Carriage Cake

by Liz Botes
(Beaufort West, Western Cape, South Africa)

I had so much fun making this princess carriage cake! It was a big challenge for me. First, I started making the princess, mice, lanterns, curtains, etc. I did that about a week before the birthday party.

I baked two round white cakes.

White cake recipe:

1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups of sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp baking powder
3 cups flour
3/4cup milk

I preheated the oven at gas mark 4. Beat the butter and sugar until light. Put one egg at a time and beat with butter until all the eggs are used. Next I mixed the vanilla essence with the butter mix.

Now mix the baking powder and half the flour together. Put the milk in and mix well. Then you can mix in the other half of the flour. Pour the mixture in two round pans and bake for about 30 minutes.

Let the cake cool off and put it together. I layered it with strawberry mousse. The mousse recipe are and old family recipe and I promised to take it to the grave with me!

I then made a hole on the one side of the cake where the princess should be. I covered the cake with light yellow fondant. I put a teeth stick at the bottom of the princess and then stick it into the cake so that it can hold.

And then the fun part of making cake started - putting it all together. I mixed the colors the previous day that I knew I would need for all the fondant figures.

The next day I started with the princess. I "glued" everything on the carriage cake, because the cake must travel. The glue is made of cmc powder that I got from a baking supplier. You mix the cmc powder and water for the "glue".

I enjoyed making the cake and seeing the little girls face lit up when I entered with her cake. She was filled with joy and excitement.

My little girl, Corlita turns 3 in January 2012 and she's getting this cake for her birthday!

I'm from Beaufort West in South Africa. I'm Afrikaans and this was difficult for me to write in English. So please forgive me for any wrongful spelling or tenses!