Wanna Build a . . . Cake?

So I love to bake and when a friend said her daughter was turning 3 and LOVED Frozen...well, the rest is history.

Of course this would have been cuter, if I'd bought a real "Frozen" Elsa...but those babies are expensive and I'm sort of cheap. But some white chocolate and a cake is pretty simple. All I did was braid this little spike doll's hair and dress her. Here's how I did it.

I simply baked a white cake, then frosted it with buttercream frosting and rolled out the fondant, slid it over the buttercream and then sprinkled some edible glitter dust over the doll and WAH-LAH...Happy Birthday!

And to make the little chocolates to place around the cake, I simply melted some white (blue) chocolate and poured it into molds. Then I chilled them in the fridge and popped them out when they were hard. SUPER simple.

Of course I had to make a cake stand that I could set the cake on but that was EZ. All it took was a piece of wood, some paper, a little glue and a ribbon.

I almost painted this doll's eyes blue but I thought that would simply be going over the top.

Barbie Cake

What little girl, or BIG girl, wouldn't love a Barbie cake? What a wonderful way to celebrate almost any occasion. At least that's what I think. How 'bout you? Wouldn't you love to have an icon of your childhood help you celebrate?

And, I thought Barbie was IT when I was a little girl. I loved her and Ken and played with my Barbie every day. But, Mom and Dad didn't have the money to even buy clothes for my doll (they had enough trouble buying them for the nine of us kids). I crocheted Barbie's clothes out of Grandma's left over yarn. So, I never had a Barbie cake growing up. To tell the truth, I don't even know if they were around back in those "olden" days. And, when Fatina invited us to her graduation and BBQ, I wanted to make one for her. So, I did. And it was super simple. Believe me, if I can do it, anyone can.

Here's how I did it.

First I started with a Barbie Cake Kit.
It came with a special "hill-shaped" pan I assembled by screwing in the stand and the core.
Then I sprayed the inside of the pan with "no-stick" spray.
I sprinkled flour all over the inside of the pan so that it would slide out easily after it was baked.
With the pan ready, I poured my cake mixture inside and baked it for about one hour (testing the cake with a wooden shishkabob skewer) to make sure it was done. I let it cool then it slid out easily.




Then I frosted the base of the cake with my first coat (or the crumb coating). You do this so that no crumbs will be mixed in with the final layer of frosting. I also cut out a shirt for her (making it out of blue fondant). I pinned the graduation cap to her head so it would stay on.
Now, it was time for the fun part. Decorating. I wanted to use the school colors. That made the choice of colors easy. So, I started decorating the dress with little yellow polka dots, that I cut out of fondant. I tied a little piece of rolled up paper (the diploma) in her hand with black thread.
The cake-kit came with a Barbie but I wanted one that actually looked like the graduate so I ran back to the store and bought one that I thought looked like Fatina.

It was so fun and I enjoyed giving it to the Graduate.

So, there are lots of ways you could use a Barbie Cake to celebrate a special occasion - can you think of a few? Please share any of your ideas in the comments section.