The Ferrell Boys and Me . . .: How To Make a Doll Cake :)

My friend Vicky's children are turning 5 this weekend. She has two sweet children, Lex and Mary Beth. . . . twins.

For Mary Beth's birthday cake, Vicky wanted to make her a princess doll cake.
It turned out soooo cute!

How did she get it from here . . .

to here . . .

I was there with my camera ready to document the process for everyone. So here we go . . .

First bake a cake in a batter bowl . . . twice! Vicky used a Pampered Chef batter bowl, but you can probably use a pyrex bowl as long as the bowl is oven-safe.

For the cake, preheat your oven to 325°F. Grease and flour the batter bowl. Prepare 1 cake mix according to package directions or as in Vicky's case, one strawberry cake recipe for each bowl. Pour cake batter into batter bowl. Bake for 1 hour, 10 minutes to 1 hour, 15 minutes or until long toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in the bowl for 15 minutes. Run knife around outside of cake and gently turn out onto a cooling rack, large end down. Repeat to make a second cake. Cool 3 hours. (Recipe from Pampered Chef)

Once the cakes are baked and cooled, you have two cakes that look like this one:

It's turned large end down in this picture.

Slice the cake about 2 or 3 inches from the bottom . . . of the largest end.

Cut a hole in the center of the cake.

Cut the second bowl cake the same way.

Put icing on the first prepared cake bottom leaving the hole uncovered by the icing.

Put the second prepared cake bottom on top of the iced one.

Ice the second layer of the cake except for the hole.

Then add the smaller part of the bowl cake that you cut off the bottom . . . make sure to have a hole cut out of the center of this piece of cake too.

Now usually at this point, you can insert the doll into the cake, but Vicky bought a princess doll that was taller than the cake!

Luckily, Vicky had baked the left-over cake batter in some custard cups and she used one of them on the very top of the cake.

Before inserting the doll, wrap her up in some plastic wrap. It will keep her clean for the birthday girl after the cake is gone.

When Vicky started inserting the doll, she discovered that the hole wasn't big enough for her butt! Can you imagine?! The doll's butt was too big for the cake/dress! We laughed over that! "Does this cake make my butt look big?"

Once you have the doll inserted into the cake, you simply ice the outside of the cake and decorate it like a fancy gown. Vicky even iced the bodice of the doll. I think it turn out sooo cute! Because of the consistency of the stawberry icing, it's best to keep this type of strawberry doll cake in the refrigerator. The stawberry icing maintains its consistency and shape best if kept chilled. If you use regular buttercream icing, you wouldn't have to refrigerate the cake at all.

And Princess Mary Beth loved it! Happy Birthday sweet Mary Beth!

The cake and the icing were both strawberry, per Mary Beth's request. The pink icing was especially pretty as a ball gown for the princess.

The strawberry cake and icing recipe will be in another post! It was soooo good!

And just to help visualize how the cake is put together from the inside . . .