Bratz cake

Just finished this Bratz cake for a girl's 6th birthday party. The Bratz is not so different to Barbies but a bit less princessy and rather funky. Apart from their awful shoe choices I quite like the idea of a more contemporary fashion doll. Rock chick versus Cinderella anyone?

The tin for the cake was a bit too small so I baked another 22cm cake to put underneath to cater for more people. Since the Bratz has a much larger head and eyes it doesn't look too awkward having a bigger body now. It actually looked quite elegant with the longer body. Nothing wrong with being long and tall.  However my daughter noticed the big bum right away;-)

That's how I've done it: You'll need a Dolly Varden or similar shaped tin and a 22cm in diameter round cake tin to bake the cakes. In this instance I didn't bake the cake but here are some tips on how to best bake the cake).
You then need approx. 2 kg of ready-to-roll fondant icing and approx. 500 g chocolate icing, cachous. I used white, black, blue and purple icing already dyed from essential ingredients.
They are around $17 per 1 kg, quite pricey but the colours are very funky. You can also just get white and dye them with food colouring yourself. Be warned thought, the more colour you put in the stickier the fondant becomes.

Invert the cake and trim the base to ensure it sits flat. Brush away crumbs. Use a palette knife to spread the top of the round cake with a thick layer of chocolate butter icing and position the body cake on top. Cut along the edges so it looks like a cone again. With the palette knife spread a thin layer of butter icing around it (crumb coating) and let set in the fridge.

Apply a second thick layer of butter icing to the cake and smooth then put back into fridge. Roll out the purple fondant icing until 3 mm think and cover the cake board, cut along the edges to get a smooth finish.

Now is the time which for me is always a bit nerve wrecking. You have to move the cake from the working board to the covered board and to place the cake in the right spot. I use a big and sturdy palette knife to lift the cake up and over to the main board. Smooth and trim icing if necessary.

Roll out white icing to 2 mm thick and cut in a shape of a large triangle. Roll out black icing and cut uneven stripe and shapes and stick onto white triangle to create an animal print (at least, that's what I tried). Stick onto cake.
Roll out blue icing to 3mm thick so it fits around the cake and drape back over the white/black icing. Carefully trim icing at the bottom.

Insert the doll into the centre of the cake and make the bodice dress part. If you don't have the half-doll topper you can use any barbie with cling-wrapped legs. You then have to cut a wider hole to fit the torso into the cake (it's a bit of an operation really- but don't tell anyone).

Now comes the really fun part. Roll out any leftover icing to style the doll with any attire you can think of. The top of the dress, hand gloves, capes, belts, bracelets, you name it. Most often I make those cakes for little girl's birthday parties so sparkles, sprinkles and cachous are always involved ;-).