Making Carissa's "Frozen" Cake

What little girl is not in love with Disney's "Frozen" right now? My granddaughter Carissa turned 5 today. One of her gifts from Mom and Dad was the "Frozen" DVD, so I decided to make her a "Frozen" cake with Olaf as the central figure. I started making the pieces a couple of days ahead, and assembled everything this afternoon. The flavor was vanilla with fresh strawberries and strawberry mousse. I didn't want to refrigerate it because of the fondant and isomalt pieces, so I assembled it just before we needed it.

First of all, what winter cake is complete without snowflakes? I had a few left over from Carissa's preschool cupcakes from last week, so used those plus made a few more. White chocolate is perfect for piping snowflakes. Just copy a bunch of snowflakes on regular paper, tape them onto a board and cover with waxed paper. Then just pipe over the patterns and let set up. Very easy. I made a few snowflakes also with a First Impressions blue silicone mold. They were very difficult to make, as the mold is very shallow and intricate. I tried using gumpaste, fondant, modeling chocolate, 1/2 modeling chocolate with 1/2 gumpaste or 1/2 fondant. I tried putting the molded snowflakes in the freezer before unmolding them. Some of them turned out beautifully, but several just fell apart when trying to unmold them. Not the most favorite mold I've used. 

Next I made Olaf. I looked for 3-D pictures online, and then just patterned Olaf after the pictures. He was made from 1/2 modeling chocolate and 1/2 fondant, His arms and hair were piped out of dark chocolate. Pipe plenty extra because most likely you will need them if one breaks while you are assembling him. I also made a few snowballs out of the same 1/2 and 1/2 mixture, and then rolled them in sanding sugar.

Next I made the ice pieces and a few curly cews from isomalt. If you've never used isolmalt, you must try it. The results are amazing. It's not hard to use once you learn how. You can go to the CakePlay website and watch their video tutorials. CakePLay Isomalt To give it a "crinkly" look, I bunched up a piece of aluminum foil, then smoothed it out and sprayed it lightly with cooking spray, then spread the melted isomalt out thinly on the foil. 

I iced the cake with vanilla buttercream and then covered it with blue and white marbled fondant. I love the look of marbled fondant. Here is a good video on how to marble fondant. She also uses "The Mat" to roll out her fondant like I do. How to Tie Dye Fondant

After the fondant was on, I started assembling the pieces on the cake... here's where you can use your creativity. The last thing I did was cut out Carissa's name with my Tappits and white modeling chocolate, and then sprinkled the entire cake with clear edible glitter.

Carissa's reaction to the cake was priceless. She couldn't stop laughing at Olaf! It made all of my work worthwhile. Happy Birthday Carissa!

Update on Whipped Cream Icing

If you are a regular follower of my blog, you know my dilemmas of coming up with good ways to stabilize whipped cream to use for icing cakes. Well, once again I have changed my method. This time, I think it's a keeper because it not only tastes terrific, is readily available, and holds up well, but is also very cost effective... all using the real stuff. Yum. So here's the method... for every pint of heavy whipping cream, add 1 Tablespoon instant vanilla pudding, 1/3 cup powdered sugar, and vanilla to taste. Whip in chilled bowl until stiff peaks form. Voila... incredibly tasting whipped cream icing for your next cake.

I get the 1/2 gallon from Costco since I go through a lot of cream. I also use it in 

my buttercream icing. You can just use the inexpensive store brand for the pudding.

Look at this yummy fluffy whipped cream, perfect for icing this strawberry shortcake specialty cake... rich buttery yellow cake with 3 layers of whipped cream and fresh strawberries... gotta love it!