 Hi guys, in this tutorial we're going to make a backed minion cake. As it's a tall cake we're going to be adding a central support, especially helpful for traveling. The size of the cake is 6 inch, so I've got a 16 inch drum to help us visualize. We want the cake to fit on the board with enough room for legs and feet to fit on, as well as text. We also want a little room on the sides for his arm and cake. So this size is fine, I've forgotten what size it actually was, but I'd guess it's around 14 inch. Then you want another drum that's slightly smaller. This is to go underneath, raising the top drum and allowing a bit of depth to hold the central dowels. The deeper the hole on boards, the sturdier the support. I've got a wooden dowel which I've just cut to size, you want it slightly smaller than your minions height. Again, I've forgotten the size, this is why I should edit the videos earlier so I don't forget. Firstly, stick your boards together. Hot glue the top of the smaller drum, avoiding the centre, then stick this to the underside of the larger drum. Once that's set, mark out where you want the support. You'll want to offset it a little towards the back to allow for the legs. Just mark the centre of your 16 inch circle with a pencil. Then grab a wooden drill bit that is slightly smaller than your dowel. For example, if your dowel is 12mm, use a 10mm drill bit. This is because the inside of the drum is compacted cardboard and will chew the hole slightly larger. Add your bit to your drill and place a spare drum underneath so you don't damage any surfaces below. Drill down into the drums being careful not to go all the way through. The drill bit comes with a point on the end, so just drill until you can see the point threatening to emerge. Make sure your dowel fits and then hot glue it into position. You can cover your dowel however you wish. I'm using some waterproof tape called Parafilm. From a company who makes tape for the top of bananas. You can use melted chocolate, candy melts, non-toxic paint, cling film or other waterproof tips. This is a bit like floral tape and then it needs stretching to activate its stickiness. I'm just covering the dowel and the base where there may be hot glue. Next I want to hold the white halfway up. You can use a 5 inch cake card but I only have them in one size so I'm cutting it down with scissors. You'll also want a hole in the centre so it slots over the dowel. It will sit part way up supported by lower supports to take the weight of the upper part. Next comes the cakes. I got a bit bake happy and made too many. That's the curse of always baking for teardew cakes and automatically making four layers per batch. They are all 16 inch rounds. Cut each one in half with a leveler. Separate them all and give them a sprinkle with sugar syrup. This is one part sugar to one part water boiled in a pan until it's dissolved and then allowed to cool. I'll pop a link to the bottle in the description along with everything else I use. Add ganache to the drum to glue your first layer down. Start building up your layers with fillings of your choice. I got five layers high before adding my supports. Insert them down into the cake and snip them level. Ganache will then stick your centre board in place. The board sits on top of the supports and is now strong enough to hold all the cake going above it. Fully and close any gaps around the board. You don't want any air trapped inside. Then finish off stacking with another three layers. Here are my spare layers so I baked two six inch rounds too many. Jam and custard will help get rid of these. Now to carve the minion shape. Start at the top carving it into a dome. Still keeping the sides straight. Once you've got your shape give it a rough coat with ganache to seal it in. Scrape the sides cleaner with a scraper or set square and for the curved dome you can bend some acetate in your hand and clean that up a little. It doesn't have to be perfect as we're going to add another layer. By doing a thin layer first and allowing it to set makes it easier to apply the second coat because it isn't as wobbly. Once it's fully set we are ready for the sugar paste. Dampen the top and roll out some black sugar paste. This is Renchaul's pre-colored black. Smooth it the best you can before then cutting out a slight v-shape for the mask. The v goes down at the front and then just goes straight around the back. Remove the excess. Then dampen the ganache below. To this apply a strip of yellow paste. Again this is pre-colored renchaul's. Just follow the v butting up the two edges. Don't worry too much if it's slightly too short at the back. It will stretch as you peel it back to re-arrange. Trim the excess and buff the join with an acetate smoother. Once the paste is all lined up trim the bottom all the way around. Fill the remaining gap with black in the same way. Mine started to rip that pesky black. Just trim it, panel the hole and buff away the seams. There's a hole cap going over the back so don't stress too much. Trim the excess from the board. Mark in a little smile with a dressed in toe below the v. With the softer end press in below to create a tiny bottom lip. Dampen the board and cover this in grey paste using the toilet seat method. The full tutorial for that as always is linked in the eye card above. The grey was made by mixing a little of the pre-colored black with white couture paste. Trish your bat logo to the desired size on greaseproof paper. Brow like some yellow paste with tile or powder added and place your logo on top and outline the oval with