It’s TOTORO WEEK! Self proclaimed by myself and my fellow Asian Vancouver love-her-to-bacon-bits blogger Steph of I Am A Food Blog. To celebrate, I made for you a Totoro cake tutorial!
For some reason I’ve been humbuggy about Halloween posts this year. Maybe it’s because I bought a 128 piece box of Halloween candy and have been mindlessly scarfing candy after candy and feeling like a bloated chumpkin (that’s Chinese pumpkin) so secretly hating the “holiday” that’s brought the muffin top on. Or maybe I’m in denial that the seasons truly snowball into each other and suddenly there’s Halloween posts everywhere crammed down my face and I don’t like to be rushed. Like, I still have records and my VHS tapes I want to hold on to, mini hoarder style, and I still have my Betsey Johnson crepe silk flowery peter-pan collar grunge-era dress from grade 10. Oh – and my 20 year high school reunion is coming up so I file that under a What-The-Fuzz is happening. So I say: Father Time, while you are intent on making me old and grey and making my life go by ultra fast, I will still forever be frozen in time arrested development zonkbonked out by SUPER KAWAII CUTE CHILDRENLAND things like the fuzzy, bizarro, a little bit scary but fat and cute, sort of owl/cat/raccoon-y creature, oversized and cuddly TOTORO.
So join me in never growing up! Let’s make a Totoro cake!
You Will Need:
- A baked and completely cooled 2 layer round cake. I made an 8 inch round cake.
- 4 cups of vanilla buttercream tinted grey – use a tiny amount of black gel food colouring to do this!
- An offset spatula
- A piping bag fitted with a multi-opening tip (also known as the grass tip). I use Wilton #233.
- A 3 inch ball of white fondant
- A 3 inch ball of grey fondant
- A 1 inch ball of black fondant
- A rolling pin and a small amount of cornstarch
- Wooden BBQ skewers
- A paring knife
- Piping tips in two sizes (optional)
Step One
Fill and frost your baked and cooled two layer cake. Need a little brush-up on how to frost a cake?
Step Two
After you’ve covered the entire cake with buttercream, smooth it with a bench scraper. Set aside.
Step Three
Prepare your fondant! Roll out your white fondant. Using a large piping tip as a cutter, punch out two holes for Totoro’s eyes.
Roll out a small amount of black fondant; using a smaller piping tip as a cutter, punch out two black irises! Using a tiny dab of water, adhere the black circle to the white circle. While you’re working with the black fondant, make a black triangle nose and some whiskers by rolling the fondant between your palms into skinny snake-like pieces.
Roll out a small amount of the grey fondant. Using the large piping tip again, punch out 4 circles. Cut each one in half with a paring knife.
Using the smaller piping tip, punch out a half-circle, forming a grey “rainbow” like shape for Totoro’s belly. Note: you can also shape his belly pieces by hand, too! Simply roll the grey fondant into tube like shapes and fold over to a rainbow shape.
Shape two larger pieces of grey fondant into pointy bunny-like ears. Totoro’s face is ready!
Step Four
Roll out a larger piece of fondant. Place a cereal bowl face down on it and cut around using your paring knife.
This will be Totoro’s white tummy!
Use the remaining grey tinted buttercream to fill your piping bag fitted with the multi-opening tip.
Now get ready to make Totoro come to CAKE LIFE!
Step Five
Looking down at your cake in a bird’s eye view, carefully place the white fondant circle onto the lower part of the cake so the edge of the circle meets the edge of the bottom of your cake.
Step Six
It’s piping time!! Start piping Totoro’s fur – going around the edge of the white circle, completely cover the rest of the cake.
Once the top is all done, continue piping fur on the sides of the cake.
All piped! Give your wrist a little thank you and ice it if you need to (ha.)
Time to put Totoro’s face on! Gently press the eyes into the fur.
Put his little triangular nose on. Note the placement to ensure Totoro-likeness! Then, using a chopstick and a tiny amount of water as glue, place the grey rainbow shapes onto Totoro’s belly.
Place all the rainbow shapes on and then his whiskers, too!
Plunge them wooden skewers into the side of Tote’s head! TOTORO HAS COME TO LIFEEEEEE!
