This easy to make Barbie cake makes the perfect birthday cake for any Barbie lover! You can use any type of doll you want and any color scheme. I share my tips on how to make this pink ombre cake with rosettes.
Everything old is new again and that includes Barbie, too! With the new Barbie movie out, pink is the color of this summer. I have not yet seen the movie, but my daughter, niece and I are have it on our calendar.
Until then, I am thoroughly enjoying all the nostalgia and glorious pink popping up everywhere!
Like so many others, I grew up with Barbie. I didn’t have a Dream Home like some of my friends, but I did create a palatial one story estate for my Barbie on my bedroom floor.
Love her or hate her, every little girl dreamed about being Barbie.
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Reader’s Reviews
“Just wanted to say thank for your amazing instructions and guidance for the Barbie cake! My niece asked me for one and I thought it was going to be so complicated… don’t get me wrong, it was laborious haha, but you made it so much easier. Thank you so much!” — Jaimee via Instagram
Why you must try this recipe
When my daughter was one, I purchased that cake pan with the half doll and attempted my first barbie theme cake. It was pretty simple, but hey it was one of the first cakes I every decorated.
I never used that pan again and I gave it away a long time ago.
My girl inherited her cousin’s Barbie’s and received more as gifts. So when I pulled out the bin-o-barbies from the garage, my now 17-year old teen giggled with delight. So many memories came flooding back for her.
So when I told my daughter that I was going to celebrate Barbie with a Barbie cake, well, she was all in! This time I was not using the goofy cake pan and doll. And quite frankly, you don’t need it.
I made the cake using a bundt cake pan and 2 6-inch cake pans. But you can use almost anything you have at hand. I give you several options below. You just have to make it tall enough to cover Barbie’s long legs.
We chose the base of the cake to be strawberry pink, of course. But you can use any cake flavor you want. The real question is how to decorate Barbie’s cake dress.
You can go as elaborate or as simple as you like. Because of my move, I had not decorated a cake in 9 months so I started watching YouTube videos trying to come up with fancy piping tricks.
I panicked. After a few frustrating words with myself, I chose to simplify the cake and pipe rosettes. And yes, rosettes are easy to pipe! They made the cake look all fancy without all the stress.
After decorating several unicorn cakes, this barbie doll cake was super easy to put together. You can hide a lot of the flaws with frosting!
And it makes a dream birthday cake for any Barbie lover and a wonderful way to celebrate this iconic doll.
Cake Ingredients
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- 3 layer cake recipe: You can use two boxes of store bought cake mixes or my strawberry birthday cake recipe. This will be baked into one 9-inch bundt pan and two 6-inch round cake pans. You can also bake the top part of the cake in an oven safe bowl. Use what you have and you can always cut and shape after the cakes have baked.
Frosting Ingredients
- Crumb coat frosting: I chose to use the yummy strawberry frosting for in between the cakes and for outside the crumb coat. I halved the strawberry frosting recipe from the strawberry birthday cake which includes butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, dehydrated strawberries, heavy cream and vanilla extract. This was an extra step. You can totally use buttercream frosting for the crumb coat and the piping of the rosettes. Either way, you will need approximately 4-cups of frosting for the crumb coat and cake assembly.
- Buttercream frosting: For the pink rosettes piped around the cake I used homemade buttercream frosting (butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and heavy cream, food coloring). You can also use tubs of pre-made frosting. You will approximately 8-cups of frosting.
- Final note on frosting: I always make a little too much frosting so I can be sure I have enough. Piping designs uses more frosting than a simple smooth coat around the cake. Plus this accounts for any mistakes you might make and discards. Yes I have run out of frosting and it is not fun to have to stop and whip up more and try to color match what you made.
What Doll to Use
The star of the show is your favorite Barbie doll! I have a big tub of my daughter’s old Barbie’s and they come in all styles, hair colors and ethnicities. Some come with a corset or top painted on the doll (like the fairy doll above or this ballerina doll), which makes decorating very easy!
You can use any doll you want, just be sure that your cake is tall enough to cover her from the hips down. Hey, you could even use a broken doll!
