Ann Reardon

How to Make a Princess Cake Using Fondant

princess cake tutorial video how to

How to make a princess cake – Step 1

Make your cakes and gather what you need

You will need:
A round and a bowl shaped cake – see recipe at end of post
1 quantity of buttercream – see buttercream recipes here
Doll to go inside you cake – or you can make your own out of fondant. The video below shows you how to make a fondant face.  Lots of people seemed to be having trouble finding the reusable food grade molding gel, you can get it here: Food grade reusable mold making material

Cake board or cake stand to put the cake on
Large serrated knife to cut the layers
Simple syrup – see recipe at end of post
Fondant and red gel colour FONDANT RECIPE CAN BE FOUND HERE or you can purchase it ready made
Royal Icing – see royal icing recipe here
silver cachous (edible little silver balls)
flower cutter or small round lid or icing tip that you can use for cutting a circle
fine paint brush
baking paper
rolling pin
plastic wrap
small circle cookie cutter – you can use a knife to cut a circle if you do not have one

How to make a princess cake Step 2:

Vanilla Cake Recipe
(you need to double this recipe to make the princess cake. If making cupcakes this recipe makes twenty)

20mL (0.68 fluid ounces) or 2 Tbsp oil
120g (4.23 ounces) or 1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp margarine or butter
1 1/2 cups or 324g (11.43 ounces) sugar (caster or super fine)
2 1/4 cups or 360g (12.7 ounces) plain or all purpose flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups or 313mL (10.58 fluid ounces) milk (4% fat)
1 Tbsp vanilla essence
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 180C (356 degrees Fahrenheit).

For best results put the butter, oil and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 3 minutes on high speed until pale and fluffy. Add all of the remaining ingredients at once and beat on low speed for 1 minute only so it is just combined.  Just over half fill a 20cm (7.87 inches) round cake tin and spread mixture over to the sides so it dips slightly in centre.  Pour remaining mixture into an 2L (0.53 gallons) ovenproof mixing bowl.   Bake in moderate oven until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Tip: For the mixing bowl cake: once it looks done – but when you insert the skewer it is still gooey – move it to the bottom shelf and place an empty baking tray on the top shelf to allow it to keep cooking without the top burning.

Turn your cakes out of their baking dishes and allow to cool completely (warm cakes will melt the buttercream).

princess doll cake tutorial

Buttercream recipes for various flavors of buttercream area available on the buttercream post.

Simple syrup recipe
100g (3.53 ounces) or 1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar (caster or super fine)
100 millilitres (3.38 fluid ounces) or 1/3 cup plus 1 Tbsp water
Optional – 1 Tbsp vanilla
Heat sugar and water stirring until sugar is dissolved.  Continue to heat until makes a syrup (approx 104ºC or 220ºF).
Remove from heat, allow to cool completely and put into squeezy bottle.

Assembling the Princess Cake
To shape the bowl cake place it flat side down and then slice off the bulging round bits at the top edge so that it looks more like flowing hooped skirt and not a bowl.  Hooped skirts are tailored in towards the waistline.

Cut this cake into 3 layers – that is make two cuts through the cake. Split the bottom layer round cake into two layers. Then take a round cookie cutter and cut a circle out of the centre of all of these cake layers.

To construct the cake, first brush each layer with syrup using a pastry brush, then place buttercream between the layers and stack. Make a very thin ‘crumb coat’ of buttercream on the outside of the cake and place it in the fridge to harden – this helps to stop crumbs mixing through the icing which makes it hard to get a smooth finish. Then apply a slightly thicker layer of buttercream and use a strip of baking paper to smooth – stretch it out firmly and drag it up the cake.

Place in the fridge to firm.
princess cake tutorial video

Roll out a strip of white fondant and wrap around the base of the cake creating creases and ruffles as you do.

Roll out the pink fondant into a rectangle and wrap around the cake. Making a rectangle helps you to get the fabric gathered look at the waist of the cake.  If you roll your fondant into a circle and place it over the cake it results in a skirt that is smooth at the top and ruffled only at the bottom which is not how fabric on these skirts fall. Around the base of the cake at even intervals push up the pink fondant to create a swagged look.

Take your doll and make the hair how you want it to be. This is easier to do while you can hold the doll rather than when you can’t hold it because it is iced.  If you are having the hair down then you may like to loosely put it up while you are icing.  Surround the legs of the doll in plastic wrap.

Cover the body of the doll in pink fondant and then using a knife shape the top of the bodice. Place the doll into the cake – bending the legs slightly if it needs to sit lower in the cake. Roll out some white fondant and cut it into a circle. Using the base of an icing tip or small round cutter cut a scalloped pattern around the edge of the circle. Cut a small circle out of the centre of this and then split one side and place around the waist of the doll, cutting off any excess.

princess cake how to

Using either a flower cutter or the technique shown in the video make fondant flowers, place a silver cachous in the centre.  You will need one for the waist and one for each swag on the skirt, make a couple of extra just in case you break one.

cake decorating video princess

Place your royal icing in a ziplock bag (royal icing recipe here), cut off a tiny corner and pipe details onto the cake.  If you want to do rows of dots like shown pipe three dots down then two dots next to it in line with the spaces, then another three… when you reach a swag pipe a few more dots going up the dress.    Attach the flowers using the royal icing.

princess doll cake tutorial

Buttercream recipes for various flavours of buttercream are available on the buttercream post.

