Marthina's Ballerina Cake

Marthina is into ballet these days.She takes ballet class at school. She still likes Princess stuff but not as much as last year. (Remember the Princess Cake I made for her 4th birthday? )  Her mother, Irene asked me if I could make her a ballerina cake. I said yes. I found a design in the gallery which attracted me the most. It was adapted from Debbie Brown's Sugar Plum Fairy Cake. The challenge was knowing the step-by-step procedure to create the cake. I turned to Youtube for help and I was able to get an idea on how the cake is done.

The skirt was made using two 21 cm butter cake. The top layer cake was carved at an angle.The whole cake was frosted with strawberry butter cream before it went to the fridge to chill.

Tip: Be sure the frosting is really smooth before covering the cake with fondant because any lumps will ruin the smooth cake finish.

Here are the fondants I used. A friend brought all these from the US. Thanks Ate Jeanette!

It was my first fondant cake experience.Working with fondant seemed a little intimidating at first but once I got the hang of it, the rolling and cutting became so much fun!  I used yellow and a bit of pink fondant  as they are the two favorite colors of the birthday girl. Wilton's fondant  mat enabled me to efficiently roll out the fondant into the right size. I sprinkled corn flour and powdered sugar mixture lightly into the mat while rolling  out fondant to avoid it from sticking. I was so excited that I forgot to knead the fondant before rolling it out. My bad. Kneading will soften it and it is easy to work with a pliable fondant.

I covered the iced cake thinly with yellow fondant. I sliced off the excess fondant hanging over the sides of the cake with a pizza cutter. I smoothed the cake with a fondant smoother. 

For the frills, normally, a Garrett frill cutter is used to make them but I don't have one so I used a big and medium fluted cookie cutter. They worked just fine. I rolled the toothpick along the sides of the fondant and cut  the edge.I moisten the sides of the cake with warm water then stick the frills.

I redid the process until the cake was covered entirely with frills. Some parts weren't covered because I didn't have enough fondant.Bummer!

I stick the doll pick in the middle of the cake. My skirt was too big for the doll but I had to make a big cake so all the kids at Marthina's school could have a share. I should have made a smaller cake which would serve as the stage of the ballerina.

With the alphabet  and number cookie cutters, I cut a blue fondant to create letter shapes and number for Marthina's name and age respectively.


Here's the finished cake.

At Niva International School

Marthina was so delighted with her cake. It was a big hit among all the female kindergartners! Her friends even wanted to have the same cake on their birthdays!

Happy 5th Birthday Marthina!!!!!!