Buttercream Castle Cake with Princess Toppers (How to Make)

❤️Why you will love this tutorial

• You get to learn how to make a pretty castle cake for your little girl.
• You can use the techniques shared in this tutorial for your other cake decorating projects.
• The tutorial has a list of supplies and ingredients required to make this cake, making is super easy to recreate a similar cake.
• Making your own custom shaped cake will save you a lot of money from having to order a custom made castle shaped cake.

📋Supplies required

• Butter pound cake – Four layers of 8 inches square cakes (2 layers for the bottom tier, and two layers for the top tier (including the stairway) and the turrets).
• Buttercream –To fill the cake layers as well as to level the sides of cake and crumb coat.
• Fondant – I used Satin Ice fondant in white, chocolate and pink (for the cake borders, castle door, battlements (the top square borders of each tier) and the tiny 5 petal flowers on the cake). You can also make your own marshmallow fondant if you wish.
• Food coloring in green, Americolor Electric Purple and pink.
• Gum paste – I used Satin Ice gum paste for the lettering and number on the cake.
• Plaque cutter – For the fondant plaque on the cake board.
• Round cutter set – To cut the castle turrets.
• FMM Block Letters Tappit cutters (alphabet cutter set) – For the lettering on the cake and the number 6 on the castle door.
• Flower plunger cutter set – For all the tiny 5 petal flowers of the cake.
• Square plunger cutter – For the top borders (battlements) of the castle.
• Needle scriber tool – To mark the wood grain on the castle door.
• Pizza cutter tool – To cut out the grass at the base of the castle.
• Fondant extruder tool – For the border rope on the first and second-tier cake as well as the castle door.
• Princess toy toppers

Step 1: Preparing and stacking the cakes

• Bake 4 layers of 8 inches square cakes measuring approximately 2 inches high each. Once the cakes are completely cooled down to room temperature. And then level the cake tops with a serrated knife or a cake leveler.
• Stack the first and second layer of the cakes together with some buttercream icing in between. This is for the bottom tier of the castle.  
• For the top tier, use the 3rd cake layer. Level the top and cut it into a 5 inch by 5 inch square and a 5 inch by 3 inch rectangle. Stack the smaller 5 inch by 3 inch rectangle onto the 5 inch square layer with some buttercream in between. Crumb coat the whole cake with a thin layer of frosting. Keep the remaining cake for the stairs.
• Stack the top tier of the cake onto the bottom tier with the support of bubble straws. In stacking the top tier, position it in the center of the cake (the top of the larger cake at the bottom tier) but towards the back edge of the cake. This is to give enough space to position the stairway for the castle at the front.
• Use the remaining cake from the 3rd layer to cut out the stairs and attach them to the stacked cakes with buttercream. Crumb coat the stairs.

Step 2: Making the castle turrets

• For the castle turrets on the bottom tier, use the 4th cake layer. Cut out circles using the round cutter set. Choose a cutter with a diameter of approximately 2.5 inches and make sure that you are able to get 8 cut outs from the cake. You will need to stack 2 cutouts for each turret and there are 4 turrets in the castle.
• Stack the cutouts, 2 each with buttercream in between them to make the 4 turrets.
• Use the same cutter used to cut out the turrets to cut off a portion of each of the corners of the bottom tier to fit the turrets. And then use buttercream to attach the turrets to the corners of the castle cake. Crumb coat the turrets with a thin layer of buttercream and make sure the top and sides of the cake is level.

Step 3: Covering the castle cake with buttercream

• Divide your buttercream into 2. Tint the first portion with pink icing color and the second with Americolor Electric Purple. Cover the top tier with the pink frosting and the bottom tier with the purple frosting.

Step 4: Making the bricks pattern on the cake

• Once the castle cake is completely covered in buttercream, use the needle scriber tool to mark the brick lines all around both tiers. Start by marking the horizontal lines. Use a ruler as a guide to make sure the lines are consistently sized. Once the horizontal lines are done, mark the vertical lines.
• Next, make the battlements. Roll a long strip of pink fondant. Cut into into a long rectangle piece of fondant strip measuring approximately 1 inch or 1 and half inch wide. Use the square plunger cutter to cut out alternate small squares on the strip. Attach these strips to the top edges of the castle cake and along the sides of the stairs. Repeat the process with purple fondant for the bottom tier.
• After that, cut out the tiny 5 petal flowers and attach them all around the battlement border.

Step 5: The castle door

• Roll some chocolate fondant to about one eighth of an inch thick. Cut the door out of the fondant, free hand with the sugar craft knife or the pizza cutter.
• Use the needle scriber tool to mark the wood grain pattern on the door. Also mark a long line in the center of the door.
• Attach the door to the front of the castle. No glue is required as the buttercream is able to hold the door in place.
• For the door frame, pipe it out using the fondant extruder tool in brown fondant. Add 2 small pink flowers for the door knobs.

Step 6: The grass border

• To make the grass border at the bottom layer of the buttercream castle cake, tint some white fondant with green food coloring. Cut out a long piece of the green fondant strip and use the pizza cutter to cut the grass pattern. Attach to the cake.
• And then add the borders for both tiers.

Step 7: The lettering on the castle cake

• Cut out a fondant plaque in chocolate fondant and attach the gum paste lettering to it using shortening. And then, attach the plaque onto the cake board, also with shortening.
• To make the gum paste lettering, roll the gum paste as thin as possible and let it rest for a few minutes (about 5 minutes) before cutting the alphabets for neater cut outs.
• And finally, arrange the princess toy toppers on the cake. And that completes the buttercream castle cake.

💡Expert tips

• When making tiered cakes, use cakes that are sturdy like the pound cake. Instead of plain vanilla extract flavored pound cake, you can make chocolate cake, orange cake, marble cake or even coffee flavored cake.
• Instead of baking the cakes in square pans, you can also make a round castle cake with cakes baked in round pans.
• When attaching fondant cut outs (small and light fondant decorations) to buttercream cake, no special glue is required as the grease from the butter in the buttercream is able to hold these pieces in place.
• For best results, FMM Tappit alphabet cutters require the fondant or gum paste used to be rolled paper tin. For this purpose, gum paste is a better option as it more flexible and is able to be rolled super thin without tearing unlike fondant. For best results also, let the gum paste dry slightly (for about 5 minutes) after rolling before cutting the alphabets for neater cut outs.
• If you are transporting this buttercream castle cake to a different venue or location, only add the Princess cake toppers once you reach your venue. That will avoid the toppers from keep falling and ruining the decoration on the cake.