The Rapunzel Cake Challenge

My daughter asked for a "Tangled" inspired Rapunzel cake for her birthday.  This was going to be a challenge as it is my first sculpted cake using crispy rice treats.  I learned that rice treats are really fun to use for sculpting. You need to sculpt them after they have slightly cooled but are still pretty warm.  Wet hands also help to keep the warm treats from sticking to your fingers.

The cake took about 12 hours to make.

First I began with making the treats the old fashoned way.  It took 3 batches.

Rapunzel's house was sculpted using 3, 6 inch cake pans.  I put parchment paper on the bottom of the pan and greased the sides with shortening.  The tower was formed from "beer" cups.  The house and tower parts were "glued" together using melted chocolate.  Rapunzel herself was sculpted using a candy mold.  I would have used gum paste but I was out.  I used fondant instead.  I wouldn't however recommend using fondant. It was too fragile.  Since Rapunzel was not going to stand independently the fondant worked OK.  If she needed to stand on her own, she would have crumbled.

Next I covered the "house" with frosting.  Since no one was going to eat this part of the cake, I just whipped up a frosting with shortening, powdered sugar and water.  I then decorated the house using fondant.  The flat wood pieces for the "Holtzfachwerk" at the bottom of the house was created using a fondant (clay) extruder.

Sculpting the roof came next.  4th batch of rice treats.

  

Covered the roof with fondant tiles, cut with a small square cookie cutter, and then added more decorations on the house.  Flowers were made by my daughter.  Piping was done with a parchment bag with a very small cut for the opening.  Used the same shortening "frosting" for the piping.

 Tower was made with melted chocolate and fondant

And the final cake (Rapunzle now has her arms).  The cake itself was a standard white with a lemon pastry cream filing.  Frosting was a buttercream and creamcheese frosting.  I will post this recipe at a later time. The stream is colored piping gell. I had wanted to twine her hair around the tower but I simply ran out time.

Thanks for looking.  It was definitely a challenge.  I was really happy with the outcome.  My favorite part was sculpting and covering the roof and I was happiest with how the piping turned out.  My piping is steadily improving. (yay)  The key is just practice practice practice.  I have much more practice to do...

French Play-Dough

With every cake I make I almost always receive the question "What is fondant?" or more frequently, just a raised eye brow and an unsteady fork. 

In telling the truth, "it's made of sugar", the eyebrows just go higher and you get a nervous "what is this lady talking about" nodding smile...

My solution:  "Oh..I just call it french play-dough",  forehead muscles relax and nervous nods turn into giggles, followed by large bites of the delicious cake.  (Very few people forget the joys of preschool play-dough and eating birthday cake and perhaps even eating the play-dough)

Baking is my joy.

I have finally taken the step to create my baking blog (which I have been meaning to do for YEARS).  It is the play of a culinary sophomore into the world of pastry, cake, delicacies and all things that can bring simple joy....

I always can use more joy.