A Very Pink Princess-Castle Cake

A good friend asked me if I would consider making the cake for her daughter's 4th birthday party, and specifically requested a yellow cake with pink buttercream - with the theme of "princess castle."

This was my first time attempting a cake of this complexity and multi-layered-ness (yes, that's a word).  After quite a lot of research online looking at different castle cakes and their construction, as well as scouring both Migros and Coop for pink sprinkles/sugar/candies, I made a game plan and got started. The Swiss really aren't very into cake decorating as a hobby and so we don't have wonderful cake-supply stores like New York Cake or CakeArt available to us.  No matter - I used what I had and in the end I was very, very pleased with how it turned out.



The towers are ice cream cones dipped in white chocolate, then covered in two coats of pink meringue buttercream and rolled in white sprinkles.  The door and windows are sugar cookies decorated with royal icing (yup, extra Daring Bakers cookie dough!), and then glued onto the cake at the last minute with more pink buttercream (the cookies could not be refrigerated overnight with the cake since royal icing does not hold up well in the fridge). The piped white butteream dots serve not only to make the edges look more "finished" but also anchor the ice cream cones a bit more firmly on to the cake for transport.  I made the little flags out of paper and toothpicks which read "Happy 4th Birthday Princess Iona."

The downside of making cakes for other people is that you don't get a chance to see how they look when they're cut, or try a piece to make sure that the final product tastes as good it looks!  However, my friend assured me that her daughter was thrilled and that the cake itself was delicious.  Despite the time investment (about 15 hours total), I had a lot of fun making it!