Frozen Cake, Cake Pops & Cookies

You know how everyone says Frozen never dies? It's cuz the first Frozen movie from 2013 was so popular that people were still having Frozen-themed parties years after its release! (Even my girls did!) Well, with the upcoming Frozen II movie, set to be released here on November 21st, Frozen as a birthday theme is making a comeback (not that it ever really died down). The new movie seems a little darker than the first, which makes sense cuz the kids who enjoyed the first movie have now grown older and can handle a more mature plot, kinda like how the Harry Potter series progressed. 

Frozen Castle Cake

I got to make cookies, cake pops and the birthday cake for a Frozen II-themed party, celebrating a little lady's 4th birthday! For the cookies, I made number 4s, a name plaque, snowflakes Olaf, Anna and Elsa. 

I find human characters challenging to make, especially the eyes, so I went with a cuter "Chibi" type look for Anna and Elsa. I do wish I had a projector which would make it way easier to "draw" characters on the cookies, but since I don't, I used a good old edible ink marker and free-handed the drawings on the cookies before filling them in with royal icing.

A closer look at Anna

Preparing the colours and getting the consistency of the royal icing right always surprisingly takes more time than I think it will... sometimes it takes me an hour just to get it right! And, since Anna and Elsa have braids, lots of work goes into filling in the sections with royal icing and then waiting for them to dry before filling in the neighbouring sections. 

"Some people are worth melting for" - Olaf

I do love how this set of cookies came out, so all that work was worth it! I added glitter to the snowflakes, name plaque and Elsa's cape for a little extra touch of Frozen magic. 

glittery cape on Elsa

Now for the cake pops, I made dresses for Anna and Elsa, and white sanding sugar-covered cake pops for Olaf's body, since All Mommy Wants was preparing paper toppers for the cake pops. 

just the "bottoms" for the cake pops

It was a little tricky to get the shade of blue just right for Elsa's dress, cuz the colours of the clothing in Frozen II is different than the first Frozen, darker, just like the story line. I mixed sky blue fondant with Americolour Royal Blue and Electric Purple to get this shade. 

a tricky shade of light navy blue?

The shade of dark purple for Anna's dress was made by taking light purple fondant and adding some Americolor Electric Purple and CK Purple & Pink. 

mixing the right shade of purple for Anna's dress

Anna and Elsa's dresses were just a circle of fondant, creased in a few places to create movement and the look of a dress. Elsa's dress was embellished with a little snowflake sprinkle. The buttons on Olaf's body were made out of black fondant, and attached with a little melted white chocolate. 

Elsa's having a sneak peek

For the cake, I knew I wanted to make Elsa's castle, as I had previously made with these cakes. But, I wanted to go a level up and add lights to the cake, and of course, make it in the new Frozen II colour scheme. 

vanilla sponge with vanilla whipped cream

The top tier of the cake is a vanilla sponge, filled with chantilly cream. The bottom tier is a chocolate sponge cake, filled with chocolate whipped cream and fresh sliced bananas, which was a combination requested by the birthday girl! Chocolate Banana cake is one of my favourite cakes from Secret Recipe, so I hope I did this cake justice, since it's my first time making this flavour! I used Cynthia's recipe for the chocolate sponge, but modified the method for the chocolate whipped cream. 

cake innards: chocolate whipped cream and sliced bananas

I love this panel design for the castle, because it looks impressive, but is actually a simple technique. Most of the time is spent marbling the fondant, and cutting many many strips of the same length, enough to surround the cake tiers. I made the strips 5.5 inches long, which was a good height since the filled and iced cake tiers themselves were about 4.5 inches in height. 

wip: making fondant panels

To top the cake, I made more marbled fondant panels, but let them dry with a curve. I also made two extra tall fondant panels to go on the sides. Because I was going to add lights to the cake, I wanted to play with isomalt, which would let the light shine through, unlike opaque fondant. 

abstract isomalt shapes

I boiled a half-pound of isomalt crystals in a pot with 3/8 cups of water until it reached 340F on a candy thermometer. Than I added a drop of blue food colouring to get it a nice light blue. Now normally, I would pour the isomalt into a silicone mould to get a specific shape, or just pour it randomly over a silicone baking mat to get an abstract shape. 

clear isomalt door! Whoo!

But this time, I wanted to test if I could make an isomalt door, by cutting out a fondant border, and then pouring the melted isomalt into the centre. I was very concerned that it wasn't gonna work, since the isomalt was super hot and would probably melt the fondant on contact! But, it totally worked! The fondant held up, and the isomalt hardened into this awesome transparent door! 

working on the fondant details 

I unintentionally left the assembly of the cake to the last minute, with only an hour before I had to deliver it to the party (because baby E decided to have an extended lunch + nap "on the tap"!!) I am so relieved that everything came together quickly (definitely helps to have the fondant pieces ready ahead of time!)

all lit up!

Since I really didn't know how I was going to put the lights in (I thought they were single bulbs, but when I opened up the box, the lights were all strung up!) I ended up wrapping one set of lights around the "curved" panel at the top, which was perfect lighting for the see-through isomalt door. The second string of lights went around the middle tier and the third string of lights I placed on the cake board, around the bottom tier. 

closer look at that isomalt door, all lit up!

I used royal icing to stick down the Frozen II figurines of Elsa, Anna, Christoff, Sven and Olaf around the cake, and added glitter to the no. 4 and birthday girl's name, before sticking those on with royal icing too. I am really happy with how everything came together, though I unfortunately ran to of time and didn't have a chance to take a pic white my "white brick wall" background! 

Elsa's Frozen Ice Palace cake

No matter though, because when I got to the party venue at Kidzland (where the girls had their Tsum Tsum birthday last year), the All Mommy Wants team had done their magic and everything was set up like a scene from the Frozen II movie itself!! 

Frozen II dessert table set up

The main dessert "table" had a huge cutout of Elsa's Frozen castle, which went perfectly with the birthday cake! And the dessert display was set up in 5 "columns" of different sizes, which is a new style than the usual 2-meter long rectangular dessert table. 

Lots of Frozen desserts!

The dessert columns really made for an interesting display, allowing the different desserts to be at different heights. The Frozen-themed cookies, cake pops and birthday cake I made joined super cute character macarons from Milleaville, sponge cake donuts & steamed blossoms from Cake a Break, LED-twinkling lollipops from KiraKira Kandy and jelly cups from J3 E Sweeties on the impressive Frozen-themed dessert tables (yes, there were 2!) spread, set up by All Mommy Wants! 

which would you go for first?

Frozen Cake

Anna Cookie

Olaf, Anna & Elsa Cake Pops

cool mirrored plate. Hi Olaf!

Frozen Sugar Cookies

The entire party room (not just the dessert table!) was decorated in Frozen-style, with snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, large snowflake stickers on the floor, clear LED & snowflake balloons, matching Frozen table settings for the kids tables, custom-labelled Frozen-themed snacks & candy (like Yan-Yan, KinderJoy, Kit-Kat, gummy bears and fruit cups), "Olaf" water bottles, and not forgetting customized Frozen goodie bags filled with premium items for the kids to take home! 

the party room at Kidzland

another view of the party space

kids table setting

a second dessert table!

customized premium goodie bags!

The birthday girl was absolutely adorable in her poufy Elsa gown, with a hand-crafted crown proudly displaying her new age! Love her big smile! What a lucky girl! Happy 4th Birthday, princess Taysha!!

taking a bite out of an Olaf cookie

a slice of chocolate banana cake :)

happy family in coordinating Frozen outfits!

Happy 4th Birthday, princess Taysha!