Pooh Bear Cake, How to Bake a 3D Cake!

I made this 3d cake for Great Grandma Mary Lou.  Of course, she loves Pooh.   

I had so much fun baking this cake, that I had to blog.  Yes, it's true, I'm still baking but I kind of fell off the blogging bandwagon.  So, here it is a new year and a fun new cake!  I hope you enjoy it!

  I made the Basic Golden Cake from Tish Boyle's Cake Book.  My all time favorite vanilla cake.  I used a Peppermint Buttercream frosting to decorate the Pooh Bear.  I could have made a pound cake but because I make my cakes from scratch they are little denser than box mixes.  I would not recommend using a box mix for this cake.

I had quite the time trying to figure out this 3d cake pan!  This is my first 3d cake pan and I have to say I'm very happy with the results despite all the complications I ran into.

My local library has cake pans for lending.  Pretty cool, huh?  Well, I went online and reserved this pan but I had no idea what I was getting into!  They didn't have a picture or description other than Pooh Bear Cake Pan.  When I went to pick it up, to my surprise, it was a two piece pan.  No instructions, no clips, and no heating core!  I took it home so I could figure it out.  I got online at Wilton and found the instructions.  Then I went to Amazon and found the clips and a heating core.  Yay!  I didn't mind ordering them because I'm sure I'll use them again.  My 8 clips arrived the day I wanted to bake the cake.  Perfect timing!  My back up plan was to use metal bullnose clips.

Here is my freshly baked upside down Pooh Bear cake!  I cooked it for 50 minutes.  I learned that when you bake a 3d cake you will want to overfill the cake pan because you need enough batter to fill out the entire shape of the cake.  I used a cookie sheet to catch the overflow. Even though it looks like a mess, the clean up is pretty easy.  I just soaked the pans in hot soapy water and the cake came right off.

You can see the heating core at the bottom of the cake (above).  I put cake batter in it (after I greased and floured it) to hold it down in the batter and I used aluminum foil strips to keep it in place while baking.  Some people recommend removing this core after cooking but others say not to.  I decided I wanted to leave it in so it could help stabilize the cake.  Since I was actually going to the party, I knew I could retrieve it after we cut the cake.

The cake cooled for 10 minutes, then I carefully pried the two pans apart with my spatula, and lifted the back pan off.  I let it sit for 5 minutes. Next, I covered the back side of the cake with a piece of plastic wrap, replaced the cake pan on the cake, and flipped it over.

I was very happy about how clean the pan came off.  Before baking, I brushed organic shorting (palm oil)  on every crevice, and dusted it with flour.  There were a couple of spots I missed and had to go back and touch up.  It was worth the effort.

I removed the front cake pan and left it on the cooling rack all night (Wilton recommends 5 hours).  

Here is the cake cooled and bear naked.  Sorry!  I just can't help myself sometimes.  ;)  Poor Pooh!

I outlined the cake in brown and then started piping on the fur.  My sweet girl got a chance to pipe a few stars on the back side.  She did such a great job!!  She is going to be a baker like her Momma.

Pooh Bear all dressed up and ready for the party!