Making a Strawberry Shortcake Character Cake

For her 5th birthday,

my niece, Naomi, wanted a Strawberry Shortcake character cake. My normal research procedures when getting ideas for a cake would include "googling" for ideas and several shopping trips to Michael's, Party City and my neighborhood cake store, Do it With Icing. When the shopping trips turned out to be little or no help at all (neither Michael's or Party City had anything Strawberry Shortcake!). I checked out Sears, and they had quite a few Strawberry Shortcake toys and after a LOT of contemplating, I decided to go with a Strawberry Shortcake doll which I would stick into a "skirt" of cake. The idea was to make her sitting on a strawberry with her crossed legs sticking out from underneath her dress. I didn't really care for how the legs turned out, so I didn't use them and was pretty happy with how it turned out (for the most part). I'm such a perfectionist and I hate that I always see the flaws in my cakes when maybe I am the only one who notices them.

I personally think it is pointless to make a cake beautiful if the taste is mediocre. For this cake, I decided to go with a strawberry cream cheese mousse with whipped cream frosting (pastry pride) and organic strawberry syrup. Whenever I use fruit in my cakes, I attempt to use only organic fruit for many, many reasons, which I won't go into right now. I decided to do the cream cheese mousse since I was unable to use gelatin, like I normally do when I make my mousses, since it had to be kosher. (I try to avoid using eggs in mousses whenever possible. I have my many reasons for that too). Simply filling with the whipped icing will not support the weight of the cake and will "ooze" out. You don't want that. It makes life MUCH more difficult than it has to be.

A good rule of thumb when baking cakes is to bake the cake a day before you plan on putting it together. Bake, wrap entirely in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. This helps seal in the moisture and really makes a difference on how moist the cake will turn out. If you don't believe me, try it!

After the cakes have been baked and refrigerated, I cut off the "muffin top" so the layers will sit nicely on top of each other.

I then coated the cake with the organic strawberry syrup (it's easiest to use a squirt bottle) and layered with the strawberry mousse, fresh organic strawberries and whipped pastry pride (which is non-dairy and more stable than regular whipped cream).

For this cake, I made two 9" layers and two 8" layers. I repeated the process with the mousse, strawberries and whipped cream on each layer.

The next step is to carve the layers into the desired shape. I alternated vanilla and strawberry cake layers.

After the cake is carved, I covered it in the whipped cream. Typically, fondant cakes are covered in butter cream, which will "dry", and then either sprayed with water or covered in piping gel in order to get the fondant to stick to the cake. I prefer to use whipped cream icing (depending on the cake recipe) which is a LOT messier to work with and results a more rounded look on the cake edges. But in my opinion, it tastes a LOT better. And let's face it, if the cake doesn't taste amazing, all that effort to decorate it beautifully is wasted.

I have a love/hate relationship with fondant. I do prefer to use the Milton brand (available at Michael's). It just seems to be easier to work with and cracks less than the other types I've tried. After rolling out the fondant (pretty much exactly how you'd roll out sugar cookie dough), I carefully place it on the cake and smooth out with my fondant smoother. I used several different colors for this cake, including red, which is often difficult to get. I came pretty close.

The idea for this cake was to make it look like Strawberry Shortcake was sitting on the strawberry. Not sure if I pulled it off exactly, but that is what it's supposed to look like. I then added the rest of the decorations to my liking. The "5" is made out of edible pearls that are simply pressed into the strawberry made of fondant. Dots are stuck onto the fondant by brushing with a small amount of water. Too much water and it will drip a nice streak of whatever color the dot is, down the side of the cake, so less is more!

The cake is now ready for the doll to be inserted. I undressed her and wrapped her well in plastic wrap so she wouldn't get sticky and dirty. My brother actually asked me if I baked the cake with the doll inside of it (duh!). It would melt and probably poison the cake, so NO, I did not bake the doll in the cake. Her top is made of fondant, simply draped over her frame.

I later realized (after trying to fit the cake in the fridge) that I should have put the doll in later on, since I had to remove a shelf in order to fit her in my fridge! Luckily, my fridge was not too full this time and I could make her fit.

This cake required 3 hours and 15 minutes of decorating time. Baking the cake layers and the making of the fillings takes about 2 hours. Total creating time, about 5 hours.