Portfolio: Barbie Cake

I have that Aqua song running in my head right now..."I'm a Barbie girl, in my Barbie world!"  Ah, good times!  The reason that song is playing in my head because I just finished my god sister's birthday cake.  I did Mathilda's cake last year and there was no way her mom and I were going to sway her into doing something other than a Barbie cake!

As far as inspiration goes, I had no idea what I was going to do, so long as it wasn't the doll body stuck in the cake and then decorated to look like a dress.  It's not that it's a terrible idea; it's genius actually.  It's just that there are so many bad ones out there that I didn't want to run the risk of contributing my own version.  I have to laugh though, when I was doing initial research I saw nothing but the damn dress cakes!  Mathilda didn't want the dress cake thankfully, but because she's obsessed with Project Runway right now, she decided to sketch me a design of what she wanted.  Sadly, my scanner isn't working otherwise I'd show you what she did.  Instead, you get to see the reality of that sketch:

 

In a nutshell, she told me she wanted three tiers, with the bottom layer dark blue with yellow hearts, the middle tier white with red flowers, and the top tier pink with Barbie in a pink dress.  Truly, I would not have imagined a Barbie cake to look like this.  I originally had my doubts about her color scheme, but I thought, "Enh.  What the hell?  It's her cake!"  Amazingly, it all worked out!  The blue is actually more of a denim color which looks really beautiful with the yellow, red, white and pink.  I got a little creative with the border colors and added my own touch there.

There are only going to be eight or ten kids at the party and I didn't want to let Mathilda down with a non-tiered cake, so I made each tier one layer instead of two or three.  I torted them as well to give them a little bit more height as well.  Barbie was made from fondant which I cut freehand and painted on her face.  Not my best, honestly, as Barbie is looking a little haggard and has a double chin...oops!  Something else of note:  I used an American buttercream and I added shortening (which I almost never do because the taste and texture are awful), but I used Spectrum brand instead of Crisco.  The latter is full of hydrogenated oils which are terrible for you and I never liked the taste.  Spectrum added a nice sheen and softness to the buttercream which I think contributed to the ease of decorating.  In addition, after it had crusted, it didn't crack like the Crisco kind. 

I am so excited for Mathilda to see her cake tomorrow; she is one smart cookie and her design came out beautifully despite my initial reservations.  Just goes to show, we need to pay more attention to kids!

Happy Baking,

Kelly