Disney's Tangled Cake. "I See the Light"

Lantern scene from Tangled. This is Our (My wife and I) first attempt at a real decorated cake, but I think it turned out ok.

Step 1: Rice Crispies

SO, for our first cake, We decided it would be too hard to make a tall cake with baked layers, so we decided to cheat a bit and make a RICE CRISPIE CAKE...

To make the Rice crispies, follor a normal recipe, but make a few tweaks for stiffness.

Recipe:

10 oz bag small marshmallows

5.5 cups rice crispies (less than normal 6.5)

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

To get the rice crispies to stay FIRM enuogh and smooth enough on the edges, you have to do 4 things.

1. Microwave the marshmallows a little longer than necessary. This makes the sugar harden up better when it sets.

2. Crush up the rice crispies a bit, and use less than the recipe calls for.

3. Use half or less of the butter in the recipe.

4. After making the crispies, crush them into the form (I used cheap tupperwares) as hard as you can.

If you do these 4 things, you could make anything or shape out of rice crispies you wanted and it will hold very firm. After I made the forms or each "layer" I cut the bottom off so it would sit flat.

Step 2: Cover With White Fondant

This was my first attempt at making fondant, but I was surprisingly pleased with how easy it was to get the hang of.we just found a loose recipe online, and went for it.

Ingredients:

1 bag 10 oz small marshmallows, melted in the microwave.

1tbsp water, more as needed

3/4 bag of confectioner's sugar. more as needed.

After "folding/mixing" it up to a doughey consistency, roll it out with a roling pin. CORNSTARCH is your very best friend at this point, and every time working with fondant acutally. It keeps it from sticking to the counter, and if you are working with colored fondant, you can brush away the extra with a dry brush.

COVERING THE CAKE

Before putting the Fondant on, I used frosting the make the top and sides very smooth. Then, refridgerate it to firm it up before putting the fondant on. This will make it really smooth in the end.

Lay the rolled out fondant over the cake and smooth it down on the top first, so there is no air bubbles, then work your way down the sides. Stretch it if you need to to make it to the bottom of the cake. It takes a bit of practice, but the 3rd time we did it it came out perfectly!

Step 3: Cover Cake With Ombre Layers

I made balls of fondant progressively darker blue, flattened them out, and cut them into wavy segments. After that, it's a matter of laying them out on the counter, then laying it onto the cake. When attaching fondant to fondant you need water to make it stick. Dry fondant doesn't stick to itself.

Step 4: Add Yellow/orange/white Squares

this one is self explanatory really. We used a small paint brush to dab the back of each piece with water before attaching it to the cake.

Step 5: Add the Castle!

This one was more tricky. I printed out a picture of the castle from the movie Tangled, and cut it out with scissors. then, I placed that onto black fondant, (we bought the black fondant, it's hard to get a black coloring) and cut it out with a knife. painted some water on the back of it and attach it to the cake. stick a few more yellow dots on top of it.

Reflection...

After cutting out the black "reflection" to go on the base below the castle, we covered the cake face with a paper, and powdered some more sugar onto the "reflection" to get the swirly whites. I love this effect.

Step 6: Make the BOAT!

This little boat was free-handed on a piece of paper, and then cut out. It's still paper. The only part of the cake that is not edible, becasue it was too small to cut out in fondant.

The second and third picture was a little guy I made out of fondant too. Little pascal. And that's the cake! GOOD LUCK and don't be afraid to make it amazing!