A Mickey Cake for Asher's Birthday

Our little Asher is already 2! I can't believe how much he's changed in the two short years since he was born. His personality amazes me - we can already see so much of his dad and me in his sense of humor, his stubbornness, and his inquisitive little mind . . . some of which he may not thank us for as he gets older. ;)

Right now, he loves Mickey Mouse, so I thought for his birthday I would try to bake a cake with Mickey on it. I didn't want to do a full-size Mickey cake because the majority of the frosting would have to be black and red - both difficult to achieve if you make the frosting yourself, and then your tongue/mouth ends up turning bright red or black. One of my mom's co-workers bakes a lot of cakes and goodies and she told my mom about this method she uses: you put a picture of the character you want under wax paper, create the character in frosting using the visible template, and then freeze it. After it freezes you're supposed to be able to place it frosting-side down on the frosted cake and peel away the wax paper and be left with your character . . . Well, I must have done something wrong because there were very few parts of the frosting that peeled off the paper. Luckily, it made enough of an imprint on the frosting that I was able to free-hand. I was happy with how it turned out, and more importantly Asher was able to recognize Mickey - success in my book! I still want to figure out how it's actually supposed to work, though. If I do, I'll let you know.

I also discovered these things called cake tattoos at our local Walmart in the cake decorating aisle. They're from Duff Goldman, the Ace of Cakes - and they were so easy! You peel off the design and stick it onto your recently frosted cake, cupcake, or cookie; I used them to decorate the sides of the cake. They are edible, but I wasn't a fan of the chewy texture (kind of like fondant for those of you who have had that). It does peel off easily, though. There were only a couple options in the store, but you can also order them here where there are many more designs to choose from.

I guess Asher couldn't wait to eat it because he stuck his
hand in the frosting while my back was turned :) 

I made a three-layer cake and used an 8-inch square cake pan. The layers were as follows: white cake/raspberry buttercream/chocolate cake/raspberry buttercream/white cake. The top and sides were frosted with regular buttercream. For the chocolate cake, I only used half the batter in the pan and made cupcakes out of the rest. I didn't use all of the raspberry buttercream between the layers because I didn't want frosting overkill, but next time I would because it was hard to taste it otherwise.
The recipes for the white cake and buttercream frosting can be found here.
The recipe for the chocolate cake can be found here.

Raspberry Buttercream
1/2 softened butter
3/4 c. seedless raspberry jam
3 c. powdered sugar
Beat butter and jam until creamy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, then beat until fluffy, approximately 3 minutes.