Princess cake - second attempt

As I had written in my previous post, my first "princess cake" was a bit of a fail, I wasn't happy with the way the skirt looked, it just looked like a Barbie in a bundt cake and the smarties were a desaster the next day.

However, I had learnt my lesson from that and my second attampt came out much better! I had again made a pound cake and had used a bundt cake pan, you can find the recipe here.

As I said before, one of the problems with the first cake was the form of the "dress", so this time I cut the cake in three layers and cut it in shape, i.e. I kind of assembled it so it looked more like a skirt and less like a  normal bundt cake and I also filled the holes of the cake with cut pieces. The cake layers were then covered with a mixture of whipped cream and mascarpone cheese and raspberries on top.

I repeated this for the other layers until the cake looked like this

For the outside of the cake I made a buttercream using a vanilla pudding which I had made that morning before work. It's very simple, just make sure you have enough time to let the pudding cool enough. 

Buttercream

250g softened (unsalted) butter

1 packet vanilla pudding

500ml milk

100g sugar

In a small bowl stir pudding mixture and about 8 tablespoons of the milk together, bring the remaining milk and sugar to the boil. Move pot to the side and stir in the pudding mixture, bring to the boil again. 

When it has thickened pour into a bowl and cover with cling wrap. Let it cool.

Cream the butter and add the pudding my the spoonfull, don't add too much at a time and keep mixing. 

I covered my cake with plain white buttercream first and then added the barbie (I took her legs off first)

I used some food colouring for the remaining buttercream and made it look pink. I wanted to create little flowers so I piped lots and lots of flowers onto her skirt. At the end I sprinkled some edible sparkles on top, which you can't really see in the picture.

This cake was for my friend's birthday which we celebrated at a restaurant. She LOVED the cake and the waiter even gave us some candles and sparklers, which looked awesome. 

The cake was nice and moist but maybe a bit too much buttercream on the outside, but the acidity from the raspberries was a nice contrast! 

First attempt of a princess cake

One bad thing about the new year is the end of year I'm faced with in the office, lots of invoices and counterchecking spreadsheets. Anyway, this year my invoices were late as I had to wait to close some files and this meant my invoices were late when I had to give them to a colleague for payment... I think I caused her quite a bit of time and trouble... so I promised her I would bake a cake just for her one day.

Yesterday I baked her cake. I used a pound cake recipe and filled it mascarpone and cream and raspberries, on the outside it was covered in whipped cream and decorated with little love hearts and smarties. I didn't really think about this, but I really shouldn't have used smarties, they had all lost their colour over night due to the humidity of the cream... So you should put smarties only on chocolate!

(Please note the floating plate!)

Pound cake

4 eggs

225g butter

220g sugar

2 table spoons vanilla sugar

225g all-purpose flour

15g baking powder

a pinch of salt

a dash of real vanilla extract for some extra vanilla taste

Sift together in a separate bowl the flour and the baking powder. Prepare a bundt cake tin.

Beat butter until light and fluffy, add the sugar and vanilla sugar and mix until almost dissolved. Add the eggs and at a time and mix until well combined before adding the next one (beat for about 30-60 seconds). Add the salt. Add the flour in two lots and mix on low speed until just combined. Please don't overbeat it now because otherwise the mixture will toughen!

If you are using vanilla essence or extract just add it together with the flour. 

Fill the bundt cake and bake at 175°C until the cake is golden brown and when you test it with a little wooden stick it come out clean.

Let the cake cool on a rack before removing it from the tin.

I cut my cake in three layers and filled the layers with a mixture of mascarpone, cream and raspberries.

Just whip 400ml of cream until stiff and mix it with 150-200g of mascarpone. At the end I just added the raspberries and mixed it with a spoon.

Fill the cake layers with the mixture and assemble.

I covered this cake only with simple whipped cream and added some decorations adn off course the barbie.

For her top I just used a normal ribbon that I wound around her neck/ body and tied at the back with a bow, I thought it looked prettier than the usual barbie tops. 

I forgot that my cake transport box is still at my friends place so I had to come up with something so I could take the cake on the train the next morning. I just took the barbie out and put a bowl over the top and fixed it with cling wrap. It worked!

My colleague loved the cake and thankfully shared it with all the other girls and she said I'm allowed to mess up the invoices any day if she gets a cake like this!