Enchanted Forest Tree House Cake

An enchanted forest tree house cake would make a lovely celebration such as a birthday or bat mitzvah cake for a young girl. This gravity-defying cake built on a tree trunk and surrounded by flowers, butterflies, and twigs has a little sing, pink ladder, and blossoms for that enchanted forest look. Here are a few details on how I made this cake.

I absolutely love how wonderful this cake turned out. And guess who this cake was made for? My little Rhea! Last year for her birthday! And stupid me had still not edited the images to share with you or anyone.

When we asked Rhea, what cake she wants, she again said - house!!  Since I had already made her a mushroom house as well as a castle cake I thought let's do a treehouse cake with an enchanted forest theme.

What do you think? She absolutely loved her cake, and would not leave it a minute alone once it was ready. I could not wait to take it to school and show off with her friends. Nothing means more than to see your kids appreciate your hard work.

A little more information about the cake for you.

All recipes as always are already on this blog

The cake is my chocolate vanilla sheet cake recipe with velvet American buttercream and chocolate ganache frosting. The tree trunk is Rice Krispy treats covered with modeling chocolate of course. The flowers are gumpaste sugar flowers made with my gum paste recipe. The fondant is my trusted Homemade Fondant Recipe of course but you can use my Marshmallow Fondant recipe as well.

• I baked 6 layers of cake - from the bottom up - 2 x 5-inch layers, 2 x 6-inch layers and again 2 x 5-inch layers

The Structure

The structure is pretty basic really and very easy to create.

• I used a 10" MDF board on the bottom with a hole in the center.
• And, a 7 " cake board above to be used as my cake board for the house.
• Plus a 5-inch cake board under the roof.
• And, a threaded rod about ½ inch thick.
• The treehouse cake and its roof were supported by screws on the threaded rod.
• Also, the threaded rod was covered with a cling wrap and chocolate to make it food safe.
• Tip - Make sure to secure the rod tightly or it does become loose as you work.

The tree trunk

Rice Krispy treats work great for this project. I have shared my recipe for Rice Krispy treats used in cake decorating before. I've used the same recipe.

• Once you prepare your Rice Krispy treats - while still warm mold it around the threaded rod.
• Just pile and press firmly in a general shape making sure it's all stuck together nicely.
• Once all the rice Krispy has clung together - let it dry out and become firm.
• When dried out - take a kitchen knife and carefully carve the general shape of the tree.
• I then marbled some white and dark modeling chocolate - and covered the Rice Krispy treats trunk with it.
• Press the modeling chocolate firmly into treats, then use a tool.
• A Dresden tool, back of a paintbrush or sugar shaper work great to create a bark texture.

I even created some of those bark knots. That's what they call them. While the rice Krispy treats still not firm, I stuck a small piece of the dowel so I could later hang the swing on. The swing is just sugar blossoms on wires.

And of course, the ladder is gumpaste. I remember that I shared how to make this ladder before on another cake but cannot remember what and where (will have to check on that later).

Texture mats

Such novelty cakes benefit from the use of texture mats - as you can see I have used:

• Stone texture mat for the house.
• Woodgrain texture mat for the door and windows.
• The roof again is textured with a wave texture mat on marbled green, ivory, and white fondant.
• The green grass is fondant in different shades of green then textured with a fork (my kids helps with that)

Well, that's mostly it on this cake. As you can see once you break it down - it is quite easy to understand how the cake was achieved.