Princess Doll Cake

So this week, I took my baking interests to another level. I have been baking cakes for some years now and very comfortable with the process. I decided to try my hands at cake decoration activities. My darling niece’s 5^th birthday seemed like a perfect occasion to make a special cake.

I presumed she would love a doll cake. Yeah…a pink Barbie doll cake. The outcome of my minimal efforts seemed to be far better than I had expected to see.

The actual process of decorating the cake was as mentioned on youtube by Betty Crocker. I followed her instructions to the T (almost).

For the cake, I relied on my basic recipe which has always clicked.

Cake

Ingredients

2 cups Plain Flour

1 cup sugar (take heaped cup if you are using powdered sugar)

1 cup butter (Bring it to room temperature and fill up the cup)

1 cup eggs (I say one cup because the size of the eggs may vary) Usually 2 eggs should do.

2 tbsp Milk – Optional

1 tspn baking powder

½ tspn baking soda

A pinch of salt

Method

1) Sift the Flour, baking powder and baking soda through a sieve and keep aside

2) In a large glass bowl, add the butter and beat it with an electric beater on high speed until the butter is light and creamy. Beat with hand beater for 3-4min

3) Now add the eggs and beat until frothy and light mixture is created. With hand beater you will have to beat for a good 10 min.

4) Add the sugar and beat further till the sugar is dissolved

5) Now, fold in the flour mixture. If the batter is very thick (should drop off the ladle easily) then add milk accordingly.

6) Preheat the oven. Line the baking dish (8 inch pan) with parchment paper. Or grease it with some butter and flour.

7) Now drop the cake mixture. Tip it n the pre-heated oven at 160 degrees for 15 min.

8) The cake should double up in size and also be cooked at the centre. Check with a skewer or toothpick by inserting it in the centre. If it is not clean keep for another 5 min.

Icing

For the doll cake, I used butter cream icing which is by far for me the easiest icing to make and use.

Ingredients

100 gms butter (1 stick of Amul Butter). Do not bother looking for non salted

200 gms Icing sugar

2 tbsp Milk (Use warm for a glazed finish)

Flavors and colors of your choice

Method

1) Beat the butter until it is creamy and frothy on high speed. Beat atleast for 3-4 minutes.

2) Add the milk and Flavor (I used vanilla) and beat for another 1 min

3) Add the sugar in small parts and continue beating until the cream forms a stiff peak. Approximately 5-8 minutes.

4) Add the color and beat more. I added 2 drops of red color to get a pink color cream.

Now over to the Barbie Doll Cake

1) Using the above cake mixture make 2 cakes. 1 in the 8 inch pan and another in a deep pyrex bowl.

2) I baked the pyrex cake in microwave so that it is evenly cooked even at the centre. The oven baked may stay uncooked in the centre.

3) Cool it off completely, I was a little impatient but still waited for a good 20 min for the cakes to cool.

4) Now dig out the centre of the cakes with a knife.

5) Stack up both the cakes on top of each other. The round cake at the bottom and the pyrex bowl on top of it. This will form the skirt of the doll.

6) Now apply the butter cream icing (I used 1 recipe of above for Pink and half recipe of the above for the white color) on each layer and use it as cement to seal both the cakes.

7) Now cover the entire cake with the icing using a spatula. Do not bother to get an plain texture but ensure that whatever texture you get it is even across so the skirt looks patterned.

8) Now put this cake in the refrigerator for 15 min. Yes, you have to be patient, until then you have some other tasks.

9) Use the doll of your choice, and wrap her completely with a cling film.

10) Now, insert the doll in the centre till her waist. If the doll is taller (the way she was in my case) then chop off her feet – Ouch! my son said when he saw me do it) and if she is smaller, then stuff the cake with scooped out cake to make up.

11) Now seal the gaps between the doll and the cake with the help of a piping bag of white icing and create a white lace. Also, do some icing on the top of the doll to make a matching top.

12) Refer the picture below.

Isn't she lovely?

I took about 2 ½ hours to complete this with a little bit of pre-planning. I hope my little princess likes it.