bars, like KitKat or Mars. Entire YouTube channels -- like How to Cake It, MyCupcakeAddiction, and Man About Cake (to name only a few) -- have been devoted to the topic. 

When I took the Wilton cake decorating courses about ten or so years ago, we learned the technique used for the original character cakes, covering the surface with small piped stars to show the detail of the pan. We practiced this, however, on a flat 8" round. While I remember being capable of the piping technique, until about a year ago, it never really occurred to me to try it on an actual character cake. I watched a YouTube creator trying to make a 3D Garfield cake using a vintage Wilton pan set. Instantly, I had serious FOMO. As I recall, his cake was a bit of a disaster, but being a Garfield lover, I started wondering if I could find a pan online.

I looked at eBay, PoshMark, and Etsy. It wasn't difficult to find a Garfield pan and, in fact, there were several different designs to choose from. Knowing that the 3D pan was unlikely to bake correctly because of the volume of batter, I decided to purchase a more traditional character pan. About $40 and two weeks later, it arrived.

Now, originally, this cake pan would have included a plastic piece detailing Garfield's eyes, nose, and mouth that would be positioned on top of the iced cake. The pan I bought online didn't have this piece, but I was ok with that. I had already determined that if I ever used the pan, I would make the face out of fondant or modelling chocolate, since I prefer to have entirely edible components on my cakes if possible. I put the pan into my cake decorating cabinet until the right moment would come to use it. 

Until then, it's a piece of nostalgia that triggers memories of both the character cakes of my childhood and my favourite orange cat.