I created this Island Barbie skirt cake for a little girl that turned three years old. I baked a double layer ten inch spice cake for the bottom portion of this cake. For the “skirt” I used the Wilton Wonder Mold pan as well as an additional nine inch round cake (cut to fit). The doll is taller than the Wonder Mold pan. I used homemade Wilton buttercream icing tinted to match the Island Barbie doll.
After I created the skirt detailing I literally blew gold luster dust all over the skirt to create the “sparkly” look that the actual doll has (even her legs have glitter on them!). Since the little girl’s mother did not want fondant or royal icing to be used I had to create everything with buttercream. I also wrapped the doll’s dress from the waist down in cling wrap (use rubber bands on the dress before wrapping!) prior to putting her into the cake.
This Barbie doll birthday cake was definitely a fun and challenging cake to make.
More Barbie Skirt Cake Ideas
Barbie skirt cake by Catrina L., Byron, GA
For this Barbie skirt cake I used the Pampered Chef two quarter glass bowl that is oven safe. I used two cake mixes and baked for one hour then you just kind of have to keep checking it. The top will be over the edge of the bowl and very crunchy so I used a cake leveler to cut it even and remove the top before taking the cake from the pan.
I also used a nine inch round cake on the bottom to make the dress long enough so that I wouldn’t have to take Barbie’s legs off and to also add to the servings.
Total I used three cake mixes. I used the Wilton butter cream icing recipe which yields three cups (you will need the whole three cups).
Ice most of the cake and then add the Barbie then ice around her waist. After icing cake in white I used the spray icing color in purple to add color.
This is a great product by the way, very easy to use and saves a lot of time and mess from dying each color. I then put on some of the premade sugar Barbie decorations and used the edible sprinkles for some shimmer. My friend’s daughter loved this Barbie skirt cake!
Barbie skirt cake by Nic T., Brisbane, Australia
I made this Barbie skirt cake for my daughter’s second birthday (hence it’s only the second cake I’ve done). It is made using a normal round cake tin and then a molded ring tin on top to give the dress its shape. Barbie (minus her legs) then just sat in the hole in the top of the cake.
I decorated the skirt using pink and white “ready to roll” icing and then attached silver balls to match the necklace that came with Barbie. The bodice was attached to Barbie and then she was put in place finishing with a belt of sliver balls to cover the join.
Barbie skirt cake by Natalie L., Perth, Western Australia
I made this Barbie skirt cake for my niece’s first birthday. I ordered the tin off eBay and used a rich moist chocolate cake and underneath I baked two 8” cakes. I made the wand and wings out of plastic icing and stuck silver cachous on the wand and piped a pattern on the wings using royal icing.
I decorated the cake in buttercream using 250g unsalted butter, 250g vegetable shortening and 4 cups of icing sugar. I beated it all up till it was very light and added about 1/4 cup of milk to make it easier to pipe.
Barbie skirt cake by Kim T., Monroe, NC
I made this Barbie skirt cake for my three year old little girl and she loved it! I tried everything and I messed up probably three cakes but this was my very first one that I made ever! It was fun yet so much work but it is well worth it.
First I baked a cake in a pampered chef bowl. Then I made two 9” round cakes also for the base. I wanted the skirt to be shorter at the top and then flow out towards the bottom. Plus with the height of the Barbie it helped a lot to use the extra two cakes. I wrapped the Barbie in saran wrap then I placed her in the top of the cake. I did that first rather than wait until it was decorated because I was afraid of cracks etc from sticking her in afterwards.
When I put her in it did crack a little but it was nothing icing couldn’t fix. Then I just put one layer of icing on and used my flower tip until I got the look I was going for. I filled in the flowers with a color opposite of what the flower color was. You just have to play with the tips to see which one you like best. Again it is a lot of work or it was for me with this being my first time but it was worth it.
Barbie skirt cake by Brooke S., Kennewick, WA
The bottom of the Barbie skirt cake was two 9″ cakes iced as usual. I did put reinforcing dowel rods under where the Barbie was going to be placed. The Barbie was a cake mix baked in my small mixing bowl and for height I added another 6″ cake at the bottom of the rounded mixing bowl cake.
Frosted and used fondant to make the dress. I used the Wiltons Barbie top for the Barbie.
Barbie skirt cake by Sarah B., Windsor, Berkshire
I made this Barbie skirt cake for a very special little girl who is my husband’s goddaughter. Estelle was so specific about what she wanted her cake to look and taste like including the request for a chocolate throne. She had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to think about it.
I found a Barbie in the sale and a prince charming to accompany her. Barbie’s legs were so long I knew I would need the height of a large round 12″ chocolate chip cake to stand her on in addition to her pink ball gown. After baking the chocolate chip sponge and covering it in white fondant icing I used two pudding basins, one slightly smaller than the other to bake Victoria sponges sandwiched together with strawberry jam to make the dress. I then colored fondant icing two shades of pink and purple with food coloring, ensuring enough of the lighter shade was colored to cover the dress.
When I assembled the dress I was worried about lumps so covered it with one layer of white fondant before the layer of pink for a smoother finish and to avoid coloring up more icing! Fondant is very easy to work with and draping it like fabric is easier than making it flat and smooth. After I had carefully wiggled Barbie into her Barbie skirt cake I used sugar flowers and balls to decorate the dress – this was so much fun!
Barbie’s prince simply sat on an all chocolate throne made of Mars bars chocolate bars, chocolate buttons and chocolate fingers. The whole thing was demolished in about 30 seconds by 20 five year olds but it was worth it for the pleasure it gave the birthday girl.
