My neighbour asked for a cake for her 7 years old’s birthday last week. It’s cake season at my house. I have used the stash of flour and butter and sugar here, and bought more again. So, when I was asked if I could make a “frozen” cake I was more than happy to affirm that I can make all manner of flavours of frozen cake . You may have seen a few of my frozen cakes in other posts here. She looked at me and smirked in an -oh that’s right you dont have small children way….”well that’s great Tania, but I meant, can you make a frozen themed cake – as in the movie…. you know Elsa and Anna?”.
Well no, I didn’t know Elsa and Anna but I was about to learn. I didnt know Pepper Pig before I made that cake either. I knew it would happen one day.
Learn is what I definitely did on this cake experiment. Again, as it always is, it seemed to be the hottest day of the year. Sugar and buttercream icing are always tricky in the heat. It is a first attempt and I am quite happy with the results but, there are some glaring problems that I am sure I can master next time I need to make a Frozen Cake.
I had some help with design and a few ideas from Ann Reardon from the awesome www.howtocookthat.net to make my Frozen cake. I watched the video on how she made her Anna cake only once. I think I should have watched it a few more times. This cake is made with my very versatile chocolate cake recipe with a chocolate  buttercream and caramel painted between each layer. I will give you the approximate amounts of icing I used so that you can experiment too after watching Ann’s video.
Frozen Cake, Chocolate Cake Chocolate Buttercream
Ingredients
- 350 gm caster sugar
- 550 gm plain flour
- 75 gm dutch cocoa 3/4 cup
- 1 teaspoon bi carbonate of soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 200 ml buttermilk 3/4 cup
- 200 ml milk 3/4 cup
- 200 ml strong coffee 3/4 cup
- 125 gm melted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 whole eggs
Chocolate buttercream
- 250 gm butter
- 500 gm cream cheese
- 240 gm icing sugar 2 cups
- 50 gm dutch cocoa 1/2 cup or more up to 1if you want a darker buttercream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
cake decorating glue
- 1/2 egg white
- 1 -1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
Icing
- 1.5 kg sugar icing/ fondant roll out
- 1 kg roll of cake molding paste icing sets firm
- extra icing sugar for rolling out the sugar icing
- 250 gm or 1 x small packet of black roll out icing for the bodice
Caramel- optional
- 250 gm sugar 1 cup sugar
- 50 gm butter
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon
- 20 ml water 1 tablespoon
- 150 ml cream
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
decorating
- pink colouring
- light blue and light green colours to make an aqua colour
- pink or silver pearls for decoration
- pink or silver edible glitter
- Large cake base 30-36 cm (11- 14 in) to build the cake onto
Instructions
- Spray and line a 26 cm springform tin and preheat the oven to 160 fan forced or 170 C/ 340 F. I made 1 x 26 cm round cake and 1 x Dolly Varden for a dolls dress shape cake plus a very small amount made into a 6 in round pan
- melt the butter and set aside for a couple of minutes,
- Mix the milk, cold coffee, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs together. Set aside.
- Mix all of the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl of a stand mixer and blend till well combined
- Mix all of the ingredients together and beat well.
- Pour into the tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool. You can make this cake and freeze it or make it several days ahead
- Repeat this again making the Dolly Varden Cake. Sit in a tray and bake till a skewer comes out clean.
Chocolate buttercream
- Leave the butter and cream cheese out for an hour or two to soften. Beat them together till very light and fluffy. Add the cocoa and beat again. Add 1/2 the sugar and beat well, then taste. Add more of the sugar and beat well. Add a pinch of salt . If you want a darker colour add a little more cocoa. A drop or two of lemon juice will also bring out the flavour a little too
caramel
- Put the sugar, lemon and water into a pot and melt over medium heat till pale golden. add the butter and mix in , then the cream. Whisk adding the salt. Cool straight away
icing the cake
- Put the cake onto a large cake board. Cut the cake in 1/2 and paint with caramel then fill with buttercream. Cover the outside of the 26 cm base chocolate cake with buttercream and chill till firm. Cut a round into the top of the Dolly Varden cake big enough to fit the doll into (if yours has legs like mine did.) Then cut into slices and sandwich with buttercream ( you can skip this if you want). Then coat the whole Dolly Varden cake with buttercream. Chill till firm.
- Using a nice space on the bench or dining room table roll out the aqua blue icing with a rolling pin using small amounts of icing sugar to stop it sticking. Always use a large spatula knife to run under the icing and stop it tearing. measure your cake size and roll out (1 kg) the icing big enough to fit the whole cake. Gently press onto the cake using a cake smoother or smooth piece of material. press into the sides and cut off the excess.
- Cover the Dolly Varden cake , cutting a whole in the top last. Put this on the top of your cake into the position that you want your doll to be standing in. Better to one side so her dress can spread out at the back.
- Mix the 1/2 egg white in a bowl and beat till frothy. Add the icing sugar until you have a nice fluffy white icing theat you can pipe and use as a glue to stick pieces af fondant together ( You can also buy a packet of Royal icing from the supermarket. follow the instructions and this will work well too.
- Dress your doll. Cut out a white or blue blouse and wrap it around her body. i made two white sleeves and a black bodice, then added some buttons and sprinkles. see Howtocookthat.net for details
- Colour 3/4 the molding paste pink and roll out thin as you can ready to add to the Doll. Put the Doll into the cake and add the dress. If you have trouble with it stretching like I did in the heat, you can add a nice apron , just like mine. Decorate any way you like with glitter, cachous, hearts.
- I suggest you follow Ann's tutorial on making snow flakes too. They cover all manner of problems . Drawn a cross, then run another cross through that. Follow this by putting v's on the end of each line and than a v on every second line to finish.
- I used a small piping bag or a snap lock bag and pipped all the way around the base of the cake and around the sleeves and tunic of the doll.
That is super impressive..even my 3 yo son loved it!
OH MY GOD. This cake is absolutely gorgeous 😀
I may not be the biggest Frozen fan out there, but I can appreciate this for it’s awesomeness!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
I’m too old, obviously. I kept waiting for the ice cream bit. 🙂
This cake is gorgeous and why you think you can do better is beyond me – it’s perfect and must have been a hit at the party.
AWESOME!!!
you should have your own pastry brand!!!
I can’t imagine a more beautiful cake and I’m sure the little birthday girl thought so as well.
Tania, you are so talented and clever. You have pulled off a Frozen cake beautifully. I’ve made cakes using barbie dolls before too but one year there was a disaster when Miss Arabella removed the barbie doll and started screaming hysterically. Barbie was too tall for the cake so I’d chopped her legs off at the knees and Arabella was inconsolable. Like a lot of kids parties, it ended in tears. I’m sure your cake went off a lot better than mine! xx
Wow!! Good for you even attempting such a daunting task. 🙂 Well done!
You can tell I’m out of the child loop by my first reaction to your title – I thought you meant a frozen cake as in chilled 😛 This is really amazing and whilst it may have felt like a learning curve, it looks like you got it exactly right!