Sleeping Beauty

First it was Cinderella, now it's Sleeping Beauty (or Sitting Beauty here, as the MOTH has christened her upon seeing the finished cake) aka Aurora (never knew she had a name). The fairytale (the one I grew up with) starts with the birth of this princess and while all the fairy godmothers in the kingdom were invited to celebrated her birth by giving blessings, one was left out. This particular fairy (ironically the one that happened to be scrawny, dark-caped-and-evil-looking) was upset and came anyway. Instead of a blessing, she cursed the princess. If I recall correctly, the princess was supposed to die at 16 when she pricks her finger while spindling. Conveniently, there was one fairy godmother who had yet to give her blessing decides to tweak the curse - the princess (and the rest of the kingdom) was to enter a 100-year sleep instead of dying at 16 when she messes around with the spindle. A good 15 years passed and while the king and queen went at great lengths to burn and destroy every spindle in the kingdom through the years, one was left in the castle....(seriously???). So, curious princess decides to check out this contraption and guess what? She pricks her finger. So, one by one, people of the kingdom dropped like flies, into a deep sleep. Fast forward 100 years, a prince "waded" through overgrown bushes of thorny roses and discovers the castle. Finds the princess, kisses her and the whole kingdom is awake! Prince marries the 116-year old princess and they live happily ever after.

I bet you, lots of little girls out there who are fans of the Disney Princesses didn't know that original fairytale. They only know of an Aurora in the the pink ball gown who was woken from her beauty sleep by a prince. Period. So, when I got this order, my immediate visual was a sleeping princess. Google Sleeping Beauty and you'll get Aurora romancing her prince, singing in the garden with birds, sitting on a chair in civilian clothes etc. Huh? Maybe there are different versions now, but I'm a purist so I stuck to the castle, the bed and the princess. Since it was for a birthday, I didn't do a "sleeping" version...we Chinese are a superstitious lot. I had the base cake castle-walled with overgrown thorny roses, a pretty royal bed and the princess sitting on her bed (just woke up with fresh-out-of-bed-Bardot-sexy hair, don't ask me how to do that in reality). Had some roses strewn around her and added a couple of birds supposedly singing birdsong of joy! Wanted to have her prince next to her and a few fairy godmothers but decided against it because 7-year old Abigail was a pure princess. No one should steal Aurora's thunder. The chocolate cake finished weighing 2.6kg.