Barbie Cake

Vanilla and Chocolate Cake with Bar-One and Fondant Icing

I think my favourite part of baking is children.. If they like the look of something or the taste of something, it just means the world to me. My favourite kids in the world are Ralph's two nieces- the Piglets. They are gorgeous, kind and caring and I love spending time with them. For Piglet 1- Emily's sixth birthday, she asked for a Barbie cake. And I wanted to make the prettiest one I could. I think I did pretty well?

You can find a tutorial on how to do this on the frostedcakencookie. I give all the instructions here, but for a different colour scheme and probably more professional finish have a look there.

Lets start from the beginning: I made 4 cakes: two vanilla and two chocolate in a 7 inch cake pan. I made these the day before and froze them overnight. This makes them easier to carve into a Barbie's skirt.

I bought bar-one spread from Kadies for icing between the layers, because it's SUPER sticky and so effective for sticking the layers together and before carving the skirt. Here's layer one and four:

Now, once the cakes are stacked, carve them to make them stack straight before continuing.

Next, wrap the Barbie in glad wrap and stick into the middle of the cake. I found that making someone strong (Ralph) dig into the middle with a tablespoon worked really well. Once the barbie is in, start carving the skirt LITTLE by LITTLE, until you have something that resembles this (sorry about the naked Barbie!):

Notice that I stuck little pieces of cake around the barbie to close the gap around her waist. By the way- all the leftover cake lying next to the cake? I could have made a third cake out of it!

Now, add a crumb coat to the cake:

Now it's time to start building the skirt. Take fondant and roll it out. Measure the length you need for the skirt. Then cut out a piece of the right length, it should be narrow at the top and wider at the bottom. Then create folds in the piece, so that they will fall lengthwise in the skirt. It's easier to visualise:

That's the great thing about this Barbie- you build it piece by piece so it's much more manageable. I stuck the pieces together with icing glue- also from Kadies. Here's what it looks like when the skirt is done:

The top part is pretty simple: make a strip and measure how long it has to be to fit the Barbie and stick together at the back. Cut at 'V' at the front for create a pretty front for the dress. 

Also, I made miniature roses, but rolling very thin strips of fondant and pinching the bottoms for decoration.

Here is the final Barbie:

You'll notice that I brushed it with Lustre dust to make her look more fancy. The cake was a huge hit with the kids!

I can't wait to make it again! Just make sure you set aside lots of time! It's SO worth it to see the amazed happy look on a little girl's face! And the Barbie made for a great present too.