So, I give you the Tangled cake. The birthday girl was delighted and her first comment was, “Oh! The sunshine flower is there!”. Details people. Details.
Photo courtesy of Disney and Lisa Keene
A closeup of the tower. Photo courtesy of Disney, the French version!
This was my model with thanks to the Disney artist who came up with this concept!
The way the Tangled story goes, a single drop of sunshine fell to the earth and became a flower with healing powers. Rapunzel’s mom was about to have her baby but was sick, so the flower was sought after, found and made into a soup for the queen. She was healed and delivered a beautiful baby girl with golden hair that would glow when she sang and also had healing powers. Thus the flower.
I did a lot of research on the movie. OK, I watched it 37 times. The stills of the movie were mostly from a distance. I looked at hundreds of Tangled cakes on the internet…took about 5o different pieces of different cakes and tweaked them into the final product. I sketched. And sketched. And measured. And figured. And dreamed about towers for 3 weeks.
Final sketch. Sort of.
Plus….Big Boss helped! I needed some PVC pipe to build the tower on so he graciously cut and presented me with a 14″ piece of 2 1/2″ pipe. I wrapped the pipe with stone imprinted fondant and the pieced stucco fondant over the stone and finished it by cutting out some of the stucco so the stone would show. Whew.
Parts is parts.
Then I covered an Betty Crocker icing container with fondant, cut out window holes, made window frames backed with rice paper panes, added wood….oh heck, I’d bore you to death with the details, but there were plenty and if you want to know exactly how to build one of these, contact me. I’ll be happy to give away my secrets!!
Early tower version.
The challenge was fun and I’ve already changed some things since the party. I had too much green ivy, not enough flowers on the ivy and the hole for the aqua window seat windows was too small…no light was getting in. So I
enlarged that.
All lit up.
One of the things my college art prof told us was that the hardest part of any artistic creation was knowing when to quit..when to leave it alone…knowing when to walk away. It’s hard. Really hard.
The birthday girl and her cake!! Photo courtesy of Tammy Ewy.
Saturday night version, pre-flowers on the ivy and pearl flower centers.
Photo courtesy of Tammy Ewy.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Country Life 
WOW…just amazing! A true piece of art! I assume the cake was eaten, but how long will the tower be saved? We saved a piece of air brushed fondant (another piece of art) for months in the frig (for some unknown reason!) because we couldn’t bear to eat or toss it! Ha! But you have way too many pieces of art to house that way! 🙂
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Read the previous post which answers this question! 🙂
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I’ve already told the other 4 granddaughters that they MUST have a Tangled cake also! 🙂 It will be wrapped in plastic and sit downstairs in the basement until the next little girl’s birthday!!!
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This is beautiful! Love it!
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I appreciate that, especially from a fellow cake geek!! 😉
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What a magical cake!
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Love your “magical” description! Thx!
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I showed this to our older little princess & she said, “Wow! She sure is an artist!”
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Too sweet!! Tell her I’ll send her mama the directions so she too can have a Tangled cake!!! 😀
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Please tell me your secrets for doing your Rapunzel cake I am a amateur cake decorator, and your cake was gorgeous!! If you could tell me the supplies you used and any tools that I would need I would be so grateful!! I am making i for my daughters 4 year old birthday party.
Thanks so much,
Annica Jump
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Great! I’m assuming this cake is a ways off cause you’re going to need at least 1 week of prep…maybe a bit longer if it’s humid in your neck of the woods so everything can dry. I listed a lot of the supplies in the blog piece but you will need an Exacto knife, a sharp pair of embroidery scissors, edible gold paint, pearlized dust for the sparkle, the PVC pipe, fondant, gumpaste…an impression mat for the stone look on the pipe (WalMart has these in the cake section here)…piping gel to glue the fondant to the pipe. I made the flowers with the Wilton Flower Making kit..super easy!
Basically, build it in the order that you’d build a house…start w/the foundation and work your way up. Piping the ivy and “rosebuds” was the last thing I did. Besides collapse!!! 🙂 Best of success to you!!
