"If you find this recipe helpful, please return the favour and buy me a cuppa...my kids and I THANK YOU in advance"

When my daughter requested an Angelina Ballerina cake for her 3rd birthday, I had no idea what I was in for. So, I started my search to find an easy way to make her an 'Angelina cake'. Unfortunately, most of the recipes I found required a lot of pipework. Which if you are an amateur & a busy mum like myself, was NOT an option. So I came up with adaptation from a few different recipes.

The cake I used is one I use now for ALL chocolate birthday cakes. It is Black Magic Cake - you can find the recipe at Black Magic Cake. It is a fantastic recipe and comes out of the oven perfect everytime. But a bought butter cake or packet mix cake would work well too (but you may need 2, as the 'Black Magic Cake' recipe makes a lot of cake.  But I usually have to feed a lot of kids and adults, so it suits my purposes. I also divide batter in half and cook as 2 cakes, but you can choose whatever method you prefer.)

Freeze the cake, cakes are always easier to work with if they are frozen. Just take it out of the freezer the day you are planning to frost & decorate the cake.

Make a crumb icing coat - basically this will seal the cake and stop crumbs coming through when you are decorating. As shown in the picture above.

Making your shapes (this can be done a week ahead of party) - I used marzipan, you can buy the shop-bought Marzipan which is easy, but the home-made stuff does taste better. Now, this was the first time I had used marzipan and I was fairly new to the art of cake decorating when I made this cake. Please, feel free to make comments about other more suitable alturnative that could be used. I found the marzipan great for modelling but I really needed Angelina to be 'white' - which does not happen with marzipan. So I ended up icing her later. If you use marzipan, you will also need to tint some of your marzipan pink, to make her ballerina slippers & dress. Below is one recipe you could use:

Simple Marzipan

1 ½ lbs (3 cups) sugar
1 ¼ lbs. (5 cups) ground almonds
½ pint (1 cup) water
Colors to taste
Flavours to taste

Dissolve the sugar and water in a saucepan, add the almonds, and stir and cook till the mass will not adhere to the pan.
It is then sufficiently cooked. Turn out on to a clean table and knead for a few minutes. Colour or flavour should be added while it is warm.

Firstly, what you will need to do is print off a picture of Angelina, you can find the picture you will need HERE.
I basically used this picture to mould her into shape. (you can even place your marzipan on the picture, roll it out and cut around it to get the outline more accurate)
Then I used cookie cutters to make butterfly shapes. (kids playdoh shapes can also come in handy here) Once you are happy with your shapes, they need to be left to dry out and harden - then keep in airtight container till ready to decorate. Be wary of the 'tail', mine kept falling off! I ended up putting on the cake separately, & gluing it together with icing (no-one ever knew, till now)

Once they have hardened, you can then go ahead and decorate with a basic icing mixture.
I put pink and white icing on my Angelina. I also used liquorice for eyes & whiskers.
You can really decorate the butterflies or your shapes any way you like (or omit them all together). I just used white icing, and Fairy Dust - sprinkled on top.



Now comes the fun part...
You need to make a Buttercream Frosting, there are loads of recipes out there, just pick your fav...(tint it pink - but leave a little white for the writing & piping).

Once the whole cake is frosted, carefully place Angelina on your cake.

Add your other shapes or creations - I put my butterflies around the sides of the cake. Gently pressing them into the frosting, the frosting should be enough to hold them in place.

Now, it is time to get your piping tools out, and write on your cake, adding any other 'touches' you would like.

As you can see from the pictures...I added a heart, some decorative dollops and a border around the edges (mostly to hide my imperfections!!!)

As you may have already noticed, I made this cake for my daughter's 3rd birthday...and decorated it the night before her party.

But all did not go as planned, I woke up the next morning with the flu, so the party had to be postphoned. I was devastated...all that work. What I did was cover it in plastic wrap & foil, and stick the whole cake in the freezer - iced, frosted & all.

2 weeks later, my daughter had her party. I got the cake out of the freezer the night before. Amazingly, it was still perfect and no-one even noticed. I would not recommend to freeze your whole cake finished, but it just shows that anything is possible....lol.

I hope your precious little one loves & enjoys her Angelina cake as much as my little girl did.

Please remember I am only an amateur cake decorater (not a professional) so feel free to send feedback or comments, you can even send me a photo of your Angelina creations, so I can add them to this site.
Thanks for looking....
Best Wishes
Lisa