For the last 4 months my daughter has been asking for an Anna cake for her birthday. Princess Anna from Disney’s Frozen has been her absolute favourite since she first saw the film. As time went on the cake request (bear in mind that she was 2 about to be 3) developed into an Anna cake “and her sister”. I spent quite a while thinking about how I wanted to make a cake with the characters on it and decided I’d like to have Elsa on the balcony from the song Let it Go in the Ice Palace and Anna sitting on the grass with Olaf as she does in the song In Summer. This fitted in with our whole Frozen In Summer party theme. I made the figurines out of flower paste coloured with gel colours and supported by flower wire. I would have liked to cheat and buy the frozen figure set from the Disney Store but they were always out of stock so I had to be creative.
Ice Palace Cake
Looking at a close up picture of the Ice Palace cake you can see there is a carved cake on a 14 inch cake drum covered in white fondant. Behind the cake is a palace shaped piece of mint flavoured candy and mint flavoured spun sugar icicles add to the palace effect. Surrounding the edge of the board is the balcony railing made from hand cut sugar paste. A hand made sugar paste Elsa stands at the front as she does during Let It Go. The inside of the cake is layers of vanilla sponge coloured in icy shades of white blue and purple.
For the cake:
3 x 6 inch round tins buttered and lined (or 1 tin used 3 times).
Blue and purple gel colours (liquid would work also)
375g Castor sugar
375g Unsalted butter (softened)
375g Self raising flour
6 Large Eggs (beaten)
4 tsp Vanilla extract
Approx 50ml whole milk
- Preheat the oven to 180c.
- Butter 3 6in cake tins and line them with greaseproof paper.
- In a freestanding mixer cream the softened butter and sugar.
- Add the vanilla essence to the beaten eggs.
- Add the egg mixture to the butter and sugar while mixing on a low speed.
- slowly add the flour.
- Add milk until the mixture drops easily off a spoon.
- Split the mixture equally between 3 bowls, and colour one 1/3 blue, 1/3 purple and leave the other plain.
- Place in the previously lined cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
If you only have one 6inch tin (like me) bake the first 1/3, reline the tin with fresh greaseproof paper once the first cake is turned out and repeat for the other 2/3 of the mixture. - Leave the cakes to completely cool on wire racks.
To make the ice palace
You will need:
14 inch cake drum
12 inch cake drum
blue ribbon
Vanilla frosting
White ready to roll fondant
White flower paste
Flower wire
3 or 4 sheets of a4 card and sticky tape
Make a batch of Vanilla Frosting and use it between the cakes to stack them. together. Use a sharp knife to carefully cut a flat edge at the front of the cake. Use the pieces from this to increase the height of the cake joining with frosting, then shape it into a point.
Carefully carve out the shape of the doorway and surround. The pieces from this can also be used to shape the top of the cake.
Cover the cake in light blue coloured fondant and spray with a pearlescent edible lustre.
Cover a 14 inch cake drum with white fondant, and add a blue ribbon around the edge before placing the cake towards the back of the board.
Either buy an Elsa figurine or you could twist a framework of wire with a blob of paste at the base to stablise it, roll out blue coloured flower paste and wrap around to form a skirt, then add skin coloured flower paste wrapped around the top section and shaped into a torso and head. Plait some yellow flower paste for Elsa’s hair, add edible glitter to the dress and finally make the facial details.
To make the balcony use a non stick mat to roll out a strip of flower paste long enough to go around the edge of a 12 inch board (honestly I do mean 12 inch).
Use modeling tools or the point of a sharp knife to cut out the overlapping YY pattern from the blacony. Cut and stick the card to form 2 long strips which can sandwich the cut out balcony. Use additional strips of card to stop the balcony falling out of the bottom of the sandwiched card. Finally securely tape the balcony around the 12inch cake drum and leave overnight to allow the flower paste to harden. when removing the card be very careful not to let the card spring away from the cake drum as this would crack the now hardened flower paste.
place the balcony on the 14inch cake drum with the Ice palace and add elsa for a finishing touch.
For the Sugar palace shape
375g Castor sugar
335g Water
Blue food colouring
Mint flavour
Jam / sugar thermometer
Foil covered baking sheet and extra foil to make the palace shape.
Sticky tape
A quick note – adding the mint flavour affected the clarity of the sugar – for a see through effect leave out the flavouring.
- Before starting to make the sugar cover a baking sheet with foil.
- Use more foil and fold into a long strip
- Use sticky tape on the outside of the shape to attach the strip of foil to the foil covered tray in the shape of the palace. Make sure to seal all the edges so the molten sugar doesn’t seep out underneath.
- Fill a bowl large enough to place your pan in with cold water and place to the side.
- Add a few drops of food colour and flavour to the water until you are happy with the shade.
- Dissolve the castor sugar in the water and heat in a pan. Do not stir as this will crystallise the sugar.
- Heat the sugar until it reaches 155c (the hard crack point) then immediately move the pan to the bowl of cold water for a few seconds to stop the sugar cooking any further. Make sure not to get any water in the pan, and dry off the bottom so no drips go on the foil when pouring.
- Pour the molten sugar into the castle template. Please be careful as the sugar will be very hot.
- Use any extra sugar to pull out icicles to add to the top of the palace cake.
- To remove any set sugar from the pan fill with water and boil for 5 min then pour away.
- leave to cool then remove from the foil.
- Stand behind the ice palace and attach to the board with either fondant or some extra molten sugar – I used some left over sugar which I remelted with a cooks blow torch that I normally use for creme brulee.
Just cooked cupcakes and they are so not near on how your cake is. This one is awesome =) #pocolo
You give us Mums so much to live up to! There’s many a little girl would love this for their birthday. Thanks for joining with #Bakeoftheweek New llinky now open x
I need to know where can I place a order
718-807-6583
Thank you but this is my hobby, I don’t make cakes professionally, just for my family 🙂