Sparkling Princess Castle Cake

My daughter turned 3 last week.  She requested a princess birthday party, and I was happy to oblige.  We didn’t have a full blown birthday party this year, but we did have grandparents over for lunch, cake and presents.  It was a great low-key party and she loved it.

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When I started looking at cakes for this princess party I found so many beautiful and some truly over the top cakes that I knew I did not have the time nor the skill for.  Like this and this.  But then I found some castle cakes that looked great and actually do-able for the amateur cake maker.  Here are the links to the cakes that inspired the cake I wound up making for Betsy.  This and this for the cake itself and then this for the towers.  As you can see I pretty must combined a bunch of great ideas others had to put this together.  Thank you, internet, pinterest and all of those creative types who share your great ideas with the rest of us!

To make the towers I brushed melted almond bark on to cake cones, I made more than 10 but 10 is all I used.  After it dried I used a little more of it to stick them together.  For shorter towers simply use one cone.

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I also used the almond bark to coat 5 sugar cones (again, I made more than 5 just in case which was good since I did knock one on to the floor and it shattered) that I then covered in pink sugar.

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With the left over almond bark I dipped the ends of both large and small marshmallows and then dipped them in pink and white sugar.  I did a bunch of these and did not use them all.

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I also piped what I thought might be windows or doors out of some of the almond bark and sprinkled them with pink sugar.  I did not have a set decorating plan, as you can tell.  I only ended up using one of them.

Using 2 boxes of cake mix I baked up a 9×13 cake, an 8-inch square cake and 2 round 4-inch cakes.  Cake mix for the win!

I whipped up a batch of this frosting.  It was just enough to frost everything.

I bought a cake board at a local cake shop in Sugar Land that I just found out existed thanks to my friend Katie, Cake Craft Shoppe.  I see many more trips there in my future.  They have decoarting classes, too…

After leveling all of the layers using this handy tool, I started layering the cakes and put on a crumb coat.  First the 9×13.

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Then the 8×8.

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Then the two rounds.

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After chilling it all I put on another coat of frosting.  Then I started decorating.  I used plain mini marshmallows, white sugared minis and white sugared large marshmallows.  When we were shopping one day Betsy saw these pink sprinkles and had to have them.  They’re bubble gum flavored and taste terrible (unless you’re 3) but I loved the way they looked on the cake.

I pressed the bottoms of the towers into the very top and corners of the 9×13 cake.  I left off the top sugar cones since I had to store this overnight and my fridge would not accommodate the height.

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When it was time to have cake I simply placed the sugar cones on top and walked very carefully to bring the cake to Betsy.  She loved it, as you can probably tell.

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At some point after the candles were blown out someone (I think it might have been me?) knocked one of the cones off.  So, if you want a more sturdy ice cream cone tower then I suggest sticking them together with some icing.

Here’s a list of what you need to make the cake.

  • 2 boxes of cake mix and ingredients called for
  • 1 recipe vanilla buttercream (this is my favorite)
  • 10 cake cones (plus a few more just in case)
  • 5 sugar cones (plus a few back ups)
  • almond bark (1 package was more than enough)
  • mini and large marshmallows
  • pink and white decorating sugar
  • piping bag and tip (for door or windows)
  • pink decorating candy (I got these at Target)

And just in case you cared, here are some more photos of the birthday girl and the fam.

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Happy birthday, Betsy!  We love you.