Hooray Totoro Week! Steph’s got Totoro apple pie pancakes on her blog so far and we both have more Totoro posts on the way so come on back to the blog soon! Do you have a favourite Miyazaki film or character? And how many mini chocolate bars does it take to squeeze into my floral Betsey Johnson grade 10 dress for my 20 year high school reunion? Ha. xo Lyndsay
Michelle @ MakeMeCake.Me
Adorable! Also, funny note re: icing your wrist. Anytime I’ve done a full-on furry cake, I wonder, “Lyndsay Coco Cake must have hands and wrists of steel!!” ;)
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
haha! michelle, the piping mixed with stirring, mixing … plus residual pain from nursing when my little was a babe PLUS iphone usage … it all adds up to WRIST PROBS. xo
steph
AHHHHHHHH i LOVE HIM. and want him in my belly!! why do i always eat the things i love?!??!?!?!?
also…betsey johnson hahahhahahaha
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
hehe! dare i even try it on again!? it fit me last year … omg. thanks steph, LOL! xoxo
Emily
this is absolutely ADORABLE! I love totoro!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
hehe! i love that you love totoro! thanks emily!
jaime : the briny
this is so crazy cute! i love totoro too and am so excited to find out there’s a totoro week! can’t wait to see more.
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
hooray! thank you kindly jaime! ^__^
Nancy @ gottagetbaked
Bwahahahaa “chumpkin” –> reason one million five hundred thousand that I love you, Lyndsay! I’ve been surprisingly disciplined around my Halloween candy (can’t say the same about a package of 8 Twix bars that I bought for “baking purposes”). Small baby steps! This Totoro cake is the cutest! Wish I could devour his adorable, delicious face!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
oh how i appreciate you laughing at my jokes, nancy!!! haha … oh man, keep twix AWAY FROM ME. i will chomp chomp those delicious caramel cookie chocolate sticks like pacman going after power pellets. thanks for stopping by nancy!!!
Sarah
Omg I love Studio Ghibli and this adorable post! Your gif is especially wonderful. :) xo
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
sarah, i give you the deepest internet high-five for pointing out the gif!! totoro is animated so i had to animate SOMETHING … ^__^
Marisela | NomNom Kingdom
ADORABLE!!! Such a creative idea. I love Studio Ghibli movies. They are amazing.
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
yay! i am so glad you like it – ahhh studio ghibli!!
maginezart
wow, so nice creative Cake i love it……
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
thank you thank you!
Erika
Oh my gosh you have super outdone yourself!!!! Lyndsay, this cake is AMAZING. Your step-by-step photos? Stunning. There are just no words…except you are a cake master!!!!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
aw erika, thank you so much for saying so! hehe! glad you stopped by. ^__^
Tamsin | A Certain Adventure
Yessss! This is absolutely the cutest cake ever. So happy that there’s a gif in here too – going straight on my Pinterest! Now if only I had your icing skills to make one of my own :) x
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
hi Tamsin! Thanks so much for stopping by – you can totally do it – if you give it a try, email me the cake, I’d love to see! Thanks for appreciating my GIF, haha! xo
Marlen
holy moly im BLOWN AWAY by this! and you made it look so easy! i cant believe how well you piped that fur, it looks so real. Ahhh I want to bake ten cakes now!!
xo marlen
Messages on a Napkin
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
Marlen!! I am stoked that I inspired you to bake TEN CAKES! Do it!!! ^__^ Thanks for visiting Coco Cake Land!
Alexandra
amazing blog! amazing pictures!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
hey thanks alexandra!!
Lisa @ Healthy Nibbles & Bits
I’m stopping by from Hungry Girl Por Vida, and OH MY GOSH. THIS. CAKE. Totoro is one of my favorite characters from Studio Ghibili! I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw this! So glad I found your blog, too!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
Thanks so much, Lisa! Glad you found me!
Ellie | from scratch, mostly
Man oh mannnnn this is soooooo adorable and inspiring!!! I’m literally daydreaming of all these ideas and possibilities for kids’ parties, or let’s face it, my own pleasure of decorating and admiring and killing the cake with my 3 year old. :D
Jody Benz
Thank you for this tutorial. I made this cake for my son’s 7th birthday and he gave me the two thumbs up!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
Oh yay! Please email me a pic, I’d love to see! :)
Sam Roberts
What a beautiful cake you got! I will do it for my daughter, who is a big fan of Studio Ghibli and Totoro is her favourite character. I love recipes like this because they are tasty for adults and pretty for kids.
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
Hey thanks Sam! Can’t wait to see the cake for your daughter! We love Studio Ghibli too at our house!