Mermaid Party–The Cake

Well, Lucy’s mermaid birthday bash is ancient history now.  I took nearly 200 pictures to document the big celebration, so I have tons to share with y’all.  I decided that it would be best to break the party down into 3 separate posts:  the cake, the food, and the décor.

Today is all about the cake.

Lucy asked for a big mermaid castle cake with Ariel sitting on top, but it’s hard for me to decorate an elaborate cake and plan a big party.  So I compromised with her a little bit and just made a sand castle cake with a mermaid on top.

I cheated a bit on this cake and used canned icing instead of making my own.  I’m glad this cake wasn’t all about a smooth finish, because that’s nearly impossible to achieve with the store-bought stuff.  However, no one could tell once I slapped the “sand” on the cake.

The sand is an assortment of crushed cookies. (I just cleaned out my pantry!)  There were graham crackers, vanilla wafers, and ginger snaps all in the mix.

Little Miss Mermaid was sculpted using a combination of gum paste and my homemade fondant.  I added the gum paste to help her dry rock hard and sturdy.

The turrets on the castle are the ends of ice cream cones that I iced and then rolled in cookie crumbs.  Easy, peasy!

I thought the cake turned out nice enough, but Lucy quickly informed me that Ariel did NOT live in a sand castle.  (How she would know is a  mystery to me.)  She did like the mermaid on top, though.

Lindsey