If you have a little girl in your life, chances are at some stage she will ask for a Frozen birthday cake. Here is my version of a minimal fuss Elsa Frozen birthday cake that is sure to delight your wanna-be princess.
You don't need any special "dolly varden" cake tin to make this cake and all the decorations I've used were easily sourced from a large supermarket and toyshop. I've also purposely avoided use of a piping bag to keep this cake as simple as possible.
Change the food colouring and decorations to another colour like pink and you have the instructions for a generic doll cake.
Time: A couple of hours to decorate the cake
Age: Any Age
Level: Medium
Materials
Round cake tin (20cm diameter) and pudding steamer (18cm top diameter, 10cm bottom diameter). You can also use oven safe bowls instead of a pudding steamer.
2 quantities of butter cake batter
Cake board (buy one or make your own with aluminum foil and cardboard)
Butter icing and extra icing sugar if using liquid food colouring
Doll - I chose a cheap Elsa-like doll from the toystore so I could cut the legs off if need be.
Method
Fill the pudding steamer 2/3rd full with the butter cake batter and then put the rest in the round cake tin.
Cook the cakes in the oven. Constantly check on the progress of the cakes - each tin will take a different time. Use a skewer or toothpick to check if the cake is cooked (will come out of the cake clean when the cake is cooked).
Make up a large batch of buttercream icing and tint it to a light shade of blue. This will be for Elsa's cape.
When cool, use a serrated knife to cut the pudding tin cake into 3 even layers.
Put a thin layer of raspberry jam and then buttercream icing on top of every layer of cake except for the smallest one.
Assemble the dolls dress on your cake board going from largest to smallest. A spatula can help you here.
Wrap the part of the doll that will be in the cake in cling wrap.
Cut out a hole in the top of the cake for your doll to fit snuggly. I was able to remove the legs so the doll can be used as a toy after the birthday.
Cover the entire cake in a thin layer of icing to prevent crumbs mixing with the final layer of icing. Put the cake into the fridge for a little while to harden the layer.
Lightly mark a wedge at the front of the cake with a knife for Elsa's dress. Now cover the rest of the cake with icing. Smooth the icing with long strokes with a blunt knife. Straighten up the edge with a knife when you are done.
Reserve some light blue icing for touch ups and then add more blue food colouring to the buttercream icing to make it a darker blue colour for Elsa's dress. If you are using liquid food colouring, be prepared to add more icing sugar to thicken the icing up again.
Complete the dress by filling in the missing wedge with the darker blue icing.
Give the doll a dress top with the darker blue icing.
Holding the doll over a bowl, sprinkle the blue sugar crystals over the icing. You can reuse what falls into the bowl and may have to press it into the icing a bit to make it stay.
Push the doll into the cake
Sprinkle some blue sugar crystals at the front of Elsa's dress in a filled in "v" shape to mimic her actual dress.
Arrange blue stars on Elsa's dress and white stars on her cape.
Clean up the cake board and add blue and white balls to the bottom of the skirt to make a tidy edge.
Hints
Buttercream icing has a yellow tint to it due to the butter so the blue food colouring will turn the icing to green before it turns to blue. I stopped adding the blue food colouring a little too early with this cake as I was concerned the colour was going to get too dark, but had I added just a little bit more I would have turned a light blue colour. I discovered this when I continued to add the blue colouring to get the darker blue colour for Elsa's dress.
For Australian readers, I've used
The Creative Kitchen - Pirate Treasure Toppings which can be purchased from Coles and Woolworths for around $6. The doll was purchased from Kmart for $2.50.
In my final pictures you may see that I've used edible silver shimmer powder but I was unhappy with the results and wouldn't use it again. I think the cake doesn't need it so I haven't mentioned it in the instructions.
Categories
#Cake
#Party
#Fun food
#Parent craft
#Birthday
#Birthday Cake
#Birthday Party
#Medium
#Any Age
#Pirates and Princesses
#Disney
#Disney Frozen
#Disney Princess
#Princess
#Frozen