Created to be Challenged: June 2012

I really enjoy making interesting cakes. Last summer I made a cake for my grand daughters birthday party. The theme was medieval and I was to make a castle cake. I had never done one before and I had so many good ideas. I made four square cakes and planned to create the towers out of several small round cakes, all staked up on each other. The covering was to be mostly fondant. Well my little round cakes would not stand, up and the fondant was melting and it just kinda fell apart. My daughter and grand daughter were fine with the finished product however so we served it.

This year my niece, Elaina, was having her first birthday party and the theme was; you guessed it, medieval. So of course I had to try again. I decided to throw in an additional challenge by adding a dragon (that had been slain presumably by princess Elaina) climbing up the side of the castle.

I spent a couple of weeks looking things up online and looking at several pictures of castles, dragons, castle cakes and dragon cakes. I then decided what my plan would be.

I made two dragons, the first was entirely out of fondant and the second was out of rice krispy treats.
I liked the second one better so decided to go with that one.

The castle was made out of three kinds of cake. First I made a chocolate cake in two square layers then a strawberry cake also in two square layers. I made a yellow cake batter and baked part in four ice cream cones, the rest I baked in a bread pan. I froze the cakes over night, this makes them easier to cut and frost. I made the cakes from scratch recipes however you could use a mix.

I took the four square cakes and cut half circles out of each corner to make room for the ice cream cone towers. I layered the four cakes, using chocolate butter cream icing in between the layers as well as for the crumb coating. The plan at this point was to use the same icing to attach the towers to the sides. This is when I realized two things, first, I really needed to bake cake into eight cones not just four because I had to put two in each corner, one upside down at the bottom and the other right side up on top of the first one, second, I didn't have enough chocolate icing. The remedy for the cone issue, I just used empty cones on the bottom. To remedy the issue with lack of chocolate icing I used the gray butter cream icing that I had made to do the bricks of the cake too attach and cover the cones. Note that for this icing I used a basic butter cream recipe only I used half butter and half shortening as well as two tablespoons of cornstarch to keep it from melting and it worked very well. The chocolate icing was a basic chocolate butter cream.

I then took the cake that I had baked in the bread pan and cut it length ways into fourths and used these pieces for the wall around the top.

I put this in the freezer to chill overnight.

I then began work on the dragon. I attempted to color fondant purple however it turned out more of a mauve.

I rolled it out and covered the dragon body and tail, then covered the legs separately. Then I colored some fondant red and made spikes for the dragons back and nose, and a tongue. I made a small amount of black fondant for an eyebrow. I used a wooden skewer and dipped it in the black food color and made little exes for the eyes. He turned out great so I took him to the freezer and as I was placing him in he broke. AAAAAAAAA. I choose to let him chill until morning and figure it out then.

The next morning I pulled out the castle and using a #150 decorating tip I piped on the bricks. For the bricks around the top I used Dots. Then covered these with icing.

For the drawbridge I used a large chocolate bar. I broke it in half. I heated a small wooden skewer and slowly poked holes in two corners of each half. This required reheating the skewer several times. I used Pull and Peel Twizzlers. Stuck one end through a hole in one bar and the other end through a hole in the other bar, I repeated this on the other side.

I then had to face the broken dragon. I didn't have time to completely remake it so using icing, skewers, and water and patched it back together while attaching it to the side of the cake.