Coolest Oscar The Grouch Cake

My daughter is starting to get into Sesame Street, so I made this Oscar the Grouch cake for her 4th birthday. It took quite a bit longer than I’d anticipated (even with making & freezing the cakes ahead of time), but it was worth it!

The trash can is made of 4 9″ round layers (I alternated chocolate & yellow cakes). The head was made with the Wilton ball pan using pound cake, and the hands are cut-up cupcakes (made from leftover pound cake batter).

Four dowel rods were inserted through the layer cakes once they were frosted & stacked, and cut off to be just above the top layer. Then I put the top layer of frosting on, level with the dowels. On top of that I placed a cardboard disk slightly smaller than the 9″ rounds, and skim-coated that with the black. This provided support for Oscar’s head without it sinking in.

The head is supported by the same metal ring used to support the ball pan in the oven, tacked into place with frosting. A small wedge was cut from the top half of the ball for the mouth, and dowels were driven through the head and down into the main cake (I had sharpened dowels, so I could gently poke through the supporting cardboard).

All the frosting is buttercream. Light gray (I’d go darker next time) for the trash can, black for the can top&details/mouth/pupils, brown (added cocoa to white) for the eyebrow, red for the tongue, and dark green for the fur (Wilton Black and Leaf Green coloring, with some cocoa thrown in).

Doing the trash can took patience, as my spatula wasn’t tall enough to do all 4 layers in 1 swoop. It’s easiest to skim coat the ball pieces with the green before putting into place (and hides any “bald spots” with the fur). All the fur & eyebrows were done with the Wilton grass tip (233, I believe).

So there it is!


1 thought on “Coolest Oscar The Grouch Cake”

  1. Awesome cake! Great tutorial! I was wondering, however, when you said that you used the grass tip, did you just prick fondant with it or did you use icing and pipe the entire head with the grass tip. I have been researching fondant sesame street characters and everyone else is telling me to use fondant and prick it. Not to use icing… Thanks for the help!

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