Cake #11 - Mary Ellen's 3rd birthday Princess Heart Cake -(How on earth did we get away with a cake that wasn't "Frozen??" )

Cake #11 - Mary Ellen's Princess Heart Cake

Sweet little Mary Ellen's birthday party this year was at a park..a really nice small park in Placentia. We'd been there when the kids were all little in preschool, and Kath had the great idea to do her birthday at the same park. Bathrooms are nice and close, as is the playground, with plenty of shade, picnic tables and BBQs. However, like most "off site" birthdays, I always get nervous when making anything too fancy, due to the obvious car transportation (and weather--usually heat) issues.

I remember (all too well) Mary Ellen's cake last year..the beautiful Barbie Doll cake, which I will post great pictures of shortly, but which, after arriving at the YMCA for her party, began to melt and the frosting skirt of the dress slid right  down. (I tried to refrigerate it quickly and then "re-slide" it up gently, but I was still not happy with the way it held up.)  And that was after we'd driven only 4 or 5 miles and less than 10 minutes in the car, with her on my lap since she was so tall there was no way of encasing her in anything. The jiggling of the car ride, I am sure, contributed greatly to the slippage of her dress. 

Yes, that's the drawback of true buttercream, and why many decorators would go with fondant or the meringue type icing..but those just don't taste as good to me. That's why a good cake  does take some planning to make sure you've got it ready for the right situation. This time, this involved my buying another plastic cake transporter. I already had a smaller one and a good set of cupcake boxes...Wilton makes the best, most sturdy, reliable, and easy to clean things...you can usually get them online or at Michael's. But the new tranport box made it easy to get my princess heart cake and all the cupckes to the park without any trouble. Fortunately I did take this one picture..almost forgot entirely. 

 This was a pink 2 layer heart shaped cake with a basic frosting filling. I am pretty sure the filling was purple which went classically with the pink princess theme

 



 And of course, for the little hands, I had to include 2 dozen princess cupcakes. I think the piped, swirled frosting and the little crown pics gave it a royal appearance!