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How to make a Castle Cake
Skill Level: Intermediate
For the castle I am making, the supplies needed are:
12 cake ice cream cones
12 waffle ice cream cones
5 cardboard tubes 8" in length
6 cardboard tubes 6" in length
1 cardboard tube 4" in length
12" hexagon cake, 4 inches tall
4.5" square cake, 4 inches tall
fondant
royal icing
buttercream icing
dowels
cake boards
sugar cubes
piping gel
brick or stone impression mat
Step 1: Preparing the turrets
This cake will have 12 turrets. I
use empty paper towel rolls
for my cardboard tubes.
.
The more towers, the more difficult the cake will be. If this is your first
castle cake, I recommend starting with a 7 or even 5 tower cake just to get the
hang of it! A photo of a 7 tower cake can be found at the end of this tutorial
(for a 5 tower cake, simply use only 1 tower on your top tier instead of 3).
The towers can be prepared several weeks in advance. Be sure to keep them
out of the sun, as the light will fade the colors.
Take a cake cone and dab royal icing around the top of the base. Insert gently
into the top of the cardboard tube, making sure that the royal icing makes contact
with the cardboard. Wipe away excess icing with your finger. Repeat
for all 13 tubes. Hint: Put the cone in the cut side of the tube as
it is more likely to be unlevel. Having the level end as the bottom helps
your turrets stay upright.
Step 2: Wrapping the turrets with fondant
Roll out a sheet of fondant 1/8 - 1/4" thick and slightly taller
than the turret you are preparing to wrap . To help measure, lay the turret
on the sheet of fondant, and use a pizza roller to cut the appropriate height.
Give your turret a light coating of royal icing to be the "glue" for the fondant.
Lay the turret back down on the fondant and wrap the fondant carefully around the
turret, stretching and adjusting as necessary to compensate for the difference in
the width of the cone and the tube.
Use a pizza roller to cut the fondant. You will want to curve your cut slightly
to adjust for the size of the cone on top.
Using a very light touch with your hands, press the seam together. Try not
to handle excessively to avoid making finger impressions, but if you do, don't worry,
the impression mat will take care of most of those.
Step 3: Giving a brick or stone impression to
the turrets:
Lay your impression mat close to the edge of a table or counter.
Lay your turret down on it with the cone side hanging off the edge and the seam
side facing down. With your fingers inside the tube on one side and the cone
on the other, pressing down on the impression mat, carefully roll the turret over
the mat. Don't worry if the impression is not a consistent depth across the
whole turret.
Repeat for all turrets.
Step 4: Covering the spires in fondant:
Roll out a sheet of fondant approximately 6"x6", and 1/8 - 1/4" thick. Lay
your waffle cone down on the fondant and carefully roll the cone one full rotation
across the fondant, pressing down slightly. This will leave an indentation
in the fondant you can use as a cutting guide.
Remove the cone and using the indentations as a guide, cut the fondant with a pizza
roller or fondant cutter.
Coat the waffle cone lightly with royal icing, which will be the "glue" for the
fondant:
Gently drape the cut fondant around the cone.
Trim any excess fondant from the bottom and seam side with a pizza roller.
Gently press the fondant to the cone and close the seam. Try not to handle
too much and leave finger indentations (although if you do, don't worry! no
one will ever notice them when the castle is complete).
Repeat for all remaining spires.
Step 5: Attaching the turrets and spires
With a piping bag filled with royal icing, pipe a line of icing around the inside
of the cake cone and also a line of icing around the bottom of the waffle cone.
Lining up the seam sides on the spire and the turret, insert the waffle cone into
the cake cone and press down firmly to make sure there is contact with the royal
icing. Depending on the size of your ice cream cones, the waffle cone may
rest just inside the cake cone, or it may sit on the edge. It doesn't matter
as long as you have a good bond of royal icing.
Use your finger to even out the excess icing at the meeting point of the two cones
and cover any "bald spots".
You can embellish the towers many different ways. I've chosen to give all
these a tip 4 bead border around the base of the waffle cone. Black fondant
squares around the side look like windows, and 2 of my towers will have a pink tip
103 ruffle garland with royal icing. All are topped with a gold dragee attached with royal
icing. I do NOT recommend using buttercream for tower decorations, because
you will be handling them and it is very easy to smear. Don't ask me how I
know. :-)
Step 6: Preparing the cakes
Cut out semi-circular "notches" from the corners of both the cakes. The larger
cake is placed on the board it will be presented on. The smaller cake is on
a cake board -- do not cut the board!
