Jilly's Barbie Birthday Cake

Happy Tuesday? I know this is a few days late but here in the US we had "Labor Day" weekend and that always pushes everything by a few days.  My last cake of the summer was actually for our Grand daughters 4th Birthday Party! As you can see, by the cake above, the theme was pink and zebra print Barbie. 

The Barbie is a real doll, not just the top of a doll with a pick that sticks into the cake. She was cleaned up at the party and then redressed in her clothing and given to the birthday girl to play with after the cake cutting. What I used to bake this cake was a Pampered Chef Batter Bowl. To bake in a deep container like this you need to turn the temperature down to 300 and let it bake until it is completely done...so it takes a bit longer as well.

The inside of the cake was Zebra Striped too! It's really fairly easy to do but I wasn't sure it would work in this particular baking dish...I was SO happy that it did! Now what you do is make up your two batters of cake batter and set aside in separate bowls. Then use a measuring cup or ladle (it just needs to be the same size for both bowls) and, starting with the lighter colored batter, ladle in a scoop or two. Then into the center of the lighter color ladle in the same amount of dark batter. Alternate this until the container is full. Then don't touch it. Just bake it. And this is how it looks when it comes out! Zebra Striped!

After it was the cake was cooled I sliced it for filling and then wrapped it and put it into the freezer overnight. The next day I filled it and crumb coated it as well as, using a long bread knife, cut a hole into the center so I could slip in my Barbie doll when the time came.

After the cake was settled (I let it sit for 6 hours) I wrapped the legs of the Barbie in plastic wrap so that she wouldn't actually touch the food, and put her down into the cake. This is where I got into a bit of trouble. I have made Barbie cakes before but always with regular Barbie dolls. This doll is actually Ballerina Barbie and is about 2 inches taller! So when I slid her into the cake I realized that the cake didn't come to her waist, it only came up to her hip! So all of a sudden my dress became a dropped waist design!  What I ended up having to do was to spread buttercream up to the actual waist of the doll and smooth it down so it would look like part of the cake.

Then I started on the actual decorating. There is no easy way to do this. You have to eyeball everything. I added a bit of tylose to my white fondant and then rolled it out and cut that into strips and "ruffled" those up and placed them on the bottom right front of the cake so that she would have peek-a-boo ruffles in front. Then I cut out a heart shape piece for the front of the bodice and pressed it onto the doll, covering up the blue painted on "dress" she actually wears as a ballerina. Next I cut out the large triangle for the front of the dress and added it to the front of the cake, being careful to position it up and over the ruffles. I let that set up a bit before rolling out the black fondant rectangle. I have done zebra stripe before so I had learned that the best way is just to cut out the shapes from a big rectangle in a diagonal direction. Some of them are just slightly jagged strips and some of them are forked strips. Then I just used a tiny bit of water to position them onto the white dress front. You have to be SO careful here. Wherever you place the black is instantly died black. So there is no re-positioning or second chances. 

The light pink pieces are really just large "tear drop" shaped pieces that I cut out and placed, starting at the true waist of the doll and over lapped, first from the front to the back on one side and then from the front to the back on the other side, topping with one last tear dropped piece in the very back.  Then I rolled out a bit of white fondant for the back of the bodice and pressed it to the doll. Then it was time to add the dark pink fondant side/back pieces of the bodice. As with the front I just eye-balled it but they are basically large triangles.Once those were on I used a circle cutter to cut out the dark pink upper dress panels. For these I cut a straight edge onto the circle so it would fit easily to the waist. I just wrapped one from the front to the back on one side and then on from the front to the back on the other having them overlap in the center of the back.

The finishing touches were to add the piped on corset lacings (royal icing) and the black fondant bow. Then I just piped little white dots for trim on the light pink skirt and rolled dark pink ropes for trim on the dark pink skirt. Here is a tip...something I didn't think about till it was too late and ended up having to do it the hard way...trim the dark pink skirt BEFORE adding the bow. I ended up having to piece the trim in the back and it was much more difficult than if I'd just remembered to do that before adding the bow and ribbon tails. One last detail was adding the little black candy pearls to the bodice front to zebra stripe it too. I piped thin lines of royal icing on the bodice and then, using candy tweezers, added the pearls to the bodice. But the very last detail was the little present Barbie is holding. Since she is a Ballerina she has arms that are folded in such a way as to curve over Barbie's head like a ballerinas do when she is on pointe. So it looked awkward to me. That was when I decided she should be holding something. I didn't have time to let a purse dry so I took a bit of dark fondant, squared it off, cut strips of black fondant for the stripping and then made up a little bow. All of this I slid onto her thumb to hold it into place.

Here is Barbie at the party! Surrounded by the other decorations she really fits in and the Birthday Girl was over-joyed! I will be posting the party photos soon on the Cherry Party Blog so you can see all of the party details!

This week begins the time of year when I take some time off. I have a few cakes over the next few months so on my "off" weeks I'll share some of my other favorite cakes or spotlight friends wonderful cakes for you all to see. In the meantime you can always get daily tips and tricks on our Facebook Fan Site!

See you next there!

Cat