She sees the cakes I make all the time and spends the entire year asking for each and every one of those cakes to be remade for her but she'll tell you exactly what you wants on each down to every little detail. Plus, she's always baking a cake in her play kitchen and making decorations with play dough. So, this year, as a surprise, on the day of her actual birthday, I completely let go and let the kids frost and decorate their very own 5 inch square cakes.
They got to do whatever they wanted to make. I gave them a bunch of MMF in different colors and my box of cutters to use and left them alone to do as they pleased. Caitlyn jumped right in and had her cake all covered with decorations in no time at all. She was so happy and definitely in hog heaven over her cake and with also having complete freedom to do as she pleased - A priceless moment.
A few weeks later, I made her actual birthday cake. With family visiting from out of town and only 2 nights to get it all done (1 night prepping and baking and another night to assemble and decorate), it was a group effort having my cousin and sister-in-law help out with some of the cake. We were up until 4am the day of her party getting the final touches done....phew!
With only a few of us celebrating her special day between the cousins, I kept the cake small (10 servings). I built the cake off a 10 inch square Chocolate Cake. The bottom tier measures around 5.5 inches x 4 inches tall while the dome is a 3 inch round. The cake is filled and covered in Italian Meringue Buttercream and decorated in MMF.
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| The purple MMF is grape flavored - made with grape JELL-O (Click here for the recipe) |
I didn't get a chance to take photos through out the process and this is the only one I have before assembly. The 2 tall towers are paper towel rolls that I covered in foil then over with MMF. Giant ice cream cones were inserted into the paper towel rolls and since the tops kept cracking off, I brushed them over with chocolate. The pink tower is a large sugar cone. The 1st sugar cone crumble on me when I tried to cover it with MMF and so on my 2nd attempt, I brushed the inside with a thick layer of chocolate to give it more strength. I ended up cutting it almost in half and recovering it over with another piece of MMF to fit on the cake better.
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| Top View: The path is rainbow sprinkles - Caitlyn's request |
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| The entire castle is dusted in Violet Petal Dust |
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| Cinderella |
Although she wanted Cinderella in a big poofy dress, and with almost not making her due to time, she was still super happy to have her on the cake...at least looking out of the window is better than not having her at all - gotta love kids! For the tiny flowers, I used a 3 different sized blossom cutters. The largest ones are no more than a 1/4 inch wide; very tiny flowers. I piped the green vines in Royal Icing.
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| THE Darth Vader |
And she got what she wanted...Darth Vader on her cake. He's made out of modeling chocolate and the light saber is a toothpick painted in gel colors (it had the perfect groove for the handle).
It was funny to hear the guys at the restaurant say the cake was "totally cool" - a castle cake, cool? Nah, we all know, it was Darth that was cool (LOL).
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| cheeeezzzz! |
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| I asked her what happened to Darth, she points at the rest of his body while chewing on his head (note the black teeth) |