Here in Chicago, the snow is FINALLY starting to melt and I think the spell that was cast by Queen Elsa has been broken. The Disney Frozen movie has made quite an impression on my young girls. A few months ago, my daughter knew she wanted this theme for her 5th birthday party. My daughter favorite character from the movie was Elsa, the Ice Queen. She built her own ice castle and here is the edible version that I created.

The towers come to a sharp point and I used ice cream sugar cones and thin pretzel rods. The tip of the ice cream cones were cut, so the pretzel rod would sit tightly in the top. One tower was trimmed off a bit to make it shorter. I dipped them in white chocolate candy melts, sprinkled them with blue sugar and added a few snowflake sprinkles here and there. I also dipped some small pretzel twists to create a balcony.

I made two layers of cake using a 12″ round pan and two layers using a 6″ round pan. Alternating yellow cake mix and devil’s food. Will admit, I love Betty Crocker’s boxed cake mixes! I think I had used 4 box mixes, since I was alternating flavors – made a few cupcakes and had a lot of leftover cake. One cupcake came in handy because it elevated the tallest tower perfectly!

Like I said, I love to use boxed cake mixes because they always turn out moist and delicious. However, I DO like to make homemade icing and filling. This cake was frosted using a French Vanilla Icing, which I posted before. It holds up great for constructing a towering cake! The homemade filling was delicious and easy – love it because it is not too sweet.

Strawberry Cream Filling

1 lb. fresh strawberries, washed and diced

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons cornstarch

In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring strawberries, water and sugar to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until a sauce forms. Add heavy cream and whisk in cornstarch one tablespoon at a time. Whisk constantly for approximately 8 minutes until thickened. Remove from heat and cool. Chill before filling a cake.

The cake was pretty simple to assemble. I alternated the cake layers starting with chocolate, than yellow and they were each separated by the Strawberry Cream Filling. The entire cake was iced with the French Vanilla Icing. The chocolate covered cones were placed on top using an upside-down cupcake to elevate the back tower. In front of the 6 inch layers, I placed a Disney Elsa figurine surrounded by the chocolate dipped pretzels which created her balcony. Then placed a few snowflake sprinkles around the sides of the cake and sprinkled white sugar sprinkles on top like glistening snow.

The birthday girl’s eyes lit up with a smile from ear to ear when she opened the refrigerator in the morning! She sure was happy and super excited about her party. More party ideas to come…stay tuned!