Experimenting with white cake. . . a pain, I assure you! Nonetheless, pastry cream and mousseline for the rest, the mousseline is just the most divine thing on Earth, so smooth! I think I could almost eat it with a spoon sometimes! LOL Tower is not cake so I reckon I cheated. It’s cardboad, foamcore, styrofoam. . . fondant and gumpaste covered and measuring in at 35”.

Bernadette -
That looks amazing - what event was the cake for? - I think it looks great!!!

Wowie wow wow, Bernadette, the detail on that tower just blows me away!  Amazing and delicious cake!

Wow is the word! It’s fantastic! I wouldn’t call that cheating. That is how they do it on the cake competitions on the Food Network. Not all of their presentation is cake.  You did a great job

Thank you so much Lottie, Julie and Flour Girl! Sorry, I forgot to mention the cake was for my daughter’s 6th birthday, she fell in love with Rapunzel from the Disney movie “Tangled”. I don’t know what to do with a three foot tower now! LOL

Wow!  Really beautiful!  I especially love the roof on the tower and the way you decorated the landscape!

Which white cake did you use?

Bernadette, that is an absolutely beautiful cake.  The details are so exquisite.  My nine year old daughter loved that movie too.  In fact, so did I.  You definitely captured the tower perfectly.  That must have taken you a very long time to put together.  I haven’t tried sculpting a cake before, but your cake gives me alot of inspiration. 

Mousseline buttercream is the most wonderful thing in the world!!  I love it!!  Which white cake did you use for the cake part?  I would think that it would need to be quite dense for sculpting.

This is a cake that you would see on one of the food network challenges.  I am so envious!!

Thank you Anne and Liza! Liza the tower is cardboard, that’s why I said I cheated a bit! :o I like Rose’e white velvet butter cake but I was afraid it would dry out. . . I had to make the cake ahead of time and freeze it. Last time I made it, it was a little dry the day after. I wound up using a King Arthur recipe. Good but hard to describe. . .fluffy yet dense. I have a hard time with white cakes. . . .

Bernadette,
Your tower is so remarkable ~  Really stunning!  Can’t wait to see what you will make for next year’s birthday.
My white cakes tend to seem dry also but the taste is wonderful using butter. I wonder if a little less butter and some oil would help?
Maybe Julie could help out on this one. 

That is not cheating! The details of the tower is so exquisite and beautiful. The cake is gorgeous too. Your daughter is very lucky!

I’m afraid to ask, how long does it take you to make the tower?

Thank you kindly Darm and Jenn. I always liked chocolate chocolate chocolate (and still do) but have grown to like a good white cake (no yellow here) yet I always struggle with it. It can be expensive, time consuming and frustrating when experimenting with cake. I think sometimes the browing of the top can be misleading as well as I have experimented with lower temperatures also and I still can’t find either the right cake or the right way to finally bake it.

Jenn the tower didn’t take too long, the small details like making the fondant, gumpaste, heating it, coloring and cutting it are more tedious. I really enjoy the sculpting part and find it relaxing. I think I put maybe two solid days into it then took a break and went back to it in bits and pieces. Thank you!

What a breathtaking cake!!!  And what a lucky little daughter you have!  I can well imagine the work that went into it.  It is gorgeous and creative… so well done.