a dressing tool. Or you know you could use an oval cutter if you have one in the right size. Do the same with black paste for the bat. Add these to a form pad to set a little before sticking the bat inside the oval. Put that to one side and roll a chunky disc of white paste. Lay some cling film over the top and cut out a circle for the eye with a cutter. The cling film will be pulled top and give the edges a curved dome appearance. Stick this at the v of the mask with water. Add a thin circle of brown, slightly off centre and a black circle inside of that one. Two small balls of white will add catch lights. Dampen all around the eye with water and cut out a chunky strip of grey paste. Lay this all around the edge, securing it as you go. Trim the join and even out the circle. Roll out a mini fat sausage of grey and mark in two lines with a scalpel. Tickle down a little and stick it on the side of the eye and make one for the other side too. Add your bat logo to the lower black portion. For arms roll out a sausage of black paste and push a cabab stick down the centre. Put one end at an angle so it will sit against the body. Insert the stick in the black portion at an angle until it hits the base board. Once it hits the board slide the paste down to connect the arm. Trim it to the desired length with a scalpel and then trim the stick with some cutters. For the hand roll an oval of black paste and squash it a bit. With a scalpel cut an angled slit to create a thumb. Again I don't recommend cutting it on your hand, I've been doing it a long time and know this one isn't a fresh blade. I'm just too lazy and time restricted to change the cam angle again to cut it on the mat. Once you've rounded it off the thumb make a slit down the remaining piece and separate them into two fingers. Add this to the end of the stick for a waving hand. For the bat ears roll out some black quite chunky and cut a slightly curved triangle shape. Add water to the base and stick them to the head. The legs are very short sausages cut to either end. The shoes start like the hands but you cut a line across near the bottom and add them to the end of the legs with water. Now the smaller minion. It'd be a bit too heavy and solid paste so we're going to lighten him up with polystyrene. Usually I'd use two balls the same size but I only have one and a random rosebud center. Stick those together by joining them with a cocktail stick. It's not exactly minion shaped so we're going to shape him with some masking tape. Of course I run out of that too but Yuka saved the day with this Hello Kitty Washi tape. She sent it to me in a surprise box which you can see me open in one of my vlogs here on my channel. I know I know it's too pretty to use underneath some sugar paste but she saved the day and it came in very handy right when I needed it. You want to use the tape to fill and bridge gaps to make it more minion shaped. That's better. Roll out some deep blue paste. This is Atlantic blue from Renshaw's. And place it over your mini minion. Covert it all the way around and trim the overlap. Smooth the tops and trim off excess paste pushing gaps closed and smoothing the plates. Cut out an area at the front for the minion's mouth and chin area. Fill this in with yellow paste and push the edges together. Do the same again but for the mouth, filling it with black. Roll a teeny sausage out of white paste and place it at the top of the mouth, tapping it into place with the Dresden tool. Roll a tiny oval of dark red and add this to the bottom of the mouth. The eyes are flattened balls of white with a snake of gray paste around the circumference. Add both of the circles above the mouth and add a tiny oval of gray paste in the center. Add in the pupils which are balls of brown paste, then smaller black ones and even smaller white ones. He's going to attach to the back minion via a cocktail stick to hold him into place. Slowly twist the cocktail stick into the back through the polostime ball. Don't forget to be gentle, it can be quite traumatic for the mini minion, dump in the back and slide him into position. Add a black strip of paste to make the strap of the goggles and a little oval of gray for detail. Another white strip around the waist will create a belt. Using a tiny star plunger cutter add a white star to his chest. For his head detail cut out a stocking sort of shape and turn it on its side. Mark in two lines and add them on either side of the head. With red gel make a paint with water and add squares to the belt. Legs are done in the same way as the back minion, just much smaller with red shoes. Back minion's other arm is another black sausage. Attach this to the shoulder and wrap it around onto the mini minion. Push a cupab stick up into the arm to help hold it. Trim this down with cutters. You can also apply lots of mini sponges to help support it as it dries. The hand is done in the same way, this time holding tight to capture an America. Dump in the back of the lower black area and apply the cape. This is a piece of paste cut straight along the top with humps cut out the bottom to create points. For mini minions arms roll out tiny sausages of white and attach with water. The hands are the same but just much smaller and in red. You can add some white stars for detail and add the name and edge to the board with either cutters or using the tracing method with grease proof paper. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you did please give it a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe to see what's coming up next week. Thanks guys, bye!