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thanks so much! I have three weeks before the party:)
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Great! You should have plenty of time. I’d love to see a pic when you’re done! If you have any questions along the way, email me!
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Just found this…a tutorial for a little simpler tower. I think? http://cakecentral.com/b/tutorial/how-to-make-a-tangled-tower-cake-rapunzel
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Thanks! That link had some great ideas! I am wondering did you attach your pvc pipe to your display board? how did you put your pvc pipe into the cake? I tried just pushing it down into the cake and the outside of my cake just split. Even with the cake being frozen.
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Annica…I cut out the hole in the middle of the cake that the PVC fit into, after first thoroughly washing in anti-bacterial soap and rinsing well and drying the pipe. Then I ran a tiny bead of hot glue around the bottom of the PVC…just enough so that it didn’t squirt out the sides when I pushed it down on to the cake board. Take the pipe and make an impression in the middle of the cake, then cut out the hole a bit larger, especially if you covered the pipe all the way down. Let the glue set up for 30 mins or so before you do anything else. I also (before I inserted the pipe, glued 3 wooden dowels on the inside of the pipe to stabilize the pipe and keep the pipe from shifting during transport and then pushed the pipe down into the cake hole. Once I got to the site, I used royal icing to glue the house/turret to the pipe portion and let that set overnight. I did this because I have a bumpy country road to travel on and it’s not nice to decorated cakes. At all. You could put the top on the pipe and then insert so you can put the finishing touches on. There are a million ways you could do this, so do what works for you!!! Anxiously awaiting the results!!! 😀
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Thanks so much. My husband found a plumbing piece that has a flat bottom that the pvc fits into perfectly. Then we are going to screw the plumbing piece into my round cake board. I am going to cut the hole int the middle of the cakes and slide them over the pvc pipe. I forgot to ask you what tip did you use for the ivy/grass?
I will definitely post pictures. I have already started creating a lot of the decorations. I got a gum paste flower making kit, and it came with some really great molds and cutters. So much fun! It is a bit addicting!
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This tutorial and cake is FABULOUS!!! I was wondering, would you mind emailing me the complete detailed set of directions and supplies list? My daughter absolutely LOVES Rapunzel and has been talking about having a Tangled party since last year. And when she saw your cake, it was a done deal :). Thank you in advance for your time!
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Giselle, email me at thequeen612@yahoo.com and I’ll do my best!!
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I got my cake all finished. I emailed you a pic. Let me know what you think.
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Got them and they’re fabulous!! Fantastic job!
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What did you use for the lighting? That’s a fantastic effect that I would like to use!
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Because the roof lifted off, I just stuck in a clip-on LED cap light. A battery operated tea light works as well but doesn’t have the intensity that I wanted…I wanted light to be seen in all of the little windows of the “house” part and the roof. I think it cost about $3 at Walmart and of course has doubled in use as hubs has latched onto it!
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Hi dear ! Sorry for my “language” (I speak french!!) Your cake is amazing and I look to do one like this. I would like to know , how you put light on ?? Thank you very much !
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Hi Sabrina! The purple roof isn’t attached so you can put a battery operated tea light/candle down inside the castle room/plastic container. I just lifted the roof off, switched the candle on, then replaced the roof. Does that make sense?
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This is fantastic! Job well done! I sent an email for begging for all detail, but I really like to know what you used for that fantastic roof! Thanks for sharing!
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Obviously I haven’t checked my blog email account in a while! Will check and get you an email fired back!
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Acckk! I can’t find your email Stacy!? The roof was made out of gumpaste cut into strips the cut in kind of a “fringe”, for the shingles, and then spiraled around and glued to a dry gumpaste “cone”. Make sense?
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Thank you for getting back to me! My email is Heltonss@comcast.net. I’d love to see the rest of you instructions for this cake if you still have them!
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I seem to be having technical issues too! I Yes, the shingles make since to me now. Very creative way of doing it! I would still love to see your detailed directions…if you still have them! My email address is HeltonSS@comcast.net. Thank you again for your help!
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