Simple Castle Cake for my Birthday Girl

First of all, you need to know that I am a beginner when it comes to cake decorating. I’ve just started making birthday cakes since my sweet children came into my life. I really wanted to try a castle cake for my little girl.

For me the most daunting part of the whole thing was how to make the towers. I have avoided fondant up until now because it tastes terrible in my humble opinion. However, it was time to give it a try. I started off by experimenting with a simple marshmallow fondant and surprisingly it didn’t taste too bad. My girls loved playing with it and eating the leftovers. I used some Easter marshmallows that were already pink and purple colored.

Next, I made the towers by rolling the fondant out thick (just under a ¼ inch) and wrapping it around PVC pipes cut into different lengths. (I had covered the PVC in plastic wrap and a bit of Crisco to keep things from sticking). I let the towers dry standing up for a day and then removed the PVC and let the insides dry out. On the second day I also inserted toothpicks into the sides of the towers where they would be attached to the cake. The towers dried for three days and were still soft enough to trim the bottoms and tops to level them.

The day before the party, I made another batch of fondant. For the rooftops, I covered ice cream cones in fondant. I made toothpick sized holes in the top of the cones for the flags before covering them in fondant. I then used a knife to cut out fondant shapes for the doors, windows, and the edging for top of the walls. These I dried overnight.

For the cake I made two 8 inch and two 6 inch strawberry cakes, stacked, and frosted them with cream cheese frosting tinted pink to match the towers. I applied some corn syrup with a small paint brush to glue the cones to the top of the towers and to stick the windows and edging on the towers. The fondant pieces stuck to the cake frosting without any additional help.

I positioned the towers around the side of the cake, pressed in the toothpicks and they held just fine. I used some wooden skewers to keep the three towers on top of the cake. Then, I colored some coconut green and sprinkled it around the castle for grass.

My castle cake turned out well enough, although with more practice I hope to learn how to make the fondant smoother and do more with it. It was a fun project and my birthday girl loved it.

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