Princess/Castle Themed Birthday Party

My newest kick is planning for Amelia's first birthday coming up at the end of next month.  I just love planning themed parties.  Here's the proclamation that's going throughout the land inviting citizens to the occasion!

Then I got so excited about the castle theme, I wanted to make a castle birthday cake and started looking up all these YouTube tutorials on cake-making and decorating with fondant.  I wanted to make a cake that looked like the castle on the invitation.  This one is a great inspiration to go by...

Luckily I was so excited I wanted to do a trial run before the birthday party and see how it goes.  Come to find out, I would make a very awful cake-decorator. 

Here is PART 1 of my cake. LOL.

However, I did learn some very important things today for next time. 

1. Making a cake takes ALL day.  Especially if you have 3 different pans cooking ONE at a time.  And then you have to freeze the cakes before you can frost them.  And you have to let the fondant sit for a day. So I'd better make the birthday cake 3 days before the party.

2. You MUST freeze cake before frosting it. Especially if you are going to cut the cake into pieces.  (one youtube video said to have cake at room temp. That didn't work. At all.)  At room temp, it will rip to shreds when frosting it.  Even if you're just doing a "crumb coat" and then another outer coat.  My "crumb coat" was a rip-the-cake-to pieces coat. 

3.  No matter how much shortening & powdered sugar you use to coat the pan, your cake will not come out without tearing unless you use the no-fool secret from TakeMyAdvice101 on YouTube. (I found her secret AFTER putting the cakes in the oven.)  She puts a sheet of wax paper only on the bottom of the pan then sprays it with nonstick spray.  I'm definitely doing that next time.

4. Making the fondant was actually super easy (thanks to my Mix Master), and the funnest part of the day!  I turned it a few different colors.  It's the consistency of play-doh, and I'm hoping it can cover a massive amount of mistakes on the cake. :)

Stay tuned to see the final product tomorrow!