Ok so I am new to decorating cakes. I have done 2 character cakes so far and my best friends little girl wants a Dora cake for her birthday next week!! So I got the pan and first off I only used one box of cake mix and found that wasn't enough. Well in the process of me trying to wrap the cake up to put in the fridge after it had cooled off I broke her in half!! I thought I might be able to salvage her enough to decorate just to practice but I couldnt make out much on her?? I used the wilton cake release and used a white cake. What did I do wrong? what can I do to keep this from happening again? Also what can I do to keep it from breaking? Is Dora harder to do than other character pans? Do they make a full size cake pan with just Dora's head? I am so nervous about doing this cake now. I want it to look great but so far I am off to a bad start!
You might want to use the durable or (1/2 batch) white almond cake recipes:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-1972-0-Durable-Cake-for-3D-and-Wedding-Cakes.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2322-White-Almond-Sour-Cream-Cake.html
Both will make a denser cake and the add-ins will yield more batter.
Also, freezing the cake briefly will make it less prone to breaking.
Pan grease (equal parts Crisco, vegetable oil and flour mixed well) works great when you use up your Wilton cake release.
HTH
First, take a deep breath. It's going to be fine!
If it's a pretty clean break, just use some icing to glue her back together. No one will be able to tell once you've got her decorated.
Dora is a time consuming cake because there are lots of colors and lots of stars, but she's not too hard! It's hard to make out the features on lots of the pans. It helps to have the pan laying right side up next to you for a reference. I did Dora recently (see my photos) and one thing that's tough about her is that the cake is reversed when you turn it out of the pan. I'm probably not explaining that well. It's like, on the cake, her bracelet is on her right hand, but on the pan it's on her left. So keep that in mind when you're doing your outline.
I'm surprised one cake mix wasn't enough. Many people here add a box of dry instant pudding in a complimentary flavor to their mix and an extra egg to make their cakes a bit denser (and yummier!) That also stretches the mix a bit.
I don't think there's a pan of just Dora's head, but you can check wilton.com. Good luck!
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