My Neighbor Totoro Cake Tutorial !

Have you seen My Neighbor Totoro? Equal parts super cute, creepy and weepy-making, it’s a Japanese animation starring two little sisters who get swept up in a sweetly kooky fantasy world as they cope with their mother’s illness. The star of the beloved film is a big, puffy, furry and grey magical creature, Totoro! So it’s self-proclaimed TOTORO WEEK once again, too! This year, along with my sweet pal Steph of I Am A Food Blog, we are joined by some other Totoro-loving cuties online – a growing list of links below. I decided to give some buttercream loving to Totoro’s furry BFF – Blue Totoro. Of course you can always make him grey instead of blue, or you can make this My Neighbor Totoro cake tutorial from last year’s T-week alongside the blue guy for a real Totoro cake feast!

My Neighbor Totoro Cake Tutorial

You will need: 

• 1 recipe for your favourite cake, or 1 boxed cake mix
• One 6 inch cake pan
• One half of this “sports ball” cake pan, or a 6 inches in diameter stainless steel mixing bowl.
• 3 cups of vanilla buttercream, tinted blue
• A piping bag fitted with a multi-opening tip (also known as the grass tip)
• 4 inch ball of light blue fondant (tinted to match the buttercream colour)
• 3 inch ball of white fondant
• 1 inch ball of black fondant
• 2 wooden skewers
• Optional: a bubble tea plastic straw or dowel

Step One

Bake and cool the 6 inch round cake and half sphere cake until completely cool. Level and frost the top of the flat cake and place the sphere cake on top as shown.

Step Two

Insert bubble tea straw into the center of the cake, pushing down until you reach the bottom cake; snip off excess straw. This step helps with keeping the cake straight while frosting it but it’s not completely necessary.

Step Three

Using an offset spatula or butter knife, frost the entire exterior of the cake.

It doesn’t need to be completely smooth or perfect because you will be piping “fur” on top!

Step Four

Make the fondant pieces – take a small piece of the white fondant to create circle eyes. I roll it out with a rolling pin and use a piping tip as a mini cutter. Roll the rest of the fondant out and shape it into a half-circle for Totoro’s tummy. I used a pizza cutter to trim it. Take the black fondant and make two black circles for Totoro’s eyes, and a little arrowhead shape for his nose. Using the blue fondant, make three little rainbow shapes for his tummy. Use the remaining fondant to mold two pointy ears; insert into wooden skewers and trim skewers as necessary to fit the cake.

Step Five

Start by placing the white “tummy” on the bottom of the cake.

Step Six

Begin to pipe fur around the edge of the white tummy; continue piping until the entire cake is covered!

Step Seven

Once the entire cake is covered in fur, place the eyes, nose and ears into the top! Heyyyyy budddddy! It’s like bringing Frosty the Snowman to life.

Stunned!

Caught from a slightly side angle! Still stunned.

Sorry my friend. I had to slice in. Your cake layers are such a pretty blue-green hue, too.

Yay! Totoro party!

MORE GOODNESS FOR TOTORO WEEK: 

I Am A Food Blog’s Buttermilk Totoro Pancakes! Hehe!

Totoro CRONUTS by Kaitlin over at Whisk Kid!

Hungry Girl Por Vida’s Black Sesame Totoro Shortbread!

Vickie is the Totoro CUTENESS master!

Steph’s Soot Sprite Avocado Onigiri! 

Fix Feast Flair’s Black Sesame Craquelin Cream Puffs!

Vickie’s drippy Totoro ICE CREAM CONE piped cookies.

I want to thank Steph for encouraging me to do Totoro Week again. Working on this cake gave me a little jolt of fun and made me excited to make something – it’s nice to feel a little normal instead of like a weirdo/cancer-y. Steph, you have been such a sweet friend to me through these last 8 months, from that huge beautiful bouquet of flowers after my surgery to making me MIFFY SPAM MUSUBI when I was seriously down in the dumps after my chemo treatment. You are thoughtful and lovely! *Sniff*! Happy Totoro-making, everyone! xo Lyndsay