The Princess Problem

My daughter is a typical 3-year-old in many ways: She loves to dance. She loves to squeal. She loves to play with dolls and figurines. And she loves to dress up like a Disney princess.

Back in my day, the fascination with Disney princesses was simple. We watched the movies (if we were lucky enough to have a VCR and a collection of Disney videos), we sang the songs (which we had learned from vinyl records), and we wore the dresses (if we happened to have a mom who could sew). And no-one thought anything about it except that it was cute.

But today, many people have less than positive opinions of Disney princesses. Some complain that they are too helpless, that they teach our daughters to wait for a man to come rescue her, that they are terrible role models of complacency and symbols of female subservience. I, however, disagree. I think that every Disney princess has a positive lesson to teach our children, both male and female.

Snow White and Cinderella, for example, were both raised in a family where they were neglected and abused. And yet, they both maintained their sweet, kind, loving, and hard-working natures. In Disney's versions, neither princess tried to get vengeance on her family, even when she had the power to do so. Isn't that a positive role model?

Ariel, on the other hand, was adored by her father to the point of being spoiled. But instead of sitting back and expecting everything she wanted to be handed to her, she explored the world around her and found a way to learn on her own, discovering that there was a whole world beyond what she knew. She pushed herself beyond the boundaries of familiarity and braved the unknown. Isn't that a positive role model?

And how about Mulan? She realized that she could not protect her family's honor the way they wanted her to, so she found another way to do it. She could have simply run away, leaving her family in shame. But instead, she put herself in danger so that those she loved would be safe. She became a warrior. Isn't that a positive role model?

Belle, who is not only beautiful but smart, is devoted to her father, also to the point of sacrificing herself and her own future to save him. And her kindness and compassion is so great that she is able to see past the Beast's ugly, angry exterior and recognize the sadness and loneliness inside. Isn't that a positive role model?

Jasmine is an interesting case, being a princess who is aware that she is being forced into a subservient role which she does not want. She rebels against the society that tries to force her into a marriage which she did not choose, and in the end, uses her power and privilege to make the world a better place. Isn't that a positive role model?

Rapunzel, similar to Ariel, has a parent (in this case, a mother) who loves her to the point of smothering her, purportedly keeping her "safe" from the world, but in reality, keeping her from learning and exploring on her own. Rapunzel also manages to escape her boundaries and discover the world around her, embracing all its warts as well as its beauty. Isn't that a positive role model?

What about the most recent of the Disney princesses, the sisters from "Frozen"? Each struggles with rejection early in life, Elsa feeling forced by her parents to hide who she is, Anna feeling rejected by the older sister whom she loves. But both put their own comfort aside for the good of the people of their kingdom, going through trials which eventually teach them to ask for help and work together. Aren't those positive role models?

So when my daughter begs to put on her Snow White costume, or her Cinderella costume, or her Little Mermaid costume, I will let her do so without reservations. I'll remind her that Snow White worked hard making the beds, cleaning, and cooking dinner for her "family." I'll remind her that Cinderella did as she was asked without complaining, even when it seemed unfair. I'll remind her that Ariel learned everything she could about what was around her, and studied it with an open mind. I'll remind her that each of these women made choices about their own lives, and lived with the consequences, for good or for evil. I'll remind her that they loved and respected their parents, that they loyally stood by their friends, and that they took their destinies into their own hands instead of complacently accepting their fates.

But best of all, they did it all while wearing glittering gowns and great shoes. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

 

How to Make a “Frozen” Cake, No Artistic Talent Required

I, much like my mother, have zero artistic talent whatsoever. But I, also like my mother, for some unknown reason, feel a pressing need to make artistic (or at least, “themed”) birthday cakes for my children while they’re young. Last year, when my daughter turned 2, she was all about dolls and Barbies, so of course, I made her a Barbie doll cake. I ordered a mold and a creepy legless Barbie doll on Amazon.com, picked up a couple of cake mixes, a tub of pre-made frosting, and some decorator frosting-in-a-can at my local supermarket, and went to town. And I have to say, I was pretty pleased with the result.

