How I Made My Daughter’s Birthday Sweet: Pink Princess Cake

By Julie

I am not a master baker. I have never taken a class, and in fact have a long, storied history of spectacular baking disasters that include cookies without baking soda that turned into hockey pucks and ruined my mom’s best cookie sheets and a layer cake whose top layer broke apart and slid off the bottom layer and is now recalled as the Continental Drift cake. But I try, heaven knows, I try.

My daughter asked for a pink princess cake for her third birthday. Tired of taking the easier route with store-bought cakes, I knew I wanted to at least attempt this one myself. My mother did, back in the day, take a cake decorating class, and I immediately flashed on the cakes she would make that looked like the beautiful ball gown skirts of the doll sticking out the top. Perhaps you’ve seen similar ones at the bakery?

Well, I don’t have any specialty pans or fancy tools, so I had to improvise. I knew that decoration would be the challenge, so I took no risks with the flavor portion of the project and went straight to the cake mix aisle. Two boxes of Pillsbury strawberry goodness later, I had two round layers and a bundt cake layer that I planned to stack and then insert a brand new Cinderella Barbie through the center.

Here is tip #1: get a short doll. Or one with removable legs.  Because Barbies are tall.  I had a miniskirt at best.

So I whipped out a third mix and baked up a couple more round layers and hoped for the best. The next day (tip #2: give yourself several days for a project like this or you will go insane or give up and throw cake remnants at your guests), I set about assembly. I stacked the layers to see the overall shape and where I’d need to whittle away some areas. I cut holes through the centers of the round layers and made sure Cindy (as I’d come to call her) fit (yes, although still a little tall, darn Barbie posture). Then I unstacked everything and glued the layers together with icing, making sure the layers were relatively flat by trimming the tops with a bread knife (just a little, because the weight from all the layers helps flatten things).

Tip #3: toothpicks are your friends. Truss that baby up however you need so it stays together.

Tip #4: (for myself): take pictures so you can actually show people what you’re talking about, Silly.

The shape was actually pretty good, although I did trim a little bit to blend the layers together.

Tip #5: save the cake shrapnel. It might just come in handy later.

Tip #6: crumb coat. For the love of all things sweet, crumb coat your cake and let it dry first. No matter what you do to decorate from that point on, it will look so much better.

I put Cindy into the cake and realized she looked more like she was hula-hopping in the cake instead of wearing it, so I got creative. A few years ago, I discovered Bakerella’s cake balls (which you really must try), and thought I could make some cake ball filling to use as packing material around Cindy and to help with the skirt silhouette. So that’s where the cake shrapnel saved the day (basically, I just squished up the remnants with a little icing and smooshed it between the doll and the cake, building up to her waist and simultaneously solving the height issue).

From there on, it was, well, cake. I frosted the skirt and the doll to the best of my ability (read: not much) and stuck that puppy in the fridge until the next day.

It wasn’t a professional job, and certainly nothing you’d see on the Food Network, but my little girl was amazed, as were her cousins and brothers. So I’ll consider that a success. What do you think?

{Photo Credit: all me}

Comments

[Molly]

I think it looks great! I've also heard (but never tried)that you can use the pampered chef xl glass measuring cup to bake the cake in and it turns out the perfect size/shape.

[Kristie]

WHOA. Color me impressed!

[Elsha]

I like it! My mom made me one once, but she had a barbie that's specifically for cakes-- it doesn't have any legs, just a stick to stick in the cake. And then I got the actual barbie afterward.

[natalie]

Way to go! I like it, if I was into barbies!