I am going to make a birthday cake in a couple weeks for a little girl whose home burned down and they lost everything a couple weeks ago. I plan to surprise her mother when she picks the cake up with a "no charge".

She only wanted a simple cake....two round tiers with 4 towers and one tower on top.

How would you make the towers? I want to make them with fondant, but am curious what would be best to wrap the fondant around to make the towers. I plan to make the tops with icecream cones covered with fondant shingles. I also have a brick texture mat for the towers, though I might jut cut some random square stones and add to the towers like the cake in the latest Wilton Yearbook.

I generally don't make this type cake, and I don't want to purchase any plastic kits, etc., so I am open to suggestions.

I would do it out of rkt.

You could do RKT, but it would need to be supported with a dowel. If it doesn't matter if it is not edible you could just get some PVC pipe and cover that.

I agree, RKTs is my best friend, lol. I use them to make my figures. I think it would look wonderful with the ice cream cones on top.

Good Luck.

Just wanted to say that it's sweet of you to do this for them! I hope you post a pic - castle cakes are so fun!

hi would use toilet rolls as the towers cover them in fondant but the fill them with sweets as i find this way more sturdy than using cake and they still get a sweet treat inside oh and it is a very nice thing that u are doing by not charging them im sure they will love it x

Toilet paper rolls are too short, aren't they? I used PVC and paper towel rolls. Just make sure they're all the same height and circumference.
Of course, mine was flying by the seat of my pants. I made RKT towers covered with chocolate to make them sturdy, and then used the fondant pieces to cover them. When they were still soft, I pushed a skewer through the RKT and shoved it into the cake drum when I assembled it. It made it through the 45 minute van ride just fine. The kids loved the RKT on a stick treat.

Why I didn't make the RKT and immediately cover it with fondant, I dunno. It would have been a lot easier.

I've done this (for a small cake) using paper towel rolls. I covered the roll in plastic wrap, then molded the fondant around them. I slid them out when the fondant was dry on the outside so they would dry well on the inside.
I also cut some windows out while they were still on the roll so the cardboard would provide some support.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjscakes/5198211757/in/photostream

I've also done a larger cake with cake cones for the towers and sugar cones for the turrets. I glued the cones end to end and covered them with fondant.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjscakes/3208641830/in/photostream

Hope this helps.

I put two ice cream cones together, by the bases (the cones with the flat bottoms - one upside down - one right side up), and covered with fondant. Worked well, but if I were to do it again, I would glue them together with chocolate candy melts.

I used paper towel holders, lightly brushed with piping gel and then covered it with fondant that I had impressed with a brick pattern. Then on the top I inserted a wafer cone that I had covered with fondant and on top of that I put an inverted sugar cone that had been covered with royal icing and colored sugar.

sorry-that was my first time uploading a photo and I guess I got kind of excited about it so you got three of the same picture!