Barbie skirt cake by Christine B., Spokane, WA
I bought the Wilton doll pan for this Barbie skirt cake. I also baked a small round cake to go underneath so that the Barbie would fit. I tinted some roll fondant pale pink and cut out the bodice. I cut out the skirt and then cut out an extra piece for the “train”. I made the white bow in back out of white fondant.
Ahead of time I made small lavender pink and white flowers out of royal icing. The party was for a friend of my son’s who was turning four. She is the sweetest little girl and it was really fun making this cake for her.
Barbie skirt cake by Lily B., San Jose, CA
Two girlfriends made this amazing Barbie skirt cake for my daughter’s fourth birthday. I pulled pictures from this site of Melanie K.’s beautiful Barbie Cake #06 as an example of what I wanted.
Here are some things that worked well and things we all learned from the experience: Fondant isn’t difficult to work with. I bought the Wilton Fondant Book to give us ideas and self confidence but it wasn’t necessary. I also bought Wilton’s Ready to Use White Fondant to further simplify the process. It has the consistency of play-doh. What was more difficult than we imagined was making a dome cake with a stainless steel bowl.
The first batch was gooey so they had to make another batch. A thin crumb coating of icing is necessary so the fondant will adhere to the cake. They used Wilton pastel gels to color the fondant. You incorporate a couple of drops with toothpicks and then kneading. Use restraint when using gels – they can be intense! You can always add more if you’re color isn’t dark enough.
They used scissors to cut the bustle shape and the bodice. The bodice and bustle draped over the dress and helped hide the seam where the bodice and dress met. They used small cookie cutters to make the shapes on the dress and rolled pink balls then slightly smashed them to make the contrasting bead on the flowers. They rolled the white fondant into a long strand to make the trim at the top of the bodice and a row of balls to make the pearl trim at the bottom of the dress.
One feature that was beautiful didn’t even show. Where the trim at the top of the bodice met in the back my friends put a little pearl and then a row of butterfly cut-outs ran down the bustle. The extra flowers at the base were an ingenious way to add candles without sticking them into the cake. We just put candles into the center of the flowers on the cake round. They painted Wilton’s pearl dust all over the entire dress to give it a luminescent quality that unfortunately doesn’t show on the pictures but the whole dress seemed to shimmer in the daylight. The whole process took them about three hours. They planned to do a test cake but this turned out so beautifully that they kept it. It was done two nights before the party and it looked gorgeous for a week after (no one had the heart to cut into it at the party and another friend made cupcakes which we ate instead!)
The Barbie skirt cake was like a work of art which we enjoyed looking at until my daughter begged me to free her Barbie!
Barbie skirt cake by Keri S., Mill City, OR
This Barbie skirt cake was for my daughter’s fifth birthday. It is fairly time consuming to say the least especially for someone with no creative talents! I used a buttercream fondant over buttercream frosting on a chocolate cake. I had to make two batches of cake so it would be tall enough for Barbie to fit with her legs still attached.
I wrapped her legs and hair in saran wrap as suggested by previous posters. The biggest tip that helped me was that the fondant can be made days in advance and kept wrapped tight in the fridge, also for putting it over the cake I rolled it out on my Silpat mat and used cornstarch over it as I rolled, that made all the difference!
I made my own colored sugar to put on the front using two tablespoons of organic cane sugar and two drops each of red and blue food coloring, rolled them around on a piece of parchment paper until it looked right and stored in a Ziploc. I think a stiffer and more traditional fondant would be much prettier but this one actually tastes good (I added almond extract to it as well).
All in all it was a lot of fun…my daughter was very happy to help pick out the colors for her very own Barbie skirt cake!
Barbie skirt cake by Molly H., Seattle WA
My daughter was really excited about Sleeping Beauty and I really wanted to make her a special cake. I used the ideas from this site for a Barbie skirt cake and made this cake with a few modifications.
I used the dress mold cake pan which I found at a local cake decorating store. I needed more cake then that so I also made a sheet cake for the bottom. I got the Sleeping Beauty Barbie and when I stacked the cake pans I realized that I would need yet another layer because of the height of the doll so I used an angel food cake pan under the dress pan.
I made two strawberry cake mixes (angel pan and dress) and one chocolate cake. The doll went in through the dress mold (which has a hole down the middle) and the angel food cake mold (same middle hole). I gave her an up-do and I just used the store bought icing and tinted it. They worked great!
I just copied the dress that the doll came in with a few different tips. My daughter was so thrilled when I came out with that cake it is a moment I will never forget! Totally worth the hours and love that went into it’s creation!
Barbie skirt cake by Irmgard H., Leicester, England
I made this Barbie skirt cake for my colleague Laura’s 28th birthday as she is usually the one to make cakes for anyone in the team. The inspiration for the cake came from Laura being a ‘bit posh’ i.e. ‘Princess Barbie’ and from the wonderful photos on this site.
The cake itself is two full quantities and one half quantity Madeira cakes (colored with red food coloring to make them pink) baked in a 23cm round cake tin. The two larger cakes are then cut in half and sandwiched together with Bramble Jelly. The three cakes are sandwiched with pink colored butter cream.
The cake tower is then shaped into Barbie’s skirt. This is covered in pink butter cream before being draped in thinly rolled sugar paste. Barbie is placed into the centre of the ‘skirt’ and her top fashioned out of sugar paste. Decorations and a ribbon are added to finish the cake. Madeira cake ingredients: 350g Butter, 350g Sugar, 6 Eggs, 450g Plain Flour and 2.5 teaspoons Baking Powder.
