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I have something in common with minions. I love bananas. I typically eat 2 a day. That’s over 700 bananas a year. Maybe I’m part minion 🙂
But, one cannot survive on bananas alone, so I think lemons are the next step for the minions. I made this Lemon Minion Cake to celebrate the Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack of Minions © 2015 Universal Studios. All rights reserved.
I have been super excited to see Minions and was thrilled to pick up a copy to inspire my recipe. You can check out where to pick it up on the Minions movie website. There are different fun extras depending on where you shop.
Illumination Entertainment’s Minions is such a cute movie. Those minions are just adorable and seeing their backstory is hilarious and makes me like them even more. Sure, they’re a little mischievous, but aren’t we all???
Like the minions have taken on many challenges, I challenged myself to draw a minion on my bright, citrus flavored cake. I’d never, ever done anything like this before, and I feared it wouldn’t go quite according to plan like a lot of the minions’ adventures.
Luckily, my minion turned out great, and I have some tips so yours will as well. First I drew a minion on paper. This helped me get a feel for their shape since drawing with a pen is a lot easier than drawing with icing!
Then I outlined the minion shape on the cake with a toothpick. This way if I made a mistake, I could just smooth the frosting over and start again. Then I took my colored icing and filled in the outline. Some of the icings were easy to spread, so I just squeezed those out of the tube, but the yellow was very stiff, so I used toothpicks to spread it.
It was so cool to watch my minion coming to life. It’s not perfect, but this is a homemade cake and that’s what I love about it. I think the minions would devour it and become obsessed with lemons.
Take a day with the ones you love, make this cake, and watch the Minions movie. Plus check out the website for more fun minion recipe ideas!
Lemon Minion Cake
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 10-12 servings 1x
Ingredients
Cake
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
- Zest of 2 lemons
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup milk, any variety
Frosting
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ½ cup water
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup
- 5 egg whites
- ½ + 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
For Assembly
- 1 12 ounce jar blueberry preserves
- Yellow, black, and blue icing
- Toothpicks
Instructions
- Make the cake. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 8 or 9 inch round pans. Line the bottom with parchment and butter the parchment. Set aside
- In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. I did this by hand but a hand or stand mixer would work as well. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Beat in the vanilla bean paste, lemon zest, and lemon juice.
- Alternately add the flour mixture and milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir just until the batter comes together. Divide evenly between the two prepared pans.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely in pans. Cakes may be made one day in advance.
- Make the frosting. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, water, and corn syrup over medium heat, stirring frequently until the sugar is completely dissolved. Once this happens, stop stirring, attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pan, and allow the mixture to come to 240 degrees F on the thermometer. In the meantime, place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on medium-high until foamy. Once foamy, add the cream of tartar and continue beating on medium-high until stiff peaks form. Be sure not to over whip the egg whites or they will become dry.
- Once the eggs are whipped and the syrup is at 240, turn the eggs to medium-low, immediately remove the syrup from the heat, and begin slowly and steadily drizzling it into the eggs. If the syrup is ready before the eggs, it can be turned down or removed from the heat while the eggs finish, before being replaced on the heat to bring to temperature. If the eggs are ready before the syrup, stop mixing them until the syrup is almost ready. Turn them back to medium-high briefly before turning them back down and adding the syrup.
- Once the syrup has all been added, turn the mixer back to medium-high and beat the frosting (what is basically marshmallow crème and is delectable all by itself) for 10-13 minutes until the bottom of the bowl is barely warm or at room temperature. It is important for it to not be too warm or the next step will not work.
- Once cooled, add the butter a couple tablespoons at a time, allowing each addition to incorporate before adding another. Scrape down the bowl occasionally. Once all the butter is incorporated, add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix to combine. Remove the bowl from the mixer and mix briefly by hand to make sure there are no clumps of butter. If the frosting is a bit soupy (because it was too warm when the butter was added) stick it in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes, beat it again with the stand mixer. It should come together.
- Assemble the cake. Place one cake on a cake stand. Using a serrated knife, slice the cake in half horizontally. Remove the top half and place it on a plate. Cover the cake on the stand with an even layer of blueberry jam. Place the top half of the cake on top and cover with frosting. Place the second cake on top and slice it in half horizontally. Remove the top half and cover the remaining half with the rest of the jam. Place the final layer of cake on top and cover the entire cake with a generous layer of frosting.
- Draw the minion. Using a toothpick outline the minion shape. Fill in with colored frosting. Allow cake to set in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving. Cake may be stored in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly with plastic wrap for up to 3 days or frozen, in pieces, wrapped in parchment and foil and placed in a zipper bag. Thaw in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.
Notes
Additional cooling/chilling time is necessary
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 1 hour
The minion also looks very much like Gru!
Oh how very cute!! It looks great and delicious! As you say, its homemade so that makes it so special. Glad you wore your yellow dress for the cutting!!! You look great as always.
Thanks, Debbie!
This is so cute!! I love the minions, and with lemon, yes please!
Thank you so much, Dorothy!
What an adorable cake! I showed the pictures to my Minion-obsessed son, and he loved it! 🙂
Awww … thanks, Rachel!!
Such a cute cake! My kids love minions! It’s so refreshing to see a real homemade cake among all the staged curated food blog photos these days 🙂
Yes, I worked hard on this cake. But it was a fun way to spend a day. Kids can help with a lot of the steps too 🙂 Thanks, Melanie!
I’m a lemon freak, so I know you made this for me! Love bananas, too so maybe I have that minion thing going too. 😀 This is so creative — thanks.
Thanks, John!
This is adorable — I can never resist the minions! 🙂
No one can 🙂
This is too adorable — I love the paper pattern you made!
Thanks, Sue!
That cake sounds amazing! I’m not a decorate AT all, but I love the idea of tracing the outline in the frosting to give yourself a good starting point #client
I’m not a decorator at all either, Michelle, but this was a very easy way to do it. Thanks!
Very cute and delicious sounding cake. And so is that dress!
Thanks, Abbe!
Hi,
Cute cake! I know that you are a writer – have you thought about doing a cookbook? Some of your food posts are very informative (i.e., your prime rib post was very educational). Just something you should maybe think about :)!
Kristen
Hi Kristen! That is very nice of you to say. I would love to do a cookbook … I just need the right opportunity. Happy Holidays 🙂