Princess cake - second attempt

As I had written in my previous post, my first "princess cake" was a bit of a fail, I wasn't happy with the way the skirt looked, it just looked like a Barbie in a bundt cake and the smarties were a desaster the next day.

However, I had learnt my lesson from that and my second attampt came out much better! I had again made a pound cake and had used a bundt cake pan, you can find the recipe here.

As I said before, one of the problems with the first cake was the form of the "dress", so this time I cut the cake in three layers and cut it in shape, i.e. I kind of assembled it so it looked more like a skirt and less like a  normal bundt cake and I also filled the holes of the cake with cut pieces. The cake layers were then covered with a mixture of whipped cream and mascarpone cheese and raspberries on top.

I repeated this for the other layers until the cake looked like this

For the outside of the cake I made a buttercream using a vanilla pudding which I had made that morning before work. It's very simple, just make sure you have enough time to let the pudding cool enough. 

Buttercream

250g softened (unsalted) butter

1 packet vanilla pudding

500ml milk

100g sugar

In a small bowl stir pudding mixture and about 8 tablespoons of the milk together, bring the remaining milk and sugar to the boil. Move pot to the side and stir in the pudding mixture, bring to the boil again. 

When it has thickened pour into a bowl and cover with cling wrap. Let it cool.

Cream the butter and add the pudding my the spoonfull, don't add too much at a time and keep mixing. 

I covered my cake with plain white buttercream first and then added the barbie (I took her legs off first)

I used some food colouring for the remaining buttercream and made it look pink. I wanted to create little flowers so I piped lots and lots of flowers onto her skirt. At the end I sprinkled some edible sparkles on top, which you can't really see in the picture.

This cake was for my friend's birthday which we celebrated at a restaurant. She LOVED the cake and the waiter even gave us some candles and sparklers, which looked awesome. 

The cake was nice and moist but maybe a bit too much buttercream on the outside, but the acidity from the raspberries was a nice contrast!