Alright folks, here is my final post about the birthday treats! This one was my favorite, so I saved it for last! When giving a 4 year old the opportunity to choose her own birthday cake, you had better be ready to get creative! My little lady paged through her favorite Disney Princess cookbook to find the birthday cake of her dreams. This was a really fun cake to make, and required no special tools or ability. Just a few ice cream cones, some canned frosting, a boxed cake mix, and a variety of sprinkles and some assorted candies was all I needed to turn an ordinary cake mix into a castle birthday cake fit for a princess. This castle cake can be customized for any tyoe of princess by changing up the flavors, colors, and candy choices.
When I asked my daughter what she would like for a birthday treat on her actual birthday (not for a party or family get -together just dinner and dessert of her choice at home on a day that is very special to us) the little miss went all out. As soon as I asked her the question, she went straight to the cupboard to hunt down her baking gift basket which included her favorite cook book. She pulled out her Disney Princess Cupcakes and More Cookbook. She immediately flipped to the most difficult thing to make in the book, and with wide eyes she smiled and pointed to the cutest little princess castle cake.
The directions seemed simple enough, and I even thought we could do much better than the cake pictured in the book! We decided on a pink castle adorned with white, pink, red, and purple treats instead of the blue castle in the book.
Strangely, I feel the need to create the kid’s birthday cakes in secret, and then surprise them with it on their birthday. So late one evening I got started on the baking. I baked 1 boxed white cake in two separate square pans. After stacking the two cakes (with filling in between them) I tucked them into the fridge for the night.
The next morning after I sent my princess off to school, I came home and got to work on the decorating! First I realized that I had no flat square platters big enough to decorate and serve it on, so I had to improvise. I grabbed a thin glass cutting board and literally wrapped it with birthday wrapping paper. I then covered it with saran wrap, and carefully covered the paper with it. I got my cake out that I had prepared the night before and got to work decorating it.
Here is how I put the castle cake together:
1. I placed the square cake on the center of my cake plate and covered it with frosting. Working with a cooled cake makes it SO much easier, and I even go as far as to pipe it on in large sections and then spread it with a knife. It leaves the cake smoother and with far less crumbs.
2. I used 4 prepackaged cakes (like Twinkies) and stuck them to the cake in all four corners. I added a little frosting to the bottom (of which I cut off straight) so they would stick firmly to the plate and, because the cake was already frosted, they adhered nicely to the sides of the cake. I then carefully pushed a small sugar cone onto the top of the little cakes to create towers.
3. I then placed a flat bottomed ice cream cone in the center of the cake.
4. At this point I was able to pipe frosting all over the additional parts of the cake. I covered the ice cream cones and cakes with frosting and did my best to smooth everything over.
5. At this point I had a blank canvas – a plain pink castle that needed to be personalized for my little princess. This was definitely the most fun, and I really enjoyed making the cake just the way I knew my daughter would love it. This is also the part where you can get really creative, and use your imagination. I used the cake pictured in the book as my guide, but I “princessified” it to my liking.
To decorate I used:
- pink wafer cookies for the doors, windows, and entrance
- Silver sprinkles to decorate around the bottom of the cake
- White Crystal sprinkles to decorate the roof of the castle and the towers too
- Gummy hearts to make cute windows in the towers
- Pink, white, red, and bright pink M&M’s to create a border between the roof and the walls of the castle
- White and purple gumdrops to decorate around the top of the roof
- A few white pearl sprinkles around the center tower
- A Number 4 candle for the middle of the cake
- 4 toothpicks and 4 little sparkly card stock paper triangles to create flags atop each tower
Let’s just say that my daughter was in love with her cake, and didn’t even want to eat it because it was so “pretty”. She loved the pink frosting, adored the little hearts, and loved all of the decorations. It really was a fun and unique cake (just like my little girl) and I enjoyed every second making it for her!