I made this buttercream castle cake with princess toppers for little Clarisse who was turning 6. In fact, this was the second castle cake I made for her. The first one was for her 3rd birthday (click here to read all about the castle cake I made for her then.)
Every time I look at these cakes, Clarisse’s mom, Fanny comes to my mind. Fanny lost her battle with cancer a few years ago leaving her 2 young children behind. The news of her passing really came as a shock to me. My heart goes out to the lovely children every time I see them. I hope these cakes will bring about happy memories for dear Clarisse of her lovely mom.
Buttercream Castle Cake with Princess Toppers
In fact, this was the last cake Fanny ordered from me. And I am so glad I took the order.
This was supposed to be a simple buttercream castle cake. And I used toy princess toppers to turn the cake into a princesses castle cake.
The main difference between this castle cake and the one I made for Clarisse previously is that this cake is covered in butter icing while the other cake was decorated in fondant. And this cake has all the princess dolls on while the other one did not have any princesses but had yummy M&M candies on.
Overall, I was happy with the first tier of this castle cake, but the second tier could have been better as the sides were not straight. And I’ve taken a mental note to pay more attention to the sides of cakes especially small cut out ones when covering them with butter icing.
How to Make a Buttercream Castle Cake with Princess Toppers
Buttercream Castle Cake with Princess Toppers
These were the main supplies I used to make and decorate this cake:
Raw Material
- Cake – This is a 2-tier cake with the bottom tier measuring 8 inches square and the top tier measuring approximately 5 inches by 5 inches (excluding the stairs) and the top section of the second tier carved out to measure approximately 5 inches by 3 inches rectangle. The turrets at the side of the cake were cut out from a plain sheet cake and stacked together to match the height of the rest of the cake. I used my butter pound cake recipe for the whole cake.
- Buttercream – I used buttercream to fill the cake layers as well as to level the sides of the cake and to crumb coat it.
- Butter icing – this is a stiffer version of buttercream. You can find the recipe here.
- Fondant – I used Satin Ice fondant to accent the deco on the castle cake particularly the top and bottom borders of each tier as well as the castle door and tiny 5 petal flowers on the cake.
- Gum paste – I used Satin Ice gum paste for all the lettering and number on the cake.
Tools
- Plaque cutter – I used this for fondant plaque on the cake board which had the “Happy Birthday Clarisse” lettering on.
- Round cutter set – I used these for the round pieces of cake for the castle turrets. I had the turrets on all 4 corners of the bottom tier of the cake.
- Alphabet cutter set – I used FMM Block Letters Tappit cutters for the lettering on the cake. This includes the number 6 on the castle door.
- Flower plunger cutter set – this was used for all the tiny 5 petal flowers of the cake.
- Square plunger cutter – this was used for the top borders of the castle.
- Needle scriber tool – I used the needle tool to mark the wood grain on the castle door.
- Pizza cutter tool – this was used as a general cutting tool. Also, I specifically used it to cut out the grass as the border of the castle.
- Fondant extruder tool – I used this for the first and second-tier borders as well as the castle door border. I used a small round disc to pipe out my electric purple and brown fondant.
- Princess toy toppers – I bought these toy toppers from a local cake decorating shop.
Buttercream Castle Cake with Princess Toppers
And this was how I put this castle cake together:
Preparing the cake
- I started with the cake itself. I baked 4 layers of 8 inches square cakes measuring approximately 2 inches high each. Once the cakes were completely cooled down, I leveled them and stacked 2 of them together. This was to form the bottom tier of the castle.
- Next, I cut out a 5 by 5 inches square and 5 by 3 inches rectangle from the 3rd cake layer. I sandwiched both with buttercream. Next, using the remaining cake from the 3rd layer, I cut out the stairs and attached them to the stacked cakes. And then I crumb coated the whole tier.
- For the castle turrets on the bottom tier, I used the 4th cake layer. I cut out circles using my round cutter set. Since the cake layer was 2 inches high and I needed 2 layers of circles to make up one turret. And since there were 4 turrets on the castle cake, I had to cut out a total of 8 circles of the cake. I then sandwiched the pieces in twos with buttercream.
Making the castle turrets
- Next, using the same round cutter that I used to cut out my turrets, I cut off a portion of each of the corners of the bottom tier to fit the turrets. And then I used buttercream to attach the turrets to the corners of the castle cake before crumb coating the entire bottom tier so that the top and sides were level.
Covering the castle cake with butter icing
- Once the cake has been completely crumb coated, I stacked them both together. And then I covered the entire cake with butter icing. I used pink tinted icing for the top tier and Americolor Electric Purple color for the bottom tier.
Making the bricks pattern on butter icing
- Once the butter icing work has completed, I used my needle scriber tool to mark the brick lines all around both tiers. And then I made long rectangle strips of fondant and using my square plunger cutter, cut out alternate squares on the strip. And then I attached these strips to the top edges of the castle cake and along the sides of the stairs. After that, I attached the tiny 5 petal flowers all around.
The castle door
- Next was the castle door which I cut freehand in chocolate fondant. I made the wood grain pattern on the door using my needle scriber tool and attached it to the front of the castle before adding a frame around it which I piped using my fondant extruder tool.
The grass border
- After that the grass on the sides of the bottom tier went on. To make the grass, I cut out a long piece of green fondant strip and used my pizza cutter to cut the grass pattern.
- And then I added the borders for both tiers.
The lettering on the castle cake
- Next, I added the lettering. For this, I cut out a fondant plaque in chocolate fondant and attached the gum paste lettering to it using shortening. And then, I attached the plaque onto the cake board, also with shortening.
- And finally, I arranged the princess toy toppers on the cake. With that, the buttercream princess castle cake was ready.
Buttercream Castle Cake with Princess Toppers
Hope this was useful.
Happy Decorating 🙂
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