tangled rapunzel birthday cake with buttercream flowers

I've baked a lot of fun goodies for my friend Monica over the past few years, including pool party piggy cookies and a piggy cake, a chevron gender reveal cake, graduation cap cookies, a Hello Kitty pom pom cake, a circus carnival baby shower cake, and teapot cookies, but this one has to be my favorite so far! Her daughter absolutely loves the movie Tangled, so she asked me to make her a Tangled Rapunzel cake for her birthday! After discussing a few options, we decided that we would use this adorable Funko Pop Rapunzel doll as the cake topper, and I would continue Rapunzel's long hair down and around the cake. 

As for the cake itself, she chose a vanilla cake with lemon whipped cream and fresh blueberries. So I baked up my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!) in two 8-inch round cake pans, and baked them at 350F until golden brown. 

Once cooled, I sliced them in half horizontally, giving me four layers, and then topped each layer with fresh whipped cream (spiked with fresh lemon zest and lemon juice) and fresh blueberries.

Then I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream, and covered the top and sides of the cake with it.

I usually do a quick crumb coat of frosting, let it chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, and then do a final coat of frosting, smoothing out the sides with a long metal spatula while using a long offset spatula for the top.

Then I piped a neat beaded border along the bottom, using a disposable pastry bag fitted with a medium round tip.

Next came the Rapunzel topper, which I attached with a bit of frosting on the bottom.

Then came buttercream flowers, which I had piped in advanced onto pieces of waxed paper, and then chilled in the freezer until they were hard and easy to handle.

For Rapunzel's hair, I tinted some frosting with golden yellow gel-based food coloring, and then used a star tip to pipe her long hair down and around the side of the cake.



I also used forest green tinted frosting and a leaf tip to pipe some leaves in between the buttercream flowers.

And then final step was to pipe long branches of ivy leaves down the sides of the cake as well.

Seriously, one of my favorite cakes to make so far!

Hope you enjoyed your cake and had a fantastic birthday, Viviana!