Tinkerbell Cake

Here is Kyrie's birthday cake, and I am very excited with how well it turned out. We decided to have a Tinkerbell party about a year ago and at one point I found this set of fairy figurines. From there, I began to plan for this cake. I knew that I wanted to make a fairy house, and as with most of my cakes the plan started with the actual cake. I have a giant cupcake pan and figured that would be the best thing to use for the actual house. I used 2 cake mixes to make both the cupcake and the base (and had enough to make one more 9 inch round). Aside from the structure, I had no real idea of what I was going to do with the frosting/decorating part of the cake. I did a search for images on-line and looked at Pinterest for ideas. I also took a peek at the fairy house in the Tinkerbell movie for inspiration. There were two options as far as style: whimsical or "realistic" (well, as realistic as fairy house lore may be). Kyrie drew up her own idea from the movie, and I decided that I would go with realistic.

I made 2 batches of buttercream icing and divided it into 3 colors: green (1/2), brown (5/8) and purple (3/8). The yellow & black I had on-hand from my last cake. I put the cake together with a cool-whip & lemon pudding filling (per Kyrie's request). I turned the base of the 'cupcake' upside-down and placed the top on, well, on top. I secured the house structure to the base with a trimmed chopstick (because I am all sorts of professional- ha!). It probably would have been better for me to place the house not quite as far back on the base as it seemed a bit like it might fall off, though that did not happen.

After the cake was set, I started with the frosting. I used the "grass" tip on the base (and, boy, did it give my grip a workout). I also used the grass-tip on the bottom and used a drop-flower tip and purple icing to complete the base (with a few yellow icing dots). I wanted the house to appear like it was made from a tree, so I used a flat tip to create something that looked like bark. I flipped the flat tip over to use the ridged-tip for the door and window frames. Black icing completed those details. At first, I was just going to use a leaf tip to make leaves all over from the roof, but then decided that I would add branch details first and then make the leaves over the top. The roof is probably my favorite part of the cake. I added a few purple & yellow flowers to the roof for some color and then placed the figurines (with the kids' help) on the cake. A bit of "fairy dust" (ie. edible glitter) finished the cake.

I LOVE this cake! I truly think that it is one of my best. As always it was a challenge and took a lot of time (I baked the cakes the day before and spent about 2 hours decorating), but the hard work makes it all the sweeter in the end. Well, what really makes it sweet is that Kyrie loved the cake! Making these birthday cakes is my special gift just to my kiddos!