Recipes

Barbie and the Beast

January 23, 2012 Lady

I was asked to make a special little girl’s 3rd birthday cake for her party this past weekend. She wanted a princess barbie cake, and her wonderful mother pretty much gave me free rein to do as I pleased. Dream client!!! The little girl’s favorite colors are pink and purple, and she likes chocolate…and the rest was up to me.

I still get incredibly nervous upon agreeing to make something for someone unless it is something I have made multiple times. “What if it doesn’t meet their expectations?” “What if it tastes like butt?” What if, what if, what if…

I began by making my own marshmallow fondant. The store-bought stuff doesn’t taste all that great, and not that I expect people to inhale huge hunks of the stuff, but the homemade kind actually tastes pretty decent.

I started off by melting mallows with a little bit of water in the microwave. After melting the mallows I poured in the powdered sugar.

Stirred a little…

And dumped it onto my heavily greased counter.

This stuff gets REAL sticky, so you have GOT to grease your counter and hands very well.

Make sure you don’t have anything else you need to tend to for the next 15-20 minutes, as your hands are going to be “gummed up” as my husband calls it.

Work that powdered sugar into the sticky mallows.

Knead, knead, knead!

When I was finished I had a smooth ball of fondant that I wrapped in saran wrap, put in a Ziplock bag, and stored in an air-tight container. To complete my cake I figured I needed two batches of this stuff, so I repeated the process.

The next day I made my Vanilla Bean Buttercream.

I use real, Madagascar vanilla beans, and although they’re tricky to get into, they are DELICIOUS.

You can’t really see them in the picture, but the little vanilla bean seeds sure make it pretty! I asked the Hubby to “test” the buttercream… 🙂 Husband approved (and he is REAL particular about icing!). I ended up making six batches of the stuff throughout the process.

For the cake I made my dark chocolate, chocolate chip cake. Since I originally wasn’t sure how I was going to construct the cake, I made several different batches in various bowls and pans, so the Hubby went to town on the leftovers. Sure makes a lady feel good to have her man devouring her recipes!

Next came leveling, torting, filling, and icing the cakes.

MmMmmm…

Coloring the fondant takes a while, but rolling it out just perfectly is the hardest part for me.

Making the lace for the dress

Putting the fondant onto the cakes needs to be done very quickly, so I don’t have any pictures here. Oops! In fact, I forgot about the camera for a while, as did my Hubby who took most of these.

Putting on some of the details

A few pretty swirlies around the back

The finished product!!! A couple of swollen feet later and I am DONE!

After finishing, I realized just how hungry I was since I had worked straight through lunch without eating since breakfast, besides a few scraps of cake here and there. A cranky beast, the Hubby told me to grab a snack as he got ready before heading out to eat. Luckily, our food came out incredibly fast, as I devoured my Enchilladas A La Crema before the waitress came to check how our food was. A little embarrassed, I took off my coat (yeah, I hadn’t even taken off my coat yet) to reveal the belly so at least the waitress understood a little bit.

At least the Beast was calm.

The next day was party day, and the birthday girl was SUCH a doll, even matching the barbie on her cake wearing her own princess outfit. She was so excited about her cake and it was such a treat to be able to see her expression.

Trying really hard to blow out that candle! Adorable.