How to make a Barbie Cake without a mould?

Barbie Doll Cake is very popular for the little girl princess party and rightly so because the cake can be built around the favorite doll and becomes a fantastic show stopper cake. In this tutorial I am going to show you step by step process on how to make a barbie cake or doll cake without any specific doll cake mold and specialized artistic skills, nor you need special barbie cake pans.

Step 1

Select an appropriate doll, you can take big, small, barbies, etc. In this case this doll is about 6.5 inches from torso till the doll’s leg, so my stacked cakes should be this tall. Wrap the lower part in plastic wrap nicely making sure you cover every area and also it will keep the doll safe. If the doll has long hair, wrap them as well to avoid any mishaps. This is very important. Only food safe products should come in direct contact with the cake. Make sure that the board your cake sits on is also covered in food safe wrap/paper. I have taken a snow white doll (courtesy my client) and decorated its sleeve, collar and hair accordingly with fondant. 

Step 2

Take your round cakes. I prefer to bake them a day earlier and assemble it the next day, wrap the cooled cake layers and chill. These are carrot cakes, obviously you can take any flavor, chocolate cake recipe is also amazing and sturdy yet moist. You could also cake mixes. We need four cakes in this case – 8,7,6 round and 5 inch domed/semi circle/half ball cake. This is to make sure that minimal cake is wasted. For dome shape you can take any glass bowl to bake your cake in. Point here is that you don’t need specialized moulds (like wilton wonder mold) and pans for every cake. You can also bake a small round cake instead of dome shapes and then carve it out. If your doll is tall then you can add another layer of appropriate size.

Step 3

Take your small circle preferably tall round cookie cutter, about 2-2.5 inches in diameter. This you will use to make holes in your cake so your doll can go through. Ok it will make sense in a bit. 

Step 4

Take your cake board (available in craft store or you can cut your own)and spread a thin layer of buttercream frosting so your cakes don’t move. Here I am taking some luscious Cream Cheese Butter Cream.

Step 5

Start cutting hole in the largest, 8-inch round cake right through the middle of the cake center. You can brush every cake layer with a sugar syrup.

Step 6

Place it on the board and frost with some icing. You can brush every cake layer with a simple syrup. Note that my base is a little large to make room for the ‘dress’ – the full skirt. This will also make sense in a bit. 

Step 7

Take your 7″ cake and repeat the same steps. 

Step 8

Continue stacking until you assemble the entire cake. Now take a bread knife or serrated knife and get ready for the next step – carving.

Step 9

I just don’t like to waste nor do I like to make extra cake so by taking graduating size cakes, the excess cake is minimal. Just start carving little bit till you are satisfied with the look. Remember, go easy, you can always do more but cant bring back. Also do it in a nice steady motion using a turn table. Popping the cakes in freezer for 15 mins before starting the process will make this step easier. Also this look will directly translate to the final look of your cake.

Step 10

Your doll should fit perfectly. 

Step 11

Crumb coat and then cover the entire cake with fondant or buttercream as you would normally do a cake.  I have kept the frosting color white for the crumb coat.

Step 12

You can decorate the cake in buttercream frosting or fondant. However I will not recommend using whipping cream in this design. You can even use ganache to crumb coat the cake. Here are a few examples of Barbie birthday cakes and princess cake I did using this technique.

• 

• 

•