I love creating birthday “theme cakes” for my grandchildren. This one was made for my oldest grand daughter Natalie, who is turning 7. Her request was for a cake with characters from the Pixar movie Brave. I found a Merida doll along with the 3 bears (her triplet brothers), and her horse Angus, online. The only issue I had was that this online order took OVER 6 WEEKS to arrive from Australia! This caused a 1 week delay in a cake for the birthday girl! The delay was worth it, since the characters were perfect, and this cake was exactly what she wanted.

I made 1 1/2 recipes of a homemade red velvet cake recipe . This was enough to make 3 – 8″ cake layers AND an additional 6″ cake layer (for the turret).

I cut a small round cake out of the small 6″ cake, and frosted it with chocolate cream cheese buttercream. Then I used mini Kit Kat bars as “bricks” around the turret. Merida was placed in the center, and the turret was chilled until the rest of the cake was complete.

The rest of the cake came together with vanilla cream cheese buttercream between the layers, with a sprinkle of some finely chopped Kit Kat bars. I frosted the entire cake with the rest of the chocolate frosting, then secured the turret onto the top of the cake.

Ribbons of blue buttercream were piped up and down – around the sides. A #7 and her name were added, and the rest of the characters were secured on top. A sprinkling of “Kit Kat gravel” was added under the horse. I finished the cake with a teal blue ribbon.

One happy 7 year old!