Disney Princess Castle Cake: Day 1

Another birthday, another cake. Finally, after two consecutive years of superheroes I get to make a princess cake. That’s the beauty of having little girls. Not only do I make the cake of their dreams. I get to make the cake of my childhood dreams.

For those of you want to try this at home, I am using Wilton’s Romantic Castle Cake Set. Sure, I could have handmade the turrets using rice crispy treats, dirty iced them and covered them in modeling chocolate…. but I have five kids. So for now I think I will stick to the plastic, covered in fondant of course! The first thing on the agenda is flowers. Three hundred fondant flowers and three hundred leaves. Although painstaking, I find this kind of work somehow meditating and oh so beautiful!

A sea of fondant flowers and leaves

Wash and dry your work station thoroughly, you don’t want your fondant to pick up dust. Start by dusting your work station with a light dusting of corn starch or confectioner’s sugar. I prefer corn starch, it has a better texture to it, but either works fine.  Roll your fondant 1/8 of an inch thick and use a flower cut-out of your choice. I used both a forget me not and a small leaf from Wilton’s Floral Garland Ejector Set. I place each flower on a nice thick piece of foam. I like to be able to make many flowers at a time and have plenty of space, so I use a clean piece of soft packing foam. With my small ball tool, I gently press the center of the flower cut-out and work my way outwards. Do the same with the leaves.

Using my small ball tool to form a fondant flower

Whenever I want to use the same color flower for the whole cake I vary the shades. Naturally for this cake I chose pink. But I hand mixed three shades of a blossom pink and two shades of a leaf green. This will give both dimension and a realistic look to your flowers. Remember there are no two flowers alike, be sure to make each one individual. This is particularly important if you are making more realistic flowers like gum paste roses or carnations. In this case I spent extra time on the leaves, both veining and shaping them.

Veining my leaves

You can give each leaf its own unique shape by twisting, turning, folding, tearing or leaving it flat. I like to see both the front and back sides of my leaf. Think about how things look in nature and try to emulate it.

Twisting a Leaf

Place smaller flowers like these on a parchment covered jelly roll pan and allow at least 24 hours for drying time. When you are finished bask in the rows of finished flowers.

Fondant flowers placed to dry

The sweetest flowers are the kind you can eat. Please be sure to join us for Day 2 where we will be making Disney princess figurines. I can’t wait and hopefully, neither can you!

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