Review: Wilton's Elmo Cake Pan

I bought this cake pan for my daughter's first birthday party. I am definitely not a cake decorator, no skill at all, but I thought I would give it a try. The pan itself is lightweight and has a detailed Elmo face carved into it. By detailed I mean his eyes, nose and smile are part of the pan itself. Elmo's fur is not part of the pan details, so you need to make that yourself with icing.

Wilton provides you with thorough baking and decorating instructions. The key to getting a great result with this pan is to follow the instructions exactly. Most importantly, you need to grease and then flour the pan, making sure to cover all the little crevices. If you do not you will have a heck of a time getting the cake out. Make sure you also bake the cake at the recommended temperature and for the recommended time, and let the cake cool before removing it from the pan. If you follow these steps, you should have a great result. I ran a butter knife around the edges of my cake and was then able to pop the cake out without a problem.

Decorating the Elmo cake is relatively easy. Elmo's face is basic enough where you can easily outline and fill in the eyes, nose, and smile. Wilton provides you with tips for getting smooth results on Elmo's features. I used my fingertip dipped in confectioner's sugar to smooth out the icing on the eyes and nose, and the result was perfect; you could see any knife marks at all on Elmo's eyes or nose. There are a few options for decorating the fur. You can pipe it through a pastry bag with the star tip, but I did not want to attempt that. I just used store-bought icing which I tinted red and applied with a butter knife. I used the knife to form peaks so that Elmo looked furry. Other than the fact that I underestimated the amount of red food coloring I would need and that my Elmo was a little pink, I was otherwise very happy with my work.

I do not know whether Wilton pans are dishwasher safe so I opted to wash this pan by hand. It was rather tedious to wash the pan due to the many little crevices. However, I would rather spend additional time washing this pan and making sure it was well-cared for so I could use it again in the future.

This cake pan does the Elmo face so perfectly that I do recommend buying it. There are other pans out there (i.e. Mickey Mouse and a Care Bear) where I think you could get the same result just by baking a round cake and decorating it with icing. For instance, I wonder with Mickey if you just need two cupcakes for ears and a little skill with the decorating to get Mickey's face. On the downside, however, the Elmo face is so specific that you really can't use the pan for much else. I think the price of this pan at under $10 reflects the fact that it may have limited usage.

If you find this fun to do I would recommend checking your local craft store to see if they offer any classes on how to decorate a cake. I wish I would have taken one before trying this pan out; I personally may have had better results.