My darling baby girl is turning 5 in Feb. and wants a castle cake. I am not only overwhelmed with what to do, but also extremely intimidated with this whole idea of making her a castle cake. I feel I've waited way too long to start fondant towers (her birthday party will be Feb 1st) and I'm worried about just plain failing at it.

I've searched and searched the galleries for awesome castles and have found tons!! Now I feel like I could never do them justice.

Do you have any ideas for a semi-new, but always up for a challenge decorator wanting to make her baby girl happy?

She also wants strawberry cake, any filling flavor combinations you all have tried that just wow everyone?

Any and all suggestion are soo helpful!! Thank you in advance!!

Here is my tutorial...HTH!

http://www.cakeboss.com/CastleTutorial.aspx

I've been keeping a few in my favorites for my daughters as well, there are some simple ones that I am sure you can pull off. Seeing as there are at least 2 tiers you can do different flavors, my favorite is lemon cake with blueberry filling and a creamcheese frosting. Strawberry cake with a chreamcheese frosting is also really good. you could do a white cake with strawberry filling and a chocolate cake with a raspberry filling then cover both in a vanilla buttercream. Here are a couple of my favorites that seem simple enough:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=7181

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1217535

I think that the important thing is to have fun and that will show through in your cake. No matter what type of castle you put together your daughter will love it I am sure!

Strawberry with cream cheese BC is what I was going to say also. Making Lemon cake and flavoring the BC with lemon juice is VERY tasty too. If you want to try strawberry cake with strawberry filling just add some strawberry preserves to your BC for the icing that will serve as the filling. A tasty AND quick way to make a filling. I have a castle cake on my gallery. If there is something about it you want to pull from feel free to PM me. I want to point out I was also a newbie at that time so you can do it! The fondant on top of my ice cream cone towers were made the night before because I have them resting on card stock paper- the only part that was not edible. It isn't too late, you just might slightly alter what you had in mind! Good luck. Let me know when you post it!

Wow, cake boss your tutorial is really great. That looks like so much fun.
I know it's not near as cool as all edible but the Castle Kit by Wilton can save you a lot of time and effort and if you get the 40% Coupon for Hobby Lobby or Michael's I think it's worth the investment.

The tip that was given to me by Cami was that you should hollow out the bottoms of the turrets you intend to put on top the cake. You just drill them out. Then "glue" a dowel rod to the inside of the turret with royal icing. This really adds to the stability of the turrets.

I have never done a full castle cake. Here is a link to a psuedo castle I did using part of the castle kit.
http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2736083580049467458QbojVX

I'm a newbie and just found this to be a simpler undertaking then the full castle cake. (Concept was inspired by another cake decorator who changed up one of the Wilton yearbook designs)

Great instructions Kelly! Thanks so much for sharing

Thank you all so much for the great replies!! My Wilton cake instructor is going to let me borrow her Wilton castle turret things so it doesn't seem so overwhelming now. I am really excited to try the cake flavors you all mentioned too! I'm really thinking about trying that lemon with blueberry filling combo too!

I think I just make things too hard and get overwhelmed with wanting to do a good job, but I agree I think if I have fun and put full effort into it she'll love it no matter what.

Thank you all again, I'll post pictures after I make the cake and let you know what flavors I did.

sure, give me a moment to pull it out.

2 C fresh or frozen blueberries
1 C of sugar ( I prefer 3/4C)
1/4C water
1t lemon juice
1/4 C cornstarch
3 T water

in a sauce pan combine the blueberries, sugar, 1/4c water and lemon juice and boil until blueberries are soft, seperately combine the 3T water and corn starch and then add to the bluberries stir until thickened remove from heat, let cool completely before use.

Thank you so much for that recipe! I'm looking forward to trying it! I'm at a point where I want to try flavors together I just don't know what works and what doesn't or what compliments which flavors. I guess it's trial and error, but it's also nice to hear from others what truly works!

mndy204 - I am happy to have introduced you to a very yummy combo. Glad to hear you liked it!

Does this filling once in the cake need to be refrigerated?