~Need*A*cAke*Recipe

Hi M.,

Sorry, no cake recipes that are favorites to share (I use boxed mix when I make cakes for our daughter's birthdays). But I do have an idea for the Dora concept. The last BIG party we had was for her 2nd birthday and I had to make a huge cake; lucky for me Hobby Lobby had 40% off coupons in the paper so I got a huge sheet cake pan to use. It made a lot of cake, and was easy to decorate. As far as the idea, since you are planning on doing fondant, why not try to recreate the opening scene from the show - when they are singing the theme song? I think it shows a dock and a boat and a path in the forest or something with the characters. OR you could do one of the "map" scenes with a map character in the corner and the path from point A leading to your house for the party with Dora and Boots - don't forget to hide Swiper (maybe peeking up over the side of the cake made out of fondant?) you know how he is about birthday cake lol. The fondant would give you a smooth surface to decorate on and then you could either do characters flat on the cake surface or make 3D characters to stand up on the cake (don't know how talented you are in that way - I would stink at the 3D thing but it would be super cute). Hope you get a recipe - I'll keep an eye on your post - I can always use a great cake recipe! Good luck on figuring out what to put on the cake; I'd love to know what you end up doing! This year I'm attempting Ariel...wish me luck. :) cj

Since I don't know where you live, I don't know if you live at high altitude like me. Many recipes are hit and miss at high altitude so if you do live at high altitude it may take some test runs to see which recipes do well here. I used to be a cake decorating instructor and would generally recommend that my students do the same as I usually do, which is to use a Betty Crocker cake mix and along with the ingredients called for on the box, add an instant pudding mix and an extra egg. The pudding mix adds flavor and moisture while the egg adds extra protein making the cake more stable and less likely to fall at high altitude. I'd be happy to share my icing recipe with you. If you send me a private message with your email address in it, I can email you the recipe as a Word document. For a creamy filling, you can combine 3 cups of whipping cream with an instant pudding mix and whip it just like you're whipping cream. It turns out like a mousse and then you can just fold in some fresh fruit. I wouldn't use the Wilton fondant as it just doesn't taste good. Either buy Satin Ice from a cake decorating supply store or make your own marshmallow fondant. Go to www.cakecentral.com for tons of ideas and recipes. You'll have to join to see the pictures but it doesn't cost anything to join.

L.

Wilton has a Dora cake pan http://www.wilton.com/shapedpan/Dora-the-Explorer-Pan
There is a diego one as well. I don't know that fondant icing will work with the shaped pan, though.
As far as recipes, http://www.allrecipes.com is a great site to search for whatever you want. I got my cake recipes from there. It's great because they have a 5 star rating system, so you can see which recipes have worked well for others, and there are reviews as well so that you can see if others changed things or found mistakes (like tablespoon instead of teaspoon) or just get ideas on how to make things better. There are no box recipes here where I live, so when I moved I had to learn how to bake from scratch...I always do my kids' cakes and I've found allrecipes to be a Godsend!!! Good luck!

no recipe for you, but two suggestions on the Dora part.
1) Wilton cake pans come in all shapes (including Dora) with decorating instructions... but those aren't fondant friendly
2) Go to the local grocery store bakery that does theme cakes. You can purchase just the figurine kit for $5-$7 to put on top of the cake. I'm certain I've seen ones that are Dora and Boots.