Coolest Dora Cake 67

by Kellie McInnes
(Littlehampton, South Australia)

Dora with Balloons

I enlarged a picture of Dora on photocopier to fit inside the size of 2 lamington trays together, then I traced it onto baking paper, making a few changes as I went (I wanted the arms and head to be in a different position). I also drew some balloons onto baking paper to put on the Dora cake.

I baked the 2 lamington tin sized cakes with 1 1/2 times cake mix in each tin, using a recipe from the Aust. Womens Weekly kids birthday cake cookbook. The cookbook said to cook for 1/2 hour, but I found it only needed 20 mins.

Once the cakes had cooled for a few hours, I put them onto my prepared cake board (60 x 50cm thin piece of MDF from hardware store, covered in foil from party shop). I put my baking paper template on top & kept in place with toothpicks, then cut it out.

I made shallow knife incisions on top of cake for the outlines so I could see where I needed to ice the different colours. I made 2 times butter cream icing ( also from cookbook). I divided up the butter cream - I used it untinted for shoes & eyes, then I put a small amount of cocoa to make light brown for skin, then added a lot more cocoa for hair and eyes, then food colouring for the other colours.

Once I had iced cake, I used liquorice to do the outlining, mini m&m's for bracelet and tops of socks, then I put coloured sprinkles over the top of food coloured icing to brighten it up.