Happy Summer everybody! It is officially summer, even though it has felt like the six shades of hell for the last 2 weeks. Whew, its been pretty bad down here in the deep south. My car (Toyota Prius) normally gets 50mpg in the city, but with this weather I have been getting about 36mpg. Depressing...
So instead of sitting outside in this terrible heat, why don't you try making a Barbie Cake for a special someone? It doesn't have to have the Chicago Cubs theme. As you can see, it can be whatever you want, so long as you have a little fondant and a LOT of patience. I definitely had to walk away from this cake a few times.
This barbie cake has a cute story behind it. My friend called and requested a barbie cake for her Mother-In-Law, named Barbie. We were brainstorming ideas about how she could be dressed when she let me know that Barbie is from Chicago and is a huge Cubs fan. So I drew up a (quite funny looking) sketch and she loved it!
Now, before I tell you how I made this cake, let me inform you that this was my first ever Barbie cake and I am quite sure that there are better and easier methods than the ones I used. However, I never back down from a challenge and just went into this blind. So if you know some better methods, please let me know. Otherwise, here's how you do it:
I wanted Barbie to have a platform to stand on, so that we could have plenty of cake servings. Also, the platform is a good medium for more decorations. I dyed the fondant as blue as I could, but I just couldn't get it that dark royal blue. So I used Wilton's Color Mist in blue to get the shade I wanted.
After the color dried a little, I put the carved cake on top of it. This will be Barbie's skirt. I didn't carve it right. That will take some more practice. It wasn't tall enough and it wasn't the right shape. But I kept on going...
In the picture below, you can definitely see that the "skirt" was way off. And yes, I know Barbie is not real, but I couldn't just have her girlie parts out there for the world to see. She deserved a little cover-up. You're welcome, Babs.
In an attempt to make up for the lack of cake around Barbie's "area" I used fondant to fill in the gaps. Then I covered the entire skirt in fondant. You can see where the fondant underneath stops and the cake begins. That's another thing I need to work on.
Since I had to pipe pinstripes on her skirt, I used a cutting wheel to score marks into the fondant so I could stay on track.
Now for the finishing touches using blue fondant and red and royal blue royal icing.
I made a jersey and ballcap out of blue fondant. The jersey was a bit difficult, but I made it work. I wanted it to have a girly look, so I made sure it hugged her curves. The I used red royal icing to pipe buttons on the jersey as well as the "C" on the cap and jersey.
The woman recieving this cake's last name is Powell and she was turning 77 so I put those things on the back of the jersey (great idea Don and Laura!). I also left her hair up in that cute little flipped ponytail so everyone could see the details on the back.
Finally, I used blue royal icing to pipe the stripes on her skirt and red royal icing to pipe "CHICAGO" on the "platform".
The entire thing came together with the red border at the top and bottom of her skirt.
This cake was fun and frustrating all at the same time, but I am extremely happy with how it turned out. And I'm pretty sure my customers were too, since Don actually called my husband at work immediately after his wife (Laura) picked it up just to tell him how awesome it was. Thanks Don and Laura! YOU guys are AWESOME!
With love, Ev