2013

My Cookbook

ann reardon crazy sweet creations cookbook
Stores that sell my book listed by country: http://bit.ly/ARcookbook
All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.

248 Comments View Comments

  1. Hi there

    Fantastic cake, It has inspired me to make one well attempt to, was wondering what ready rolled icing u used.

    Many thanks

  2. first time making a 3d cake 😉

    • lovely job Janniz, I would not have known it was your first time

  3. Hi, thank you so much for sharing this, am going to try it for my daughters 5th birthday. Can you please let me know what size round cake tin I should use please? Thank you!

    • Hi Rachel, The cake tin I used was 20cm and the top of the bowl I used was the same

  4. Hi Ann,

    Thanks for your advice and answers to my questions before! I ended up making a chocolate sponge as requested by my daughter and the cake came out really well! So well that none of my 21 family members who were at the party believed that I’d made it!! And I’ve never used fondant icing so I was really pleased!

    Thanks again!

    • beautiful cake Sophie, I love the little flowers down the front.

  5. Hi Ann,

    Thanks a lot for this tutotial, it’s just amazing!
    I have a few questions. You said that the cake is 20 cm wide. Do you know for how many servings it is? And do you know approximately how much fondant you used? I have 500 g of fondant but I’m not sure it’ll be enough.

    Thanks a lot!

    • Hi mariaon, 8 large slices or 16 smaller serves. For kids parties I tend to give smaller serves and then seconds if wanted as by the time you get the cake out most kids are full anyway.

  6. Hi Ann,

    I’m so lucky to have found your website, I’m very new to cake baking and decoration, your video made it easy for me to follow. I have just made a princess cake for my daughter’s 4th birthday, and the look on her face was priceless.. So thank you again 🙂

  7. Hi Ann,

    With the cake recipe, is the 2 x tablespoons of vanilla, fresh vanilla and not vanilla essence? I’ve only got the essence, so how much should I use please?

    Many thanks! Am really looking forward to making this for my little girls third birthday!

    Sophie.

    • Hi sophie, vanilla essence is good.
      Happy 3rd birthday to your little girl

  8. Hey I hope I’m not getting annoying but as I have no experience at all, it’d be really important for me to know if a metal bowl will work just as well as a glass one and how much fondant you used (because I’ll have to order that online – here in Germany we don’t have it)
    Thanks in advance,
    Enya

    • Hi enya, metal bowl should work too, if you order 750g of fondant you will have plenty. It is better to have more and some left over to use later than to be running short when trying to cover a cake.

  9. Just wondering what you use the suagr syrup for?

    • Hi fiona, lightly squirt the cake with sugar syrup – you will see that in the video, on each layer. This is a cake decorating secret to keeping cakes moist. It does not make it soggy just moist.

  10. ok a couple of questions
    – flour i assume is plain flour
    – when you say oil, do you mean vegetable oi, olive oil, canola oil?
    – can butter be used instead of maragrine?

    thanks

    • Hi alison, yes flour is plain flour, I use canola oil you can use vegetable oil, I would not use olive oil because of its strong flavour. Yes you can use butter instead of margarine if you like.

  11. great cake, ill give it a shot for my best friends 18th birthday 🙂

  12. Here’s a photo of the cake I made. Thanks again Ann. x

    • Beautiful Vilma, great job.

  13. Hi Ann

    Thank you so much for the inspiration and tutorial. I made the cake for my daughter’s 5th birthday and I am so pleased with how it came out! I must admit that I used a cake mix for the chocolate sponge but as it was my first time to work with icing ever – I thought one challenge is enough!
    She will have such a surprise when she wakes up tomorrow!
    Thank you so much again for making it look so easy I was inspired to even try. You’ve opened the world of cake decorating to me!

    Vilma x

  14. Can I ask what side bowl and tin you used for this fabulous cake. I am going to try to make this this week for my daughters 3rd birthday.

    • The tin is 20cm 8″ diameter and bowl is the same size at the top so matches up with the tin.

  15. That was amazing. you are so cool.

  16. Hi Ann
    You have inspired me to give this cake a try for my daughter’s birthday, thank you for sharing! I am wondering how far in advance you think this cake could be made/decorated?
    Many thanks

    • Hi Amanda, I would make it the day before the party. You could probably get away with two days before if you had to but use plenty of sugar syrup so the cake does not dry out. Happy Birthday to your daughter.

  17. Many thanks for the super detailed instructions you provide along with the inspiration. I’ve never done anything like this, but you really give me the confidence to have a go.

    • Great to hear Lilly and all the best with you first fondant cake.

  18. Thank you so much Ann!

  19. Thanks for sharing your recipes! You are so talented!

    Pls could I ask about the buttercream that you use for the cake? Is it the basic buttercream with pink colouring added or is it something else like the raspberry buttercream?

    • Hi Summer, I used the basic buttercream recipe with pink colouring for this cake.

  20. Wow, that’s beautiful, Ann! Thanks heaps! :o)

    • thanks Kim : )

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