Crumb-coat both cakes, then ice with buttercream. I prefer buttercream to
fondant because it gives you sharper edges and takes the impression mat better.
When the icing has crusted, use your impression mat around the sides by pressing
firmly but gently. If the impression mat is pulling the icing off the cake,
the icing is not crusted yet!
Take the 4.5" square cake pan and press it in the middle of the hexagon pan (after
the icing has crusted). This will leave you an impression of where your cake
will sit (I have highlighted it in green in the picture). Dowel once in the
center, and in each corner, about half an inch in from the edge.
*IMPORTANT STEP! Before you place the smaller cake on top of the larger, I
highly recommend punching a hole in the board in each notched out corner, close
to the cake (I use a phillips screwdriver). This is where you are going to
put dowels that will support your towers, but you CANNOT hammer the dowels through
after you stack the cakes or you will destroy the cakes. Don't ask me how
I know :-)
Place the smaller cake on top of the larger one. Note the holes in the corners
of the cake board.
Step 7: Assembling the Towers
Using sharpened dowels, gently push and twist the dowel through the pre-made hole
in the board. Once you have pushed the dowel to the bottom cake board, slide
the tower over it. Repeat for all 4 turrets. This is where 4 of your 8"
turrets will go. The other one will go on top later. *Make sure all
your seams are facing the back. I turn mine to the back and slightly inside.
Your six 6" towers will go around the hexagon cake. Pipe a bead of royal icing
around the bottom of the tower.
With the seam facing the back, press the tower into a notch, pressing firmly against
the cake and against the bottom board.
Repeat for all six hexagon towers. If you have messed up spots, and gaps in
between the cake and towers (like I do), it is no big deal. Go in and clean
those up by piping buttercream icing in the gaps. I like a tip 7 or 8 for
the job.
For your top tower -- take your remaining tower and press gently into the icing
on the top tier, then remove.
Take two dowels placed near the outer edge of the circle indentation and hammer
them through to the bottom board. *IMPORTANT - these dowels must be tall enough
to touch the cake cone inside the tower and actually bear the weight of the tower.
You've probably noticed by now that these suckers are heavy, and if the dowels don't
support its weight, it will sink right down into the cake.
I am placing my last (the shortest) tower on top of the hexagon cake on the left
side. I will repeat the steps above for the top tower. *IMPORTANT - I do not
recommend traveling with these two towers in place -- do not put them on until the
cake is in its final serving spot.
That's it! The hard part is done! Now all you have to do is clean up
any boo-boos in the icing, embellish your castle, and "landscape" your board!
I have placed sugar cubes along the edges of both tiers. For the archway in
the center, I simply cut out a piece of black fondant and used buttercream frosting
to glue it to the cake. This cake is for a "Princess" birthday party for my
niece, so I have purchased a Disney Princess deco-pak. I am using a small
piece of white fondant with cobblestone impression for the walkway. Green
buttercream with the grass tip surrounds the castle, and the ponds are made by first
laying down a piece of blue fondant (leftover from the spires) and then spooning
blue tinted piping gel on top. The blue tinted piping gel really gives a *wow*
factor. Here are views from both sides.
My biggest piece of advice for the castle cake is this: Don't sweat the mistakes.
They will happen, and not everything will be perfect. It doesn't have to be.
This is a dream cake for any little "princess", one she will remember for the rest
of her life!
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Here's a castle with 7 towers. It has pink spires, blue swags around every
turret, and gold fondant flags on toothpicks on top instead of dragees. The
door is brown fondant pressed into a wood grain impression mat. Flowers and vines
also climb the castle walls and towers. Pink royal icing hearts have been piped
onto the sugar cubes and then dusted with disco dust. It is a 9" square and 6" round.
Another 7-tower castle, this one in fondant. Note that the towers are missing
the cake cone, making them appear "skinny". The towers and cake have been imprinted
with the cobblestone impression mat. I was not happy with the way the fondant
on the cake resisted the impression. However, this cake has many special details.
Notice the doorknob and hinges on the door. Brickwork dusted with pearl dust
surrounds the door and all borders and windows. Fondant lace surrounds the
bottom of each spire, and the spires have been heavily dusted with disco dust.
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