How to Make a Disney Castle Birthday Cake

You may have seen my previous article on How to Make a Cinderella Coach Cake, which I made for my daughter’s birthday a couple of months back. That was for her actual birthday, for her Disney Princess-themed birthday party I made this Castle cake. While it’s not strictly a Disney castle, it can be Disney-fied by adding some Princess figures, or Princess candles as I did. That’s right, come see how to make a disney princess cake!

The Disney princess cake needs to be started a few days beforehand. To start with you need some cardboard tunes of different diameter. Four wider ones for the bottom turrets, four smaller ones for the middle turrets and a large one (I used a plastic food container) for the top turret.

Here are the measurements of the ones I used:
Bottom turrets – 11.5cm tall; 4cm diameter
Middle turrets – 11.5cm tall; 3.5cm diameter
Top turret – 8cm tall; 7cm diameter

Cover the tubes with food wrap (cling film).

For the icing you need either a good strong modeling paste or pastillage.

Pastillage is better as it’s very strong when dried, but is more expensive and as it dries so quickly you don’t have much time to work with it.

To make modeling paste, get some white or ivory fondant (sugarpaste) and knead in gum tragacanth or CMC powder, according to instructions. Make sure it’s well mixed in. Wrap the fondant tightly in a sealed plastic bag and place in sealed container, ensuring no air can get to it. Leave for at least 8 hours if using gum tragacanth powder. Alternatively you can buy ready made modeling paste.

I used around 1.25kg of icing for the turrets, but the amount needed can differ depending on your turret size and how thick you roll it out.

Color the paste or pastillage a pale pink colour using specialist icing colors.

Roll it out to around 3mm thickness, and cut a rectangle to fit around the card tube. Prior to rolling out the icing, I cut templates from paper that fit exactly around each turret. I then used this paper template to cut the icing out. If you want heart-shaped windows in each turret, cut them out at this stage using a shaped cutter.

Wrap the piece of icing around the tube, and secure the edges together using royal icing or sugar glue.

Lay them down on a sheet of non-stick baking paper, with the seam downwards, and leave to dry for a few hours.

Once they’ve dried for a while, stand them up. After another few hours, or preferably overnight, remove the card tubes carefully from inside and leave the turrets to stand so they can dry out inside.

Next, you need to make the cone shapes to fit on top of the turrets. again, I cut paper templates first, and measured them to fit on top of the card tubes. It can take a bit of trial and error to get the right size of cone, so it’s better to use paper first rather than waste icing.

These are the measurements I used for the circles:
Bottom turret: 8cm diameter
Middle turret: 7cm diameter
Top turret: 8cm diameter

I made cones from paper and covered with food wrap (cling film). I coloured the modeling paste a deeper shade of pink, cut the shapes out using my paper cone templates, and shaped them around the covered cone shapes.

Before the icing/paste dried out I painted the cones with edible glue and sprinkled edible sparkle dust over them. Leave to dry overnight, then carefully remove the paper cones inside, and leave so that the insides can dry out completely.

Meanwhile, cover a 13″ cake board with rolled fondant, and leave to dry.

Once your turret parts are completely dry, attach the cones to the tubes using royal icing. Fill in any large gaps around the edges with rolled fondant or modeling paste in matching colors.

Next, you need to roll out some more modeling paste and cut into 2cm wide strips, long enough to fit around each turret. Once again, making a paper template helps.

Cut out the squares using either a small square cutter or I used a small flat blade.

Attach the strips to the top of each turret using royal icing or sugar glue.

You need to bake two cakes, either a 5″ and an 8″ square, or a 6″ and a 9″ square.

Once baked and cooled, get a circle cutter and cut out the corners of each cake. These are where the turrets will fit, so need to be big enough for them to slot in.

Cover the cake with frosting (buttercream) and refrigerate for an hour. Then cover with another layer of frosting.

Cover the cakes with pink rolled fondant icing (sugarpaste), placing the smallest cake onto a square cake board of equal size.

Remember the large cake board I covered with rolled fondant earlier? Once it was dry, I painted it with pale green coloring. Alternatively, you could have used pale green rolled fondant to cover the board.

Place the largest cake onto this board, securing with a small amount of frosting or royal icing. Measure four pieces of cake doweling to size (stick into cake, mark it level with surface, and cut to size), and insert into center of cake as shown. This helps to support the top layer and prevents it sinking into the cake.

Stick the top cake layer on, again securing with frosting or royal icing.

Attach the turrets, securing to the board and to the cake with royal icing.

Attach a piece of pink ribbon around the edge of the board.

Roll out some more modeling paste and cut 2cm strips. Measure the distance between the turrets on each side, and cut the strips’ length accordingly. Using the same technique as before, cut squares out along the edge.

For the door, cut a paper template first, then use this to cut the two door halves from rolled out modeling paste. Roll two small balls and stick to the door for handles. Leave all to dry.

Once dry, attache to the castle using royal icing or sugar glue.

Color some rolled fondant in co-ordinating pastel shades, and using a flower cutter, cut flower shapes from the fondant.

Attach around the front of the castle. I made the green bits of grass/leaves using a sugarcraft gun and pale green rolled fondant.

Also, check out this amazing video which is a Disney Castle Cake Tutorial : With Characters.

And another favorite video showing how to make a disney princess cake here: