Ariel, the Vegan Princess?

   I'm pretty sure Ariel is a vegan because land mammals and bees don't do well under the ocean...and her dad objected to the "fish eating barbarians"....although she does wear shells as apparel...which might be the human equivalent of leather shoes.  At any rate, here she is, against my better judgement in the form of two egg and dairy-free princess birthday cakes for my girls.  The girls turned 6 and 4 this past week and had their neighborhood party together this weekend.  The 4 year old wanted chocolate cake ("but still pretty, ok mom?") and the 6 year old wanted pink, as usual.  Our local grocery has a Barbie cake on perpetual display in the bakery case and the girls wishful looks every time we passed by shopping just got the best of me.

 The cakes are three layers, two 8 inch rounds and one 6 inch round with layers of buttercream in between.  For the cakes, I doubled the chocolate and vanilla cake recipes from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World".  The chocolate and vanilla buttercreams came from the book as well.  I covered her shells and bare midriff up with a Laffy Taffy and Nerds bodice so she'd be a bit more modest!  I had to enlist my engineer husband to help when the cake wasn't as tall as the doll, so he built two boxes with holes to set the cakes on so her fins could dangle below! 

A pinata filled with only safe treats, grab what you want kiddo, no worries!!