Sleeping Beauty Birthday Cake

Last year I made Paige a Squirrel cake. It must have been good as they came back for more.

Paige has just turned 4 and what she really wanted was a sleeping beauty cake….lots of pink and gold hair! This is the type of cake I love creating!

This is how I made it…

[callout title=Ingredients for the cake]

• 8 eggs
• 450g caster sugar
• 450g self raising flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 450g butter

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Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Grease a cake tin – I used a 35cm x 24cm (13½” x 9½”) sized tin 
• Break the eggs into a large bowl
• Add the sugar, flour, baking powder and butter
• Mix everything together using a freestanding electric mixer – don’t over mix
• Pour the mixture into the cake tin
• Bake for around 30-40 minutes – I can’t remember how long mine took. I set the timer for 20 minutes then I checked it at 10 minute intervals.

[callout title=Ingredients for the ‘jam’:]

• About 30 medium strawberries finely diced
• 200g granulated sugar
• 4 Tablespoons cornflour

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Method:

• Place the strawberries in a small saucepan over medium heat.
• Stir constantly for about 4 full minutes until the strawberry juices have been released.
• Add the sugar and cornflour and continue to stir for another 2 minutes.
• The mixture will be much thicker.
• Remove from heat and allow to cool.

[callout title=Ingredients for the strawberry cream topping:]

• 700g whipping cream
• 6 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp  strawberry ‘jam’

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Method:

• In a large bowl, whip the cream, sugar, and vanilla extract together on high speed until stiff peaks begin to form, about 4-5 full minutes.
• Add the remainder of the strawberry ‘jam’ and continue to beat for another 30 seconds.

How I put the cake together:

• Cut the cake in half so you have 2 smaller rectangles, then slice each cake through the middle so you have 4 layers in total (I only used 3 layers)
• Place the bottom layer on the cake board and top with ‘jam’ (you can always use shop bought jam for this!)
• Cover in strawberry cream
• Repeat this layering with the amount of layers you would like
• I then covered the cake with a very thin layer of a basic vanilla buttercream to stick the icing to

How I decorated the cake:

Unfortunately I was short on time so I didn’t have chance to take photos along the way. This is what I did…

• Roughly 2 nights before I made the cake I made the princess using flower paste and a mould. This gave it time to set hard
• Once the cake was layered together I covered it with a thin sheet of white sugar paste icing
• Cut out a pink square shaped thin layer of sugar paste icing and place on top as the duvet cover – I then added a white strip along the top
• The pillows were just made from pink and white sugar paste icing
• Once this was in place I put the ‘naked’ princess on the bed
• I started to dress her by placing sugar paste around her body and moulded it to her. Then I added a circular piece as the skirt and folded it slightly to create the skirt effect
• I painted on her lips with gel colouring and a small paintbrush and used edible glitter as eyeshadow
• Her yellow hair was rolled up pieces of sugar paste stuck on with edible glue and painted with edible glitter to make it sparkle
• Finishing touches were sugar paste flowers, edible glitter on her dress and heart ‘sprinkles’ to create a pattern on the bed

The headboard was made using flower paste and then indented with a wood pattern and painted using gel colouring. I thought it would set hard and stand upright but it didn’t quite work. I kept it out to dry for 3 nights and didn’t put them on the cake until I got to the party, but by the time it was brought out it had flopped a little so if anyone can suggest a better way of doing this it would be greatly appreciated!

This cake wasn’t hard to decorate and I feel anyone could do this – have fun and be creative!