Rapunzel, Rapunzel...

My little big girl celebrated turning 4 this weekend, and she is quite the Tangled fanatic!  So, inevitably I made her a Tangled cake...and not just ANY Tangled cake but a 3D Tower and the works!  This was the most time I have ever put into a cake and I nearly cried having to cut into it!  This took 3 days of prepping and baking and mixing and one all nighter to get this right!  I hope one day she appreciates how much I love her for creating this thing!  I have posted some of the step by step instructions that went into this and maybe one day it will inspire you to try something too!

For some crazy reason baking the cake was one of the hardest tasks...and usually it isn't!  I found a 5 Star recipe online for a wonderful chocolate cake, so I tried it.  1st one, completely slanted off the pan.  2nd one, a little less slanted, could've made it work, but then wouldn't come out of the pan (never had that issue before!) So frustrated!  3rd one, got it to be pretty level but then it wouldn't come out of the pan except in little pieces (way to moist!)  So I stopped trying to make the stupid cake from scratch and made box cake!  It worked just fine but at this point, what began as probably the simplest part of the process turned into the worst!  I also made a Bavarian creme filling that was super yummy and "injected" it into the cake!  

The Infamous Tower!

I made this puppy out of rice krispy treats, which is great for making structures because it forms into almost anything!  Then I covered it on modeling chocolate, which is a lot harder to work with that I had thought. Maybe I let it sit in the fridge too long... I dunno!  But it looked pretty cool! Next time I think I will stick to fondant!

I covered the cake in a chocolate frosting that was to die for, almost tasted like fudge!  Made some trees using waffle cones and piped greenery onto them.  They looked awesome! I used a 6x6 square and a 6 in round to make the hill you see in the back, and then sculpted that a little bit. Lesson to Learn: don't put the rice krispy structure directly onto the cake....too heavy...cut out cake so it sits on board!  Would've been smart, because it later caused the tower to lean...significantly! 

This is the fun part! This is where the cake comes to life!

I made a river out of piping gel, (doesn't taste so hot just fyi), made rocks out of modeling chocolate, started piping grass!  

Almost There!

This is what the near finished product looks like, before I add the figurines that I purchased!  Not too shabby!

What really adds to it is when you put all the little details in! The only thing I wish I would've added was more flowers throughout the grass and vine with flowers around the edges but I literally didn't have enough time. And I would've liked to had made a cut out in the tower for Rapunzel to stand in and have her hair drape down from the window ledge!

The Birthday Girl!