Making a birthday cake with a doll in it - recipe recommendations please.

[Shufflebumnessie]

I'd like to make DD one of those cake that have a barbie in the middle and the cake is the dress. Does any one have a tried and tested recipe / instructions that they can point me to please? There are so many online that ideally I'd like to used one that has actually been recommended.
Thanks in advance

I've made one but it was chocolate biscuit cake. Pudding bowl upside down with top cut out then fixed the dolls torso on top. Then decorate

Nigella's buttermilk birthday cake, it's very robust and doesn't crack easily and she actually recommends it for this very cake. You will probably need double quantities for a tall ish cone.

image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/10/13/Birthday_Cake.pdf

I was going to say the Nigella one too.

I made one a couple of years ago , just used the bbc good food Victoria sponge recipe . Cooked it in a Pyrex bowl . Worked great

This is the absolute classic recipe from this side of the globe:

www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipes/australian-womens-weekly-dolly-varden-cake-1510

Seconding the Australians Womens Weekly version. 55 years can’t be wrong.

Nigella's sour cream chocolate cake, if you want a chocolate sponge. It has a good solid crumb but nice and moist at the same time.

And if it's any consolation, when I tried this it looked INCREDIBLE (it was a lockdown birthday, I had plenty of time!) but tasted like absolute shit and no-one gave 2 shiny shits.

But they still talk in reverential tones about the Elsa birthday cake!!

So don't worry too much as long as it's solid enough to ice!

(I've tried to attach a photo to show off but not sure it's worked)

What about a Bundt tin? They come in different designs and would look like the dress- hole ready made.

Madeira sponge in a Pyrex pudding bowl.

My tip would be to not use a barbie. Splash out on one of these

I didn’t and the cake looked a bit like the attack of the 50 foot woman, with her towering above the pudding bowl cake. Even a huge pudding basin was no match for the disproportionately leggy Barbie.

That will be haunting my dreams for some time.

About 10y ago I have bought Barbie cake for my niece and it came with this half-cut doll. That birthday party is still remembered for the doll alone by all the adults, although, children were quite alright with it 😂
But I do absolutely agree that to put real Barbie would be a disaster because of disproportionately long legs.

It's just a basic sponge cake, could be chocolate if you want. I would get a cheap Poundland doll and take the legs off! Easier to cut the cake as well without working around barbie legs.

I used to work in a bakery and we made these cakes to order.
Bought dolls from the pound shop and made victoria sponges in 3 different sizes. Stacked them with buttercream in between and made a hole down the centre. Took the legs off the doll and popped the body into the cake . Covered with icing colour of customer's choice.
They were very popular and simple to make.
Ps. We gave the legs to the customer to pop back on afterwards.

Many years ago I was teaching a reception class and one of my mums made one of these cakes for her sons 5th birthday. It was at his request. She had removed the barbie legs and did a wonderful job with the skirt. The whole school was there watching the cutting of the cake (a tiny country school) . As she pulled the legless torso from the cake, there were gasps of horror,with one kid audibly saying"I think I"m gonna puke". Up there as a top entertaining day at work, along with the day I found the rats nest in the resource cupboard.