Hayley's Birthday Cake ~ The Second of Two Little Mermaid Cakes

If you read my previous post, then you know that my kids each get two separate birthday cakes. One is for the day of their birthday and one for their birthday party which usually falls the weekend after their birthday. For this cake, her party cake, Hayley chose the colors she wanted and basically designed the cake. She is a very creative 4 year old, which I love. There are a few mistakes with the cake though. One is the fondant flowers I made, or attempted to make. This summer in New Hampshire was quite humid to say the least and as a result, the fondant flowers did not make it! But, luckily, the candy coral did!

I've made this castle cake using Wilton's Romantic Castle Cake Set, which I have used several times over the last few years. I love it because of it's versatility. There are many ways to build the castles, but the one you see in my photo is as creative as I've been with it. I made the candy coral with royal icing and there is even a piece of coral in the shape of an "H" for Hayley, which she spotted right away. It is the one thing she talked about most when it came to the cake! It always amazes me what my kids find to be the best part of something. It usually isn't what I expect! The bottom layer is a 10" cake and the top layer is a 6" cake. To get the layers tall enough, I torte them and fill them. The bottom layer is 3 layers and the top layer just 2.

I finally found a way to get the towers to stand in the back. According to Wilton's directions, they recommend using candy melts to hold lollipop sticks to the bottom of the towers. I am sure I keep doing something wrong, but that never works for me. So I tried something new this year. I used Royal Icing to stick wooden skewers to the backs of the towers that extended 2 to 3 inches below the bottom of the tower. Now if I were displaying the cake in a place that you could see the backside, this wouldn't work. But since no one would see the back of the cake, this worked perfect. None of the towers leaned, wobbled or fell off (this has happened in previous years!). I was quite excited!

Here are some links to things I used to make this cake:
Wilton Round Cake Pan Set
Wilton Romantic Castle Cake Set
Wilton's Recipe for Royal Icing