Princess Doll Birthday Cake

The classic doll cake a favourite of little girls all over the world I think.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact they get a cake & a present of a doll all rolled into one!

For this particular cake I had my orders from the birthday girl that it should be a pretty pink princess but the doll cake can also easily be made into any of the Disney princess's such as Cinderella or Snow White, a fairy such as Tinkerbell or even a beautiful mermaid or ballerina.  You can also use a different type of doll to go along with the changing trends such as the Bratz dolls.

For those a bit older it is also possible to not actually use a doll at all but instead replace it with a handmade fondant tailors dummy.  The dress can then be made to look like a specific formal, bridesmaid or wedding dress.

It was 3 layers of pink lemonade cake with raspberry jam & raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream in-between the layers, then a buttercream coating & covered in home made marshmallow fondant.  All decorations are made of fondant & edible. (approx 25 regular serves).

I kept the design of this dress fairly simple, I think they can look a bit too busy if you have too much going on.  I simply used some swagging around the bottom half with a tiny handmade sugar flower at the top of each section, a sash around the waist with a bow tied at the back, a single flower at the bust & a matching necklace.

In addition made a lovely tiny little silver tiara for the princess using wire (not edible).

I also used little sugar pearls down the back of the upper part of the dress to simulate buttons.

Nurse's Heart Bithday Cake

This heart shaped cake was a really fun cake & I very much enjoyed making it!

It was commissioned for ex nurse's 60th birthday by her daughter & family.  They had the idea of including something to do with her nursing & suggested maybe a kidney dish or something like that if I could make it so this is the design that I came up with.

They also wanted it to be a heart shape which you may think again made reference to her nursing but in actual fact it was meant as a very subtle & gentle reminder for her to look after herself as she had recently had a big scare with her heart.  I absolutely loved that idea & thought it was very clever.

This was a dark chocolate & raspberry mud cake which was a 12" heart shape (approx 40 regular serves) . The cake itself was another of my 'Midnight Delight' cakes which is a lovely rich, dark chocolate mud cake, however this time I also made a sweet raspberry syrup which I poured over the warm cake to absorb. There were 3 layers all filled with a special raspberry dark chocolate ganache & a generous amount of beautiful fresh raspberries. I used a plain chocolate ganache for the coating to achieve a nice smooth surface for covering as I didn't want to have any lumps & bumps from raspberry bits when I covered the cake with the final layer of raspberry marshmallow fondant.

It was quite a large cake, the heart itself was about 12" & about 4.5" deep.  I used a nice deep red for the fondant covering on the heart & everything was edible as all the toppers & decorations were also made of fondant.

Above you can see the stethoscope 'listening' to the side of the heart.

Next we have the nurses hat.

The kidney dish with syringe & medicine bottle, I thought it would be a really fun touch to write a little happy birthday message on the label of the bottle with edible maker.

The thermometer.

An unrolled bandage with the birthday girls name on it.

For the border around the bottom of the cake I came up with the idea of using a heart beat design which thought would tie in nicely with both the nurse theme & the gentle reminder to look after her heart.

I was told that the cake was a very big hit, that the lady it was for seriously did not want to cut into it & that everyone commented on how absolutely delicious it was which is always wonderful to hear as I am a big believer in the fact that a cake should taste great as well as look great.