Hi everyone, I had my first cake disaster with my daughters birthday cake. I tried to do the Cinderella character pan, but that wasn't not good enough for me. No, I thought I would try and use that pan to also make Belle and Sleeping Beauty. I just took on to much with the party and all. I thought no big deal, it is just a pan, all I have to do is follow the lines. NOPE, not that easy. Needless to say I struggled to make their faces look "real." The cakes are sooooo bad that I will spare all of you the pain of having to look at it. However, my daughter LOVED them and thought it was the greatest thing that she had 3 cakes. Anyway, the princesses strike again. Wilton has a new Little Mermaid pan out, and I of course had to have it for my daughter (Sleeping Beauty and the Little Mermaid are her two favorites). Well this time I had a few new tricks for mastering the face....so I thought. I struggled again. It turned out much better than the first batch of princesses I will give you at least that much, but still she got the better of me. Please give me your honest opinions....does she look like Ariel, or does she look like a lady who has had a bit too much plastic surgery?

Thanks,

Nat

She is absolutely gorgeous, I love the way you did the sides and added the flowers and shells, very beautiful

I thinks she's beautiful! She looks perfect!

oh my, i cant believe how ugly that cake is! (rolling my eyes...just kidding) it is fantastic. this is probably the nicest and most beautiful cake i've ever seen come from a character pan. usually i think they are very tacky, but you did this one some serious justice....stop being so hard on yourself! now you got me wanting to see the other cakes, i am sure they look very good too!!! please post!!!

Are we looking at a different cake? Because the one I'm looking at is way beyond beautiful!

wow thats great...i love her face
ariel is definately my favorite too and u definately did her justice
wtg Mom!!

She is just gorgeous!!! How on earth did you make her face ? Would you mind sharing? Please!?

okay this may be sad but, I am 27 years old and the little mermaid is still my favorite princess (next to belle that is) and I have to say that when I saw your cake the one thing I thought was that you nailed the face. I also love how smooth you were able to get the complexion (sorry sp). so my opinion is that you rock and you will always be hard on yourself but take it from me and others: THIS CAKE IS PERFECT!

This cake is WONDERFUL!!! It is so beautiful!! How did you do her face and arms? It looks so smooth and perfect!! A perfect cake!!

After seeing this one I'm wondering how "bad" the others came out. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this cake. It's Ariel - Disney's version of The Little Mermaid without a doubt.

You're being hard on yourself unnecessarily. I especially want to know how you got her skin so smooth. Please reveal your secret.

i think she's awesome...good job...

A picture is worth a 1,000 words....base on your cake I would say a million words, but theres not enough time to type them , She is gorgeous! You did an outstanding job on her......and I also would love to know how did you her face so smoothhhh ?

BEAUTIFUL!!! I have to know how you did the face. Please share!!

Oh my God are you kidding??? It is AMAZING! I could never do faces like that, really fabuouls all around!!

Wow, great cake, I like how it's not the normal star pattern you see on most character cakes, how did you do it?

Your cake is fabulous! Would love to know your technique! I bet your other cakes were nice too!

I love your cake,the face is so beautiful and the decorations on the sides are awesome.You did a very good job!

I have to agree with the other posters - I think the face is absolutely beautiful and I'm so jealous

I've never had a character cake face turn out like that. In fact, the last one I did was Cinderalla and she looked like she stayed in the tanning bed too long and her mouth looked like she had just sucked on a sour pickle

Please do tell how you did the face?

BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She's amazing, you are gifted....love your Minnie too!

oh PUHLEEEEEZE

I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

tired of the

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

it's hoooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiidddd!!!!

when it is just plain WONDERFUL!!!

and how ever did you get the skin of her face so FLAWLESS???


that is an awesome cake!

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is absolutely gorgeous!!!! Let me tell you, if your daughter loved the others, they were probably just as perfect! Our kids can be our worst critics (and our best too). I don't know about yours, but mine are honest.....too honest sometimes! Let us see the others!!!! Please!

Hi,
You did a wonder job on this cake. Not only is the face perfect your touch of adding the flowers on the border just give it that extra special touch. Wonderful job you should be giving yourself a great big pat on the back!!

Beautiful job on Ariel. My niece would love that cake for her birthday. I see you did Strawberry Shortcake also. Very nice! Do you mind sharing your technique on the fondant face?


Thanks

Okay, are you just fishing for compliments? Ha-ha. It looks flawless. Best character cake that I've seen.

Call Wilton - this needs to be in their book. Way neater than they always show!

You rocked it! You go girl!!!!

jaklotz1 - hit and run cake artist!

Leaving us just HANG like that, pouring out our songs of praise on you letting you know just how unworthy we are and how jealous we are of your talent -

...and we're all still just WAITING and WAITING for you to enlighten us with how you made this perfect cake!

It's beautiful and it couldn't look more like Ariel if it were done by Disney himself (well of course we all know Walt didn't illustrate Ariel but you get the point!)

YOU ROCK!

OMG..that cake is perfect!! I am a huge Ariel fan. The face looks fantastic!!!! I would love that for my birthday! lol

Sorry if it looks like I kept you all hanging. I have been in the car all day today (7hours) traveling, so needless to say I did not have CC avaliable throughout the day. In fact I think I had withdrawals. I am in the hotel now, and the computer was the first thing I did after feeding the kids and getting them to bed. Anyway...

Everyone thank you sooooooooooooo much for your kind words. I really do appreciate it. I just wanted to say that I know she turned out MUCH better (10 times beter) than the previous princess cakes that I did, but
Ariel put up a pretty good fight and I had to think on my toes while doing this one. I had several trials on the face before I got this one to turn out the way it did. Several people have asked about the face, so here goes.

The cake is the little mermaid pan plus I baked a large cake and cut it out to the shape of the Ariel pan to get the taller cake. The sides are done in white buttercream. The flowers I made out of fondant. The shells I made with candy molds, and I also made a few "pearls" with fondant as well. The "sand" is light brown sugar. All of those parts I dust with the violet pearl luster dust. The face...is fondant pressed into the pan and then placed onto the face into the correct position. The facial features (the hardest part for me) are partially painted (which I have never done before) and partially done with black buttercream. The lips I painted. The blue part of the eye I painted. I then out lined the eyes with black buttercream (I also did the eyebrows and eyelashes with the black buttercream). The rest of the cake (the swimsuit and hair) I just followed the picture that comes with the pan. I hope this helps.

And now.............aginst my better judgement, but by request, I will show you the three princesses from plastict surgery land. Please keep in mind I had to SEARCH my house for this picture because there is only one copy out there in the world and I show it to NO one (until now). The only reason I even have the one copy is because when my daughter is grown I want her to have the memories of her special day....cake included. For me, the way you can judge how much I like a particular cake I made is by the number of pictures I took of it. So me taking only one picture should tell you how I feel about it. YOu guys should fell special that I would do this for you.

WARNING:

Please use protective eyewear while viewing this picture!

Thanks again for the positive reinforcement. It really helps when doubt sneaks in.

Nat