Lark & Lola

My daughter's 4th birthday party was this past weekend {Happy Birthday Violet! See her party here on my family blog.} During the early party planning phase, she got it in her head that she wanted a doll cake, after seeing some fake doll cakes in the Target bakery section. Well, being a cake decorator myself {I took the classes about 6 years ago, and have done it as a hobby ever since}, I refused to pay for a grocery store doll cake. Hoping to take some of the party chores off my plate, however, I did shop around several local bakeries. Not only did they quote me starting at $85 {for a cake that would feed only 15 people!} they also put the "Elsa" idea in Violet's head. Suddenly, not only did she want a doll cake, she wanted an ELSA cake, and just like that I was planning more of an Elsa party. And cake. I was not handing over $85+ for a cake I might not even like. I've seen enough Cake Wrecks to know if you want something done right, you do it yourself.

I had to do it myself. So, I did.

Now, I must share that I got this entire "walking doll" concept and the tutorial over here, at Lacey Jakes Cakes' blog. She did a fabulous job giving instructions on how to make this cake. And her's looks much better than mine too.

Honestly: this is one of the easiest birthday cakes I've done for my kids. Honest. If you can work with fondant, you can do this cake. I baked the cake in the Pampered Chef Batter Bowl--which made a dome shaped cake--but Wilton also makes a similar sized doll shape pan. I also set the Pampered Chef-baked dome cake on an 8 inch round cake {about 2" tall, with a layer of buttercream between of course}.

Since Lacey did such a good job on the tutorial, so I'll leave it at that. Draping the fondant was fun and relatively easy.

Now, while in the past I've always made my own marshmallow fondant, I decided to cut corners and try a new, premade fondant from the cake store {Denverites, I go to Cake Crafts on Broadway, they are the best}. I took a chance on the Fat Daddio's "Tiffany Blue". It was perfect! It rolled and worked so well, it was the perfect Elsa-blue, and it tasted much better than Wilton's nasty fondant.

The Elsa cake was definitely an impressive centerpiece to Violet's birthday party spread.



In fact, the snow queen herself even seemed impressed!

And yes, we ate it! Or at least the kids did. And yes, the inside was Elsa-blue too. {That's what you get for trying to include your kid in the party planning, and so you find yourself in the baking aisle asking, "Blue velvet, Violet? Really??? Not chocolate or funfetti? You want blue?"}

So maybe I made some cupcakes too.


Thank you for the inspiration, Lacey!