Well it's time for my oldest daughter's birthday again. LB will be six this year and I decided that since last year's birthday party was kind of disappointing I asked her how she wanted to celebrate her birthday this year. I have to admit, I was secretly hoping that she would want a small family and close friends affair. Well, I was sadly mistaken. LB announced that she would like a party at a popular bounce house place, complete with a doll cake of some sort and she wanted to invite all of her classmates. So with some trepidation, I thought about her idea for about a week. I decided that this year I would be the Mom who sends out invitations to all the classmates in the class; which is completely opposite of what I normally do. YIKES! I would have loved to do an EchoAge party again for LB this year, as it was very rewarding and made my youngest very proud to go shopping for a special shopping trip just for her birthday. However, LB's school does not share the email of the parents of the children in her class, so this kind of forced the issue of sending out traditional invitations the her classmates. I was a little bummed about this fact.
So, after some thought and discussions about what she would like for the party, we decided to book that date at the bounce house place and invite her classmates - 17 in all. LB also mentioned that she would like to have a doll cake. First there was a request for a Dora doll cake, which was a little surprise because she has never mentioned anything about Dora before. Last night, at dinner LB made another birthday cake announcement, she requested a Tinkerbell doll cake. And me being a very brave mom who loves to bake and attempt to decorate cakes decided to to try to make this cake happen, complete with fondant frosting - which I have not dealt with before.
I have not made a doll cake before so this is going to require a practice cake. This weekend I baked two cake layers. The top part of the doll cake is from the Pampered Chef batter bowl, and the other layer will be a traditional 9" cake pan. I had two boxes of cake mix. I mixed up up the cake batter, prepped the batter bowl with Baker's Joy and poured the batter in the bowl, placed it on the over at 350 and baked for about 35 minutes according the directions. Well, turns out that I put too much batter in the batter bowl and the cake puffed up and ended up looking like a huge muffin top. None the less, the extra baking time was about 12 minutes more due the middle being a little raw after 35 minutes of the suggested baking time. The 9" layer turned out perfect in 25 minutes. I made a bowl of butter cream frosting made and added a little food coloring to dye it pink. After letting the cakes cool, I placed the batter bowl layer on the 9" layer and decided that I will need to bake an additional 8" layer. So for now the practice doll cake pieces are all in the fridge waiting to be put together.
I do not know what the outcome will be for this practice doll cake. If it turns out well, I plan on making a Tinkerbell doll cake. If the practice cake turns out not so well, then I guess I will be going to a local bakery. I do admit, I am somewhat of a cake & cookie snob due to all the wonderful time I spent in the kitchen with my mom baking homemade cookies, cakes and icing from scratch. Those were wonderful times for me as a child, watching and helping my mom mix up dough, measuring out ingredients and most of all getting to lick the bowl.
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