Ok so my dd will be turning 3 in February and I'm obsessed with making her a castle cake but it has to be perfect. dd is a cake connoisseur and she'll know if it's not.eed all of the cake divas and geniuses to rally together on this one. The truth is my cakes are not half as good as the cakes some of you think didn't turn out the well. But I am willing to put my all into this one because my dd has never had a birthday party AND I need to start a portfolio. For the last few months I've been working on perfecting my recipe and flavor combos. Now I'm ready to decorate. I DON'T DO FLOWERS. They scare me. So I'm doing hearts instead. First things first:

I'm afraid of square cakes and fondant but I'm willing to try it on rounds but I'd rather use butter cream for the cakes.

How for in advance can I do fondant/gumpaste decorations?
How can I make the towers edible, hollow and illuminated?
What is the best butter cream recipe for the job?
Has anyone ever made a staircase from 50/50?

More ?s to follow. This is your chance to lend all your expertise to a cake dummy LOL. BTW here are the demensions(tentatively)

Bottom = 11"x15" torted
2nd = 8" square
3rd = 6" round

Help me

So the 11x15 is the base.. it will the ground your castle sits on? Just to clarify.

For the towers.. get yourself some PVC pipe and form them around that and when it's dry remove the pipe. Wrap it in parchment or waxed paper first so it will come off nice and easy and use gumpaste so it dries rock hard. If you want to cut windows from it do it soon after you wrap it on the pipe and leave to dry for a few days at least. You can make your fondant and GP decorations as far ahead as you want.. the longer they have to dry the better if you ask me. So with the towers dry you can get a battery operated tea candle and put it inside or a LED light threaded through the cakeboard and base cake to light it up.

You could make your staircase from fondant/gp.. how big will it be and how wide? If it is going to be wide, it might be better to make it from rice cereal treats and cover that in fondant.. since fondant/gp will be heavy.

Square cakes and fondant aren't all that scary. I actually find them to be easier than rounds.. smooth the corners first and then the sides.

HTH's

if you are using fondant you can do small cut out flowers

you can shape the top of the turrets (columns) on cones the same way jkalman said to do the columns - just put wax paper over sugar cone and form gumpaste over it until dry

Thanx cupcakemkr that's a good idea. I have the five piece rose cutter.

Jkalman- have you been snooping n my notes? That is exactly what I had in mind. Now can I roll 50/50 thin enough to use a paper punch to make the parapets.

If you want to use a paper punch I'd do straight gumpaste. I made a template and cut the parapets with a craft knife.

That is exactly how I would make the turrets (I actually have a picture of a castle cake that I did exactly like this in my pics, if you want to take a look, windows and all). It's time-consuming, but fun. However, instead of PVC pipes, I used plain ol' paper towel rolls without the paper towels on them, and covered with plastic wrap. Also, realize that the sooner yout ake them off the rolls, the faster they'll dry, so remove the turrets as soon as you can without hurting the shape of your towers. Good luck!

I will be watching this thread!! I have a huge wedding cake that is to be a castle....I took the deposit last month the wedding is next Sept 09 I have never done a castle and when they asked I said uh huh I sure can...knowing all the while I had almost a year to learn!!
Any help on this would be great....I remember a cake that I loved by Jennifer Dontz it's beachy but the staircase is sooo awesome!!!

emieric- your windows are exactly what I envisioned and you even gave me an idea on different shapes. I'll do the gumpaste towers and parpets this weekendI'll TRY to post step by steps of my progress.