My daughter and I chose to use the classic blonde Barbie doll. I chose to pipe stars around the top half of her body like a corset. You could also cover her torso with fondant.
Step-by-step directions
1. Prepare the cake batter. You will need enough cake batter for a 3-layer cake. And I’m not talking about those thin layers. This could be 2 boxes of your favorite cake mix or my strawberry birthday cake recipe.
2. Fill the pans. Use a pastry brush and coat your 9-inch bundt pan with melted butter or shortening. Fill the pan ⅔ of the way full with cake batter. Grease and line the bottom of two 6-inch round cake pans with parchment paper.
Fill each 6-inch pan ⅔ of the way full with cake batter. If you are using a glass mixing bowl to bake in, be sure to grease it well first.
3.Bake the cakes. Bake at 350ºF until the cakes are golden at the edges and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of each cake. The 6-inch cakes will be finish baking first after approximately 25-30 minutes. The bundt will take about 10 minutes more.
Let cake rounds cool 10-15 minutes in the pans before inverting and cooling on a wire rack. Let the bundt cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then place a wire cooling rack over the base of the cake and invert the pan to release.
Do not lift the pan off the cake until it cools completely. If the bundt sticks and looks a little messy, don’t sweat it. The flaws will all be covered in frosting!
3. Cool the cakes. Let the cakes completely cool before frosting. I like to bake the cakes a day before serving and assemble/frost the next day. Using a biscuit cutter or measuring cup and knife, remove the center of the 6-inch cakes.
This is where Barbie will slide right in place! In fact, stack the cakes and place Barbie in to make sure she fits. If you are off by a little bit, you can fake it with some frosting.
Save the discards for snacking later or to make cake pops. You can also freeze them to enjoy a little treat some other day.
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4. Make the strawberry frosting. When the cakes are cooled and ready, it’s time to prepare your frosting. Again, I made strawberry frosting for the initial stacking and crumb coat.
5. Level the cakes. Level off the bottom of bundt cake (the domed top while it was baking) and place it on your cake stand or cardboard cake round. As you can see below, some chunks came off my bundt when I had it inverted to level the bottom of the cake. I just used some strawberry frosting to glue it back on.
5. Assemble the cakes. I absolutely love using my revolving cake stand when decorating cakes – it’s a game changer! Add frosting to the top and inside hole of your bundt. You want to make sure you have enough glue for the 6-inch cake you re placing on top.
I inverted the 6-inch round so the flat bottom was facing up. Scrape off the excess frosting.
6. Frost the cakes. Frost the inner hole and top of the 6-inch cake and place the second cake round on top. This time I kept the dome top facing up.
7. Shape the cake. I started adding the crumb coat around the whole cake when I remembered that I forgot to carve the cake a bit. You want the cake to resemble a bell, so use a serrated knife to shave off sides of the cake until you are satisfied with how it looks.
It does not have to be perfect as the rosettes we will pipe over it will hide the flaws!
8. Finish the crumb coat. Once you are happy with the shape of your cake, add a thin layer of frosting around the entire cake. It does not have to perfect or super smooth, as it will all be covered up. Chill the cake for at least an hour before piping rosettes over it.
9. Make the ombre frosting. Prepare your buttercream frosting. Reserve about 2-cups in a bowl and leave it white. Divide the remaining frosting into two bowls. For the ombre affect, I colored one bowl of buttercream with the dark pink and the other with super light. I transferred the dark pink into a piping bag with the #1M piping tip.
Wrap Barbie’s legs in plastic wrap to keep her clean. I felt weird photographing her topless so I put her bikini top on for the pictures! But rest assured that I piped frosting directly onto her torso.
Make sure Barbie is washed and clean. Style her hair BEFORE inserting her into the cake. Also you will need to clip her hair while you work so some touching up will be needed.
10. Pipe the rosettes. Pipe a row of dark pink rosettes along the bottom of the cake. Try to keep the rosettes tight, but know we can fill in any gaps that you may have later. You can make them as small or as large you like, just try to make them uniform looking.
Trust me, mine started getting larger and I had to remind myself to keep them all the same. But in the end, you can’t really tell.
Squeeze out the remaining dark pink frosting back into the bowl and add some of the light pink and mix. Place this lighter pink back into the piping bag and pipe the lighter pink rosettes above the dark row.
Continue adding light pink and white frosting to whatever frosting you have leftover to lighten up the next layer of rosettes until you make it to the top of the cake. It can get messy so you can always use a new piping bag if you need to.
11. Add the doll. Slide Barbie into the center of the cake. Have her lean forward if you can. Pipe the final layer of rosettes on the top of the cake, just touching Barbie and the center hole.
12. Frost your doll. You don’t want Barbie’s hair to get in the way so use her arms or a clip to get it out of the way. If you don’t have to pipe a corset on her body, then finish filling in the area near her waist by make stars with your 1M tip or a smaller star tip.
I used tip #18 (star tip) to fill up the gaps around her waist and the corset. I mixed whatever light pink I had leftover with the white to do this. I also added stars and pink sugar pearls to fill up the gaps in the rosettes. I had more gaps than I cared for but I am still happy with how it turned out.
14. Final touches. Her neck seemed a little bare to me. I could not find a tiara or a necklace in our bin of Barbie misfits, so I used the #5 piping tip to pipe a pearl necklace on her. What do you think?
Chill the cake until you are ready to serve. After 30 minutes or so, the frosting has crusted a little and you can let Barbie’s hair down without worrying about any frosting casualties.
Expert tips and recipe FAQs
Some bakers do not like to use the couplers when piping cakes. I usually do as I like to switch out the piping tips while I decorate the cake. If you are not going to switch out the tips, then you can simply cut the tip of the piping bag and slide the tip in without a coupler.
Not using a coupler also makes clean up much easier. Having duplicate tips also makes decorating cakes go easily especially if you are piping the same design with different colors.
If you are new to cake decorating, start with a basic kit. You can slowly add more tips and tools to your collection little by little. A revolving cake stand helps you achieve. a smooth and sleek frosted cake. I don’t know why I waited so long to get one!
I also highly recommend using the cardboard cutouts. This makes refrigerating your cakes much simpler and you don’t have to make room for a tall cake stand.
Got leftovers? Wrap any leftovers in foil or plastic wrap refrigerate for up to 5-7 days. You can also freeze leftover cake for up to 3 months. Before to wrap them tightly with plastic wrap first then with a layer of aluminum foil.
And if you are looking for the perfect pink Barbie cocktail to share with your friends, my friend Jackie has a fabulous cotton candy glitter bomb for you!
Storing/Freezing Instructions
TO STORE: If your cake is frosted, I suggest storing any leftovers in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 5 days. If unfrosted, you can keep it covered on the counter for up to 3 days or refrigerate for longer.
TO FREEZE: You can also freeze leftovers. Wrap in foil, parchment paper or plastic wrap and freeze for up to 4 months.
Absolutely! You don’t need special equipment to make a barbie cake. You can use a bundt pan, cake pan and even an oven safe bowl to bake the cakes you need to make a barbie doll cake.
To make a barbie cake you need the center of your stacked cakes to be hollowed out. This can be done by using a bundt cake or by cutting out the center yourself. You can use biscuit cutters or a sharp knife to do this.
For this recipe, I used a 3-layer strawberry cake. You can also use 2 boxes of cake mix. Depending on how large you cut the slices, this can easily feed about 36 people.
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Barbie Cake
Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
Strawberry Frosting for Crumb Coat
- 6 oz butter softened
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- ½ oz dehydrated strawberries
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Buttercream Frosting
- 12 oz butter
- 24 oz powdered sugar about 5 ¼ cups + 2 TBS
- 3 tablespoon heavy cream
- 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prepare cake batter. You will need enough batter for a 3-layer cake.
- Use a pastry brush and coat your 9-inch bundt pan with melted butter or shortening. Fill the pan ⅔ of the way full with cake batter.
- Grease and line the bottom of two 6-inch round cake pans with parchment paper.Fill each 6-inch pan ⅔ of the way full with cake batter. If you are using a glass mixing bowl to bake in, be sure to grease it well first.
- Bake at 350ºF until the cakes are golden at the edges and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of each cake. The 6-inch cakes will be finish baking first after approximately 25-30 minutes. The bundt will take about 10 minutes more.
- Let cake rounds cool 10-15 minutes in the pans before inverting and cooling on a wire rack. Let the bundt cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then place a wire cooling rack over the base of the cake and invert the pan to release.
- Let the cakes completely cool before frosting. I like to bake the cakes a day before serving and assemble/frost the next day. Using a biscuit cutter or measuring cup and knife, remove the center of the 6-inch cakes.
- When the cakes are cooled and ready, it’s time to prepare the crumb coat frosting. Again, I made strawberry frosting for the initial stacking and crumb coat. You can also use buttercream. You will need about 4 cups of frosting for this step.
- Level off the bottom of bundt cake (the domed top while it was baking) and place it on your cake stand or cardboard cake round. If any chunks get broken off, use the frosting to glue it back on.
- Frost the top of the cake and inner hole, then place one of the 6-inch cakes with the flat bottom was facing up. Scrape off the excess frosting.
- Frost the inner hole and top of the 6-inch cake and place the second cake round on top. This time I kept the dome top facing up.
- Use a serrated knife to shave off sides of the cake until the cake resembles a bell or dress. It doesn't have to be perfect as the flaws will be hidden with frosting.
- Once you are happy with the shape of your cake, add a thin layer of frosting around the entire cake. Chill the cake for at least an hour before piping rosettes over it.
- Prepare the buttercream frosting by whipping the butter in a stand mixer til fluffy.
- Add powdered sugar, heavy cream and vanilla and whip for 2 minutes until frosting is whipped and light in color.
- Reserve about 2-cups in a bowl and leave it white. Divide the remaining frosting into two bowls. For the ombre affect, I colored one bowl of buttercream with the dark pink and the other with super light. Transfer the dark pink into a piping bag with the #1M piping tip.
- Wrap Barbie’s legs in plastic wrap to keep her clean. Make sure Barbie is washed and clean. Style her hair BEFORE inserting her into the cake. Also you will need to clip her hair while you work so some touching up will be needed.
- Pipe a row of dark pink rosettes along the bottom of the cake. Try to keep the rosettes tight, but know we can fill in any gaps that you may have later. You can make them as small or as large you like, just try to make them uniform looking.
- Squeeze out the remaining dark pink frosting back into the bowl and add some of the light pink and mix. Place this lighter pink back into the piping bag and pipe the lighter pink rosettes above the dark row.
- Continue adding light pink and white frosting to whatever frosting you have leftover to lighten up the next layer of rosettes until you make it to the top of the cake. It can get messy so you can always use a new piping bag if you need to.
- Slide Barbie into the center of the cake. Have her lean forward if you can. Pipe the final layer of rosettes on the top of the cake, just touching Barbie and the center hole.
- You don’t want Barbie’s hair to get in the way so use her arms or a clip to get it out of the way. If you don’t have to pipe a corset on her body, then finish filling in the area near her waist by make stars with your 1M tip or a smaller star tip.
- Use ip #18 (star tip) to fill up the gaps around her waist and the corset. I mixed whatever light pink I had leftover with the white to do this. I also added stars and pink sugar pearls to fill up the gaps in the rosettes.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer
Nutritional information is an estimate provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the actual nutritional information with the products and brands you are using with your preferred nutritional calculator.
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Written by Laura Bashar
Hi, I’m Laura, a certified professional cook and cookbook author living in San Diego. I have been sharing my family’s favorite recipes inspired from all over the world since 2008. Let’s cook up something fun!
I studied this recipe intently to make my daughter’s third birthday cake! It turned out wonderfully both visually and deliciously. It’s a beautiful cake! Thanks for sharing and helping a newbie cake decorator make her daughter’s dream come true! This year a strawberry cake has been requested again and I am back 🙂
Hi Su-Ling-
Your cake turned out beautifully! I am so glad I was able to help you create a magical cake for your daughter’s birthday!
Laura
I loved your cake so much, I made one for my great grandaughter for her 5th birthday!
Hi Peggy-
Wow! She turned out beautifully! Great job! Thank you for sharing-
Laura
I thought you carved this cake, but what a great idea to use a Bundt cake for the top of the dress skirt! So great!