Description
If you’re looking for Disney Princess Cake Ideas, look no further! Inspired by Aurora’s 16th Birthday Cake, this vegan version of a Sleeping Beauty Cake made by Fauna tastes like the best tender and moist vanilla cake you’ve ever had, and is so much fun to make!
Ingredients
Cake Layers:
- 6 cups organic flour or gluten free 1-to-1 baking flour, sifted (do NOT skip- add in 1 tsp arrowroot powder if using gluten free 1-to-1 baking flour, see Note)
- 2 1/8 cup cane sugar or coconut sugar (see Note)
- 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp finely ground sea salt
- 2 1/2 cup unsweetened dairy free milk, room temperature
- 3 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar (to be mixed with coconut/almond milk)
- 1 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, room temperature
- 1/2 cup coconut oil or vegan butter, melted
- 3 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
Vegan Buttercream Frosting:
- 4 cups vegan butter*
- 7 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2–3 tbsp dairy-free milk
- 2 tsp vegan blue food coloring
Instructions
See Notes section for equipment!
Cake Layers:
- Preheat the oven to 350F and grease two 8″ cake pans and 6″ cake pans with olive or coconut oil. Line them with parchment paper rounds and lightly flour the sides.
- Add apple cider vinegar to unsweetened coconut/almond milk and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar baking powder, baking soda and sea salt. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, add dairy free milk and apple cider vinegar mixture, coconut oil, applesauce, and vanilla together. Mix until thoroughly combined.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir until there are no more clumps of batter. This will take a bit of effort, as there is a lot of batter. I recommend using a cake stand if you can. Just make sure that you don’t miss any flour at the bottom of the bowl. If your cake batter looks a little dry, you can add in by the tablespoon a little more coconut or almond milk.
- Divid the batter evenly into the cake pans. The cake pans should each have about 2″ in height worth of cake batter.
- Place cake pans into the oven and bake, about 25-27 for the 6″ cake pans and 30-32 minutes for the 8″ cake pans, or until the toothpick comes out clean. The tops fo the cakes should be lightly golden.
- Let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool for another 10 minutes. Slice each cake in half using a large seated knife and keep them on the cooling rack to completely before preparing the frosting.
Vegan Buttercream:
- In a large bowl, beat the vegan butter until fluffy and creamy.
- While you continue to beat, start to sift in the powdered sugar, carefully integrating the powdered sugar into the vegan butter.
- Once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, add in 2 tbsp of dairy free milk and the vanilla extract. The buttercream should be thick but moveable and smooth. If you need an additional tbsp of dairy free milk, add it in here.
- Set the buttercream aside (we’ll add in the blue at the end of the assembly) and prepare the cakes (see Assembly section).
Assembly:
- Once the buttercream is made and the cakes are fully cool, place 1/2 of each cake on their respective cake boards (there will be two 8″ cake layers on two different 8″ cake boards and two 6″ cake layers on two different 6″ cake boards).
- Start to create each tier one at a time; add about 1 cup frosting to the middle of an 8″ cake. Spread it so that it touches the sides, then place a second half of the cake on top. Lightly frost the sides and top of the cake, creating more of a naked cake look so that you’ll have enough frosting at the end. Repeat for the remaining tiers, including the 6″ layers. You should have about 2 cups of frosting still leftover for the blue layer. When you’re done with each tier, place them into the fridge to chill.
- Once you’ve finished creating the tiers, make sure they are all chilling in the fridge (at least 10 minutes). Now you’ll make the vegan blue buttercream. Add in the blue plant based food dye to the bowl and use a hand mixer to evenly distribute the color. Prepare the piping tip and spoon the buttercream into the piping bag. Place the piping bag into the fridge to chill as well.
- Prepare the dowels. Remove one 8″ cake tier from the fridge, and measure the dowel in the cake. You’ll do this by sticking the dowel into the cake and seeing where the frosting meets it. Score the dowel and remove from the cake. Place the cake back into the fridge, and make four dowels all at the size that you’ve scored. Repeat for the 6″ cake tier, only making two dowels however (you won’t need to dowel the top layer).
- Build the cake: remove the blue frosting bag from the fridge and set aside. Place one 8″ cake tier onto your desired cake plate or cake stand. Place two dowels towards the middle of the cake (see picture in the post). Carefully place the second 8″ cake tier slightly crooked and to the side on top of the bottom layer. Dowel that layer as well, and place the 6″ cake tier more towards the middle of the cake, on top. Dowel the cake and place the last tier on top, slightly crooked but enough that it will balance.
- Pipe the blue frosting on the creases of the cake, where the cake boards meet the frosting. Pipe enough to cover the cracks, creating little drips of frosting like the movie.
- Top with candles and serve!
- To serve the cake: carefully remove the top cake layer and slice. To serve each layer, remember to remove the dowels.
Notes
Equipment:
- two 6″ cake pans
- two 8″ cake pans
- Parchment paper
- 8″ and 6″ cake boards + dowels
- Piping bag and round tip
- Hand mixer or stand mixer
- Cake stand or plate
- Cake sleeves
- Pink birthday candles
Flour: Make sure that you add in a tsp of arrowroot powder or cornstarch if using gluten free 1-to-1 baking flour. This will give the flour more like a cake flour texture when baked- very tender and moist!
Coconut sugar: If you use coconut sugar, your cake will be slightly tanner in color- but still delicious!
Vegan Buttercream: if you would like to do a vegan cream cheese frosting instead, you can swap in 2 cups vegan cream cheese (a total of 2 cups cream cheese and 2 cups butter).