When making a princess cake do I need to buy a princess cake kit (a la wilton) or can I just use round cake pans (if so, what sizes?) and shape it myself?

I use the Wilton pan, but others have said that they used a 2 qt Pyrex bowl.

are you talking about the princess castle? or the cake where the skirt is cake and you use a doll for the princess? When i googled "princess cake kit wilton" the castle came up that is why i ask about that one.

if you're talking about the skirt being cake, then you can just stack rounds and carve, or as mentioned above use a pyrex bowl, or i have seen others say that the large pampered chef batter bowl is the perfect size.

You could do a 2-3 9" rounds and then a couple of 6" on top of them and carve the shape if you wanted to (depending on how many servings you wanted) Just make sure that you put a cardboard and dowels for every 4" of vertical cake for support so that the cake doesn't collapse.

Thanks for the replies.
I'm talking about a cake where the skirt is the cake and will use a doll for the princess.
The Wiltons one is really pricey so I think I'll give making it in round pans and carving it.

hi, i used a pyrex bowl very successfully to make this doll cake. just bake it a little longer and test for done- ness as its quite deep. the pyrex bowl gives a very nice shape without any carving. i have mine on my photos if you d like to take a look. good luck.

I also used a glass bowl I got from target. It's not pyrex brand, but it worked just as good. Just make sure it's oven safe The good thing about getting a bowl is that you can use the bowl for every thing after wards. Now I use it to store buttercream, mix, etc etc. Much more use than I would have gotten out of the wilton pan.

I just bake round cakes, stack them and carve them ,
I would do an 8" 7"6" and 4" cake stack them and carve a little have nice layer of butter cream on it to give it a dome shape and thats it.
HTH