Elsa doll cake

My hold in doing this cake was just because this princess is so much in fashion nowadays between the little girls. It is everywhere and everybody knows her. But well, what a mother doesn't do for her daughter... so here it was, my daughter dressed in frozen princess and with a similar cake.
It took me some time to make researches about how to do the Elsa doll cake. It took me even more to really make it, but at the end of the day, when the party was over and the cake was gone eaten, my daughter came closer to me, she gave me a hug and a kiss and she told me with a sweet voice: "Thank you , mummy". What more satisfaction a mother can have?




Now about the cake. I didn't want to have a failure in this cake as it was very important for my daughter, so I went for a recipe that I made before for the Tinkerbell doll cake and it was easy to be done. The sugar paste I bought it this time. I closed my eyes to all the nasty ingredients from the commercial sugar paste, as with the experience of last times, it takes a lot of time to make it and you can not always succeed it without proper ingredients. So I spare my time and bought it. I have found it in blue and white so it was everything I needed for this cake.

I also needed to make 2 cakes: one for her home party and one for her school party. Of course it shouldn't have been the same, so I chose that for the school party I'd do a simple decoration (easier to transport) but keeping the same recipe.

For the school cake, I wanted a normal round cake dressed in blue and white with some white snowflakes. As simple as that. But the events leaded me to something else.
First, I baked the sponge cake for the dress: a half sphere. I have found a recipe saying that it is not necessary to beat the whites and yolk separately for the sponge cake as you can achieve the same thing by mixing them together for a longer time. But when mixed with flour, the composition deflated and I ended up having a not so well risen cake. Well that was a big issue for the skirt of Elsa as the doll is quite tall. I put the sponge cake aside and baked again another one using my classic way of doing it with whites and yolks beaten separately. This time I have a achieved the desired height of the sponge cake to fit the doll.

The sponge cakes were baked the previous day before assembling and decorating the cake. So, Friday, I baked the sponge cakes, Saturday was dedicated for the decoration and Sunday was the party.
I made the filling, I made the raspberry sauce, I assembled the Elsa's skirt and it was the time to decorate it. I took each strap and stretch it, I waved the edges of each strap with my fingers. I made all the snowflakes with a shape. I dressed the doll on the top to match the Elsa's classic dress. I put the straps on the cake, the doll on a side. It took me around half a day to finalise the design. Then the cake went straight to the fridge.


It was then the time for the second cake. As my round cake idea for the school failed I was thinking to make a igloo cake instead. The first sponge cake was not a totally ruined, it was just not as high as I need for the doll cake. But for an igloo was perfect and simpler to do.
I stretched a big sheet of white sugar paste and covered the cake completely. Then, I made some straps to simulate the ice cubes around the igloo. I decorated the joints with blue fine lines. I added a door and an entry.

Perfect !

It was then the moment to make photos and this is what you see here.

While doing the photos, I noticed that in some parts, and especially on the igloo cake, the sugar paste decoration started to absorb the moisture of the cake and was melting slowly. I quickly put them back in the fridge but that was not the only issue. On the Elsa cake there were also some straps that were slowly slipping down. Well... after a tiring day I just left them in the fridge overnight hoping that they would not deteriorate even more over night.
I went to bed and  I was thinking to check on my phone what I have done wrong to have this. The answer was simple. Putting sugar paste on top of a cheese cake will melt down your sugar paste. Uuuuh... and it was too late for me to find out this. This didn't happen to before with the homemade sugar paste.
I woke up the next morning thinking of course about the cakes. I was even afraid to open the fridge. For Elsa, some of the strips from the back were slided down but the cake was not very affected. A fix with some new straps on top would have solved the issue easily. But for the igloo cake... it was a total disaster. The entire decoration was melted around the cake, leaving an empty dome in pure white of cream cheese and melted white sugar paste. This second cake I simply put it in the freezer and for her school I went to buy the first cake I could find in the local super market. And guess what, it was a chocolate cake with Elsa on the box :D. I told you... she is everywhere.
The difference between the 2 cakes was that for Elsa the strips were vertical as for the igloo were horizontal.


Huh... what an adventure. But well, this is how we learn. Sometimes in a simple way, sometimes in a hard way. So, if you want to do this cake, my advice is either you eat it the same day, either you change the filling with a buttercream that has less moisture.




Ingredients

Sponge cake

• 200g all purpose flour
• 200g sugar
• 6 eggs
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• a pinch of salt

Frosting: