{"id":358,"date":"2012-01-23T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T15:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ladyslittleloves.com\/2012\/01\/barbie-and-the-beast.html"},"modified":"2012-01-23T19:19:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T15:19:00","slug":"barbie-and-the-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/livingwithlady.com\/2012\/01\/barbie-and-the-beast.html","title":{"rendered":"Barbie and the Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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.<\/p>\n
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…<\/p>\n
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\u00a0inhale\u00a0huge hunks of the stuff, but the homemade kind actually tastes pretty decent.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Stirred a little…<\/p>\n
And dumped it onto my heavily greased counter.<\/p>\n
This stuff gets REAL sticky, so you have GOT to grease your counter and hands very well.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Work that powdered sugar into the sticky mallows.<\/p>\n
Knead, knead, knead!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The next day I made my Vanilla Bean Buttercream.<\/p>\n
I use real, Madagascar vanilla beans, and although they’re tricky to get into, they are DELICIOUS.<\/p>\n
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… \u00a0\ud83d\ude42 Husband approved (and he is REAL particular about icing!). I ended up making six batches of the stuff throughout the process.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
Next came leveling, torting, filling, and icing the cakes.<\/p>\n
MmMmmm…<\/p>\n
Coloring the fondant takes a while, but rolling it out just perfectly is the hardest part for me.<\/p>\n
Making the lace for the dress<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Putting on some of the details<\/p>\n
A few pretty swirlies around the back<\/p>\n
The finished product!!! A couple of swollen feet later and I am DONE!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
At least the Beast was calm.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Trying really hard to blow out that candle! Adorable.<\/p>\n