The best thing about this cake, for me, was that it was completely free-form. It pretty much had to be pink and be generally recognizable as a dress, but other than that, I could do whatever I wanted. And I did.

But this year, 2014…when you have a 3- (or 4-, or 5-, or 6-, or – well, you get the idea) year-old daughter, 2014 is the year of Frozen. It is the year of Anna and Elsa and Olaf and Kristoff and Sven and Hans and the trolls. It is the year of “Let It Go” and “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” and “In Summer.” Honestly, the only choice I had this year regarding the cake was whether it would Anna or Elsa. (Olaf and Sven were absolutely out of the equation, and Kristoff and Hans were only options if they were willing to wear ball gowns). So I checked out their various dresses, and since Elsa spent a great deal of the movie (the coolest part of the movie, ahem, so to speak) wearing a blue gown decorated only with spangles, it wasn’t that difficult of a choice to make. 

(I’m rather partial to redheads, but Anna is a little too fond of complicated embroidery in multiple colors. White snowflakes I can handle; elaborate tole painting designs, not so much.)

So I gathered my supplies: I dug out last year’s cake mold from the back of the shelf (after searching for it in 16 other places), a cake plate on a stand, some white and silver decorator sugar I had bought to sugar the rim of cocktail glasses a few years back, and a bottle of blue food coloring that I’m pretty sure I bought in 1993. I went to Target and picked up the cheapest blond Barbie I could find (yet another reason Elsa was the better choice – no way could I have found a red-haired Barbie for 6 bucks on short notice). She came with a pink tiara but my husband had bought me a woman’s silver and rhinestone ring shaped like a tiara which happened to be exactly cheap-Barbie-doll-head-sized. And a final grocery store run yielded a couple of yellow cake mixes, a tub of white frosting, and a can of decorator icing, also in white. I poured myself a glass of wine, and I was ready to begin!

Step 1, rather obviously, is to bake the cake. The doll mold looks deceptively small, but I discovered last year that it takes two whole cake mixes to fill the mold!

It’s the TARDIS of cake pans: much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

I discovered this year that this year's brand of cake mix was just enough bigger that the mold overflowed when it baked, but I was fortunate enough to notice it early and lined the bottom of the oven with tin foil to catch the drips. This resulted in a sample that was perfectly baked when I checked on the baking halfway through.

Once the cake is in the oven, you can move on to Step 2: Doll Preparation and Insertion. If you are using a normal doll pick, there really isn’t much to this step. If, however, you are using a cheap Barbie doll that is intended to represent a recognizable character, there’s some work to be done here. In this case, Elsa needs her trademark side braid and her tiara. So first, you’ll need to braid her hair. Her shiny, very shiny, oh-so-shiny hair. Do you know what hair feels like when it is shiny, very shiny, oh-so-shiny? It feels slippery. Very slippery. Oh, so slippery. Which means that a) it is extremely difficult to braid the wee little 3-inch length of it, and b) a tiara will not stay on. Luckily, my daughter also has about 3 wee little inches of slippery hair, so I have some degree of practice, as well as access to teeny-tiny hair elastics. Also luckily, I am a seamstress and therefore did not hesitate to stitch that little tiara right onto Elsa’s hair. Well, mostly her hair. Possibly her head a little bit. But mostly her hair. I'm not a monster here, people.

Now that Barbie has been transformed into Elsa, it’s time to cool and unmold the cake and put Elsa’s dress on her. The doll I used last year was technically a “pick,” which meant that instead of having legs, the torso stopped abruptly at the waist and there was a single spike projecting downwards. It was a bit disturbing, but it did hold the doll in place quite snugly.

