I want to make a Dora cake for my niece. I have the wondermold and 3D Bear Pan. Has anyone made a Dora cake out of the 3D Bear pan?

Can anyone tell me how to do the doll cake with the full doll? I'm confused about the inserting the doll in the wondermold. Will it not split in half?

Thanks,

Cecilia

I have to admit I have never seen a Dora doll, so I am not sure of the size or if it is proportionate to the wondermold pan.
I had posted these instructions on another site, for how I do a Barbie doll cake. They may be of some help to you.
Barbie Cakes
The Wondermold isn't deep enough on its own for a Barbie cake, so you need an extra layer or two of cake underneath so that Barbie can go inside the cake and the cake starts at her waist. I use petal pans. A 9 inch and sometimes a larger one - up to the 15 inch size. Of course you can do it with the round or even place the Wondermold - on a dowelled sheet cake.
First of all, the top of the extra layer or layers of cake has to be iced. Also fill if you are using more than one layer as your bottom cake that the Wondermold will sit on.
I found a great way of keeping Barbie clean and also coring the cake and keeping her enclosed and stable. An empty paper towel roll - well two actually. You are best off boarding the Wondermold and also using a strong cake base for the whole cake. So you mark the centre of the underneath of the double covered boards that the Wondermold will sit on, I places them covered sides out and glue gun the two together. Then I cut a hole large enough for a paper towel inner tube to fit through the centre. So you work the paper towel cardboard roll straight up through the bottom or underneath side of the boarded Wondermold cake and then remove. This will core your cake. Alternately, you can just fill with icing between the Wondermold cake and the additional layer, no boards and core from the top down. I have found that this works well, undowelled too. It just makes the cakes slices a little more awkward because of the height of them. Ok, so if you boarded the Wondermold, and now you have cored it, you also need to core the layer cake this is sitting on. So you centre a board the same size as the boarded cake on the lower cake and mark off the centre of the lower cake, then core the centreagain using the paper towel roll. You will want to put 5 dowels in the centre of the marked area on the lower cake around the cored hole. Place some icing sugar in the area where the Wondermold will sit on the lower cake. So now you place the cored Wondermold cake over the dowelled lower cake and line up the holes. So now you are going to take a fresh paper towel inner cardboard tube. Insert Barbie so that the tube starts at her waist - it is a tight fit - Barbie's hip's will make it a really tight fit. So You check to see if the paper towel roll when inserted with the Barbie, will be too long for the height of your lower cake and the Wondermold combined, and you slice off the correct amount from the bottom of the paper towel roll. Now cover the roll with foil or plastic wrap and reinsert the Barbie up to her waist. If the height of your combined lower levels and the Wondermold, will be much more than the enclosed Barbie in the paper towel roll, then you will want to also place a dowel inside of the enclosed Barbie/roll so that you have a centre dowel that goes though all of the layers to the bottom . Otherwise the Barbie in the roll acts as your centre dowel. So now you are ready to decorate.
I transport these doll cakes using a moving box. I cut the front flap all the way down. Then I completely line the box with foil and tape it well. I line the botom with that rubbery shelf liner that stops any movement - I get it from the Dollar Store. You can cut off the top flaps if the box is high enough to enclose Barbie or tape them all up in a vertical position. So you tape the front flap back in place. Then I take another piece of foil and tape it in place over the top of the opened box. When delivered, a utility knife is used to cut the front flap that was taped, open.

There's a pic of a 3D dora on the Wilton site. It was one of last years contest winners. Might give you some ideas. Or maybe someone knows how it was done?

http://www.wilton.com/images/yourtakeoncake/2004winners/dora_front.jpg

Thanks lisa for posting the link...I like this one better than the picture that I have.

I will be doing the 3D Dora when I get a chance...alot of work to this baby

SquirrellyCakes - Thank you, thank you, thank you for the Barbie Cake instructions. My 4 year old wants this for her birthday (not until May, so she may still change her mind ). I just bought the Wondermold pan (and a Barbie) to practice. I have seen lots of great ideas from the gallery but wasn't sure how to use a whole Barbie doll. I can't wait to try it. Maybe, with a Christmas dress.

curiegas & stephanie214 - I can't wait to see your Dora cakes. Good luck. I'm sure they will be great!

There is a cute cheerleader cake using the 3-D Bear pan in Cindas Creative Cakes under Photo Gallery, Sports, Page 6 that could easily be adjusted to a Dora cake doing shorts instead of a skirt. There is more uses for the 3-D Bear Pan on this site than I have seen anywhere else
http://www.cindascreativecakes.com/Home/homeframe.htm

Googled this one, it looks cool,
http://coolest-birthday-cakes.shippony.com/images/characters/dora/dora-the-explorer-01.jpg

This one is an inflatable but I think it would work for a real cake also fairly easily
http://www.buyinflatables.com/images/32634-50.jpg

I can't believe I'm actually showing this picture but here it is. I made this cake for my niece's birthday in Feb. It started off pretty good but then once one thing went wrong everything spiraled out of control and here is the outcome. Things that went wrong were... first her head was too heavy(3d ball pan) so I had to use a foam ball that my DH messed up by cutting the entire face flat when I told him to leave the hair but he didn't listen. I tried smoothing the frosting but that didn't work so I had to do stars that's why she looks like she was stung by 1000 bees, I ran out of skin tone frosting so that's why her arms don't match and I started to feel sick all of a sudden in the middle of decorating so I had to go lay down and continue the next day. When I started to decorate her again the next morning I remembered that I had no purple or black frostong so I had to run to the store and buy the wilton tubes (I hate them) and almost didn't have enough.

I was so embarrassed to go to the party I told my sister not to tell anyone that I made the cake but as soon as I got there everyone was saying the cake was nice maybe they were just trying to make me feel good . Anyway here is a list of pans that I used make sure you put lots of dowls in it if you decide to try this, hopefully you'll have better results.

3d bear pan for her body, 6 or 8 inch round cut in half for her shorts, mini loafs for her arms and legs, mini heart cut in half for her shoes, and a foam ball for her head I tried the 3d ball but it was too heavy, I think her backpack was a square (can't remember).

Jackie

I have to agree with everyone at the party. I think it looks great. I could not have done that. Good job.

Well...considering the difficulty of this cake...I think you did a fantastic job!

That sounds as though it was a very difficult cake to make....I am very impressed with how it turned out! Great job!

Thanks for the great comments.
I think I was expecting it to come out a lot better looking so that's why I was disappointed with it. Thanks again for making me feel good.

Jackie