Princess Castle Cake

I really love making cakes (as if you had not already guessed!), but I have not made many themed celebration cakes. It is not because I do not have the ideas , I have plenty, it is just that I am no good with using fondant icing having not had any training or much practice, which is why I shy away from making elaborate character cakes. Therefore, when offering to make a special cake for someone’s birthday, I attempt my own style and prefer to use lots of frosting and sweets – afterall sweets can cover up many cake making mishaps!

Last month, a friend of Burton’s celebrated her 4th birthday and wanted a princess castle cake and wanting more practice at making celebration cakes I asked her Mum if I could make it for her because she was going to get a professional to make her one. Now, don’t get me wrong I am NO cake making professional but I am cheaper and full of enthusiasm so I won the ‘gig’ lol. I have a copy of  Birthday Cakes for kids by Anne Rigg                   which shows step by step instructions of how to make a castle cake , which I used as a guide. I used my own sponge recipe and made pink coloured sponges- perfect for any budding princess! The cake was constructed and covered in a white chocolate cream cheese frosting and then heavily laden with pretty chocolate sweets and I made turrets from ice cones covered in pink chcocolate, and for a finishing touch I added a princess crown for the birthday girl to remove and wear as she feasted on her cake.

5.0 from 2 reviews

Princess Castle Cake

 

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Prep time

75 mins

Total time

1 hour 15 mins

 

a 3 tiered pink sponge castle cake - for for any aspiring princess

Author: Jenny Paulin

Recipe type: desserts

Serves: 40

Ingredients

• *FOR THE SPONGES*
• 500g unsalted butter
• 500g caster sugar
• 500g self raising flour
• 10 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 x tubes of Dr Oetkar pink good colouring liquid gel
• *FOR THE FROSTING*
• 2 x 200g tubs of cream cheese
• 2 x jars of white chocolate spread
• *FOR THE DECORATION*
• 1 tube of pink smarties
• 1 pack of strawberry fizzy laces
• 2 packs of white chocolate jazzies
• 1 packet of mini pink & white marshmallows
• 5 cornets
• 1 packet of pink strawberry flavour buttons
• 50g white chocolate
• edible pink glitter

Instructions

1. pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC (fan)
2. I made 4 thin sponges - but if you are confident at cutting a sponge in half, then you could just make 2
3. grease and line 2 x medium sized square baking tins (or 1 at a time if that is all you have)
4. Cream together the butter and sugar for several minutes until pale and creamy
5. Add the eggs and vanilla essence and continue to beat until combined and airy
6. Carefully fold in the flour (sifted) and the pink food colouring and mix until all combined and the batter is a lovely pink colour.
7. Then either divide the mixture in half or into four equal portions (I did this by weighing the batter to ensure exact quantities) and add to your tin/tins and cook for the desired time - when I cooked the 4 sponges each one took 20-25 minutes cooking time
8. Once cooked allow to cool thoroughly
9. *TO MAKE THE TURRETS*
10. Melt the pink buttons and white choc and coat each cornet in the melted pink chocolate and place on grease proof paper to cool
11. After about 4 minutes, coat each turret in the pink glitter then place in the fridge for about 20 minutes for the chocolate to set. If you are making these in advance, once cooled place into an airtight tin/tub to stop the cornets from going soft
12. *TO MAKE THE FROSTING*
13. Place the cream cheese and white chocolate spread into a bowl and beat togther, place in the fridge until needed
14. *TO ASSEMBLE THE CAKE*
15. Sandwich 3 of the sponges together the cake together with the frosting and then cover all of the cake with the frosting. The carefully cut the fourth sponge to make the shapes required for the turrets (see picture below) and stick each one to the top sponge. This was quite tricky to achieve ! Then you need to add the pink turrets to the top of each sponge turret and hope they stay in place! I placed mine in the fridge at this point to help it set - but only for 10 minutes as I still needed the frosting to be sticky to allow the sweets to be stuck to it.
16. Then i added lots of sweets to make the castle entrance, and decoration. I may have gone a little OTT but as I said before sweets can cover up mistakes!!
17. I then added a toy crown as an extra touch for the birthday girl.

3.2.1255

The cake is not bad for a first attempt – but there are things I would prefer to be different!

• I really wish the turrets had not been so wonky! I tried and tried to make them stand up straight but they would not have it!
• I also wish I had made the amount of pink smarties either side of the castle entrance equal – it bothers me that I did not notcie this when I was assembling them!

Still, the birthday girl, her parents and party guests were pleased with it and that is what really matters.

So what have you been baking this week?
Don’t forget until November 30th Helen and I are inviting you to link up a recipe inspired by the GBBO 4th series please join in, baking is fun and tasty!!
So now it is over to you …………………………………. on your marks, get set and baaaaaaake!!!

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.mummymishaps.co.uk/category/gbbo" title="mummy mishaps"><img src="http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l559/heljessup/badges%20etc/GBBO-150px_by_150px_zps90f580f5.png" alt="mummy mishaps" style="border:none;" /></a></div><br>

Whatever you decide to bake please make sure:

**RULES**
**all recipes must be a new post and not an old one linked up
** you can link up as many recipes as you like as long as they fit the rules
**all recipes must fit the themes set during series 4 of the Great British Bake Off and/or the Master Class series
**all entries must carry the GBBO badge (see below)
**all entries must also carry a link to Helen and myself please http://www.thecrazykitchen.co.uk/p/the-great-bloggers-bake-off.html and http://www.mummymishaps.co.uk/category/gbbo
**all entries must be linked up on either mine or Helen Hollywood’s blog by 11.59pm Saturday 30th November, 2013

We look forward to seeing your bakes 🙂

Also linking to Lavender and Lovage and The Hedgecombers

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