Mmmmm....My Home Made Birthday Cakes! (Rapunzel)

So this is a cake I made for my daughter Brooke's 5th Birthday 

The Rapunzel Cake

I made this cake at my daughter's request to go with her Rapunzel themed Birthday party. I spent ages researching other Rapunzel style cakes and techniques on the internet - once I had gained enough inspiration I came up with this!

Rapunzel Cake

1) To start I made the tower's house and roof - I made it out of a rice crispie mixture (microwave marshmallows and butter and stir in rice crispies) once I had a mould-able consistency I made it into this shape: 

Quick Tip: To stop the rice crispie mixture sticking to your hands keep your hands oiled with Trex or use some vegetable like I did.

2) Once this was done I left the house and roof in the fridge overnight to harden.  

3) The following day (the day before the party) I baked the main base cake (I'll post a basic sponge recipe if you would like to use it) in a round tin and once cooled I covered it in green butter icing which I dyed using a green gel food colouring.  (The gel food colouring is far superior to the liquid food colour in my opinion and although slightly more expensive it lasts for a really long time.) 

4) Next I made the tower itself using a large shop bought swiss roll and some white sugar paste which I dyed a purpley/grey colour.  My husband helped with this part and rolled the icing fairly thin.  Covered the icing in smooth jam and then wrapped the swiss roll in it by rolling it along the worktop.  We then smoothed the join with a little bit of water.  We covered the 'house' part of the moulded rice crispies in the same way. 

5) Small Details came next. To make the tiny tiles for the tower roof and also the little bricks which were randomly placed over the swiss roll tower (see main photo and photo below)  I used a purple food colour and kneaded it into some white sugar paste, I then rolled this out fairly thin and using a ruler and a knife made lots of tiny square 'tiles' which were placed on the rice crispie roof.

To make the small bricks that are on the main tower I made small cubes of sugar paste dyed different shades of purple and squashed them flat using my thumb.  Using a tiny bit of water I then stuck these onto the icing covered swiss roll.  To decorate the house part of the tower I dyed yet more sugar paste brown and made skinny sausage shaped rolls and a door shape to make it look like wood panelling.

6) To finish I had to 'build' the tower and fix it to the cake base.  To do this I used three dowling poles (food safe plastic poles bought from a local cake supply shop) which my husband cut into different lengths for me. Push three short poles into the crispie house and push the swiss roll into the other ends.  Using longer length poles push into the cake until they reach the cake board and make sure the poles are long enough to come through the cake and half way up through the swiss roll.  Gently lower the swiss roll tower onto the poles to secure. Once the tower is in place add the tiled roof carefully. Finally I piped green coloured butter-cream icing down the side of the tower which made it look a bit overgrown and also helped cover up the icing join, I then added some shop bought edible flowers to finish.  The Rapunzel figure was bought from Amazon and although a bit pricey it acted as a keepsake once the party was over! 

I hope this gives you some inspiration and is not too complicated! Although a little time consuming I think it looked really effective and I received a lot of compliments - I hope you do too!  Feel free to ask me any questions if you need some help! :) x