This year, since I was using an actual doll with all the usual appendages, I had to cram the legs into the cake. This was extra complicated because this particular doll had one knee permanently bent, but I managed to get her in there relatively solidly. 

The final part of the Doll Preparation step is to make sure that a) no frosting gets into the hair, and b) no hair gets into the frosting. The easiest, if not the least creepy, method is to wrap the doll’s head in plastic wrap and tie it tightly.

Much like the weird stuff they often put on your head at the hairdresser,
it feels stupid but the final results are worth it.

Step 3 is Plating the Cake. This is a somewhat precarious step. Before I attempt it, I am very careful to gather all the needed materials: the plate, a knife, a sketch of my planned decorations, and a glass of wine. (The latter is the most important.)

You don’t want your doll to wobble on the plate, so before you move it, be sure to color your frosting to your desired shade and spread a nice, thick blob of it on the plate to act as cement.

Then all you have to do is knock back some of the wine, take a deep breath, grab the cake gently but firmly with both hands, say a quick prayer, and slap that baby onto her pedestal.

Once she’s centered and firmly attached, you can begin Step 4: Frosting and Decorating. If you want to be really fancy and professional about it, you can start by doing a rough “crumb coat” and letting it set in the refrigerator before neatly applying a smooth, final coat. Yeah, ain’t nobody got time for that. I brush off the crumbs and slap on one really thick layer of frosting (partly so the crumbs don’t show but mostly because, let’s be honest, the frosting is the whole reason we eat the cake, right?). I use the smooth edge of a butter knife to roughly spread large globs of the frosting on the center of the cake, then go back and neatly (well, sort of) fill in the top and bottom edges.

Luckily, even cheap Barbies have articulated arms, so I swiveled them up in the air to get them out of the way. It made her look like she was screaming for help and trying to rip off the plastic wrap, but I told her she was making a sacrifice for her art and just kept frosting. 

Since my doll already had a white, painted-on bodice, I only had to pull the frosting up high enough to cover the pink, but if you need to create a shirt, it’s much easier to use decorator frosting and a star tip than to try and create a decent-looking shirt out of regular frosting. At least, it is if you have the kind of fine motor skills and artistic eye (by which I mean a complete lack thereof) that I do.

Once you have a smooth coat of frosting, you need to move quickly to add the fine details. For this cake, the only tools I needed were a can of white decorator icing with a star tip and my fancy sugars.

Elsa’s gown is covered with icy sparkles, so I started to sprinkle the sugar down her gown, reaching close to her body to avoid ending up with dull spots. I started with the white glitter, then attempted to add some silver but it just bounced off instead of sticking to the frosting. Eh, all white is good. Snow and ice are white, right? Who needs silver, anyway.

As you may have guessed from the sketch in one of the above photos, I had originally intended to add some swirls and snowflakes with the decorator icing, but given a) how pretty the dress looked with sugar alone, and b) the fact that when I tried the icing using the smallest tip, it looked like snowman poop rather than delicate snowflakes, I opted to leave off the fancy work.

I did need something to finish the dress at the bottom, since it’s hard to get the bottom edge of the frosting to look smooth. So after wiping the excess frosting off the plate with my finger a damp paper towel, I added a row of fat white stars to edge the gown. I always practice one on a paper towel before starting on the cake, and then throw it away. This is always the most perfect star of the whole batch. 

Which is why I always start at the back, because by the time I’m halfway around, the quality of my stars has finally started to approach the perfection of that first one.

Once that final detail has been added, it’s time to free Elsa from her plastic wrap bonds! Be careful not to accidentally pull her out of the cake or dislodge her hair elastic, especially the latter, as it’s likely to take you less time to re-bake and re-decorate a whole cake than it is to re-braid that bloody shiny hair.

And voila! Princess Elsa!

This cake isn’t going to win any awards, but it IS going to make a certain little princess in my house very, very happy!

And there's both wine and frosting left over, which is going to make a certain big princess in my house very, very happy, too.