Skip to main content

Rainbow unicorn cake



Much to my wife's joy (relief?) we finally had a girl and she's turning 1 already! We randomly decided on a rainbow unicorn theme for her birthday as it was the girliest theme we could think of. Turns out that unicorns and rainbows are very much in season which mafe it easy to find supplies! 

I started by making the unicorn cake topper as it can be made a few days in advance. There are a number of great YouTube tutorial videos which I used as inspiration for my own take on the unicorn. My wife insisted that I make 'anime' eyes but I couldn't see the appeal since I grew up in Africa with little to no Japanese entertainment. I've learnt to follow my wife's suggestions and the unicorn had a pair of anime eyes :) 

I really enjoy problem solving. Below is a picture of an improvised tool to make the eye sockets. I doubt that a .50 cal round has been used in much cake making! 



Here is a picture of the nearly completed cake topper. Still to put blush on the cheeks. 


=====CAKE=====

I wanted to make a rainbow inside the cake so knew it would have at least 6 layers. For this reason I made a light sponge cake rather than a heavy butter cake. 

To be efficient and use less electricity I purchased 2 additional cake pans so that I could cook 3 layers at once. Turned out to be a bad idea as only the cake in the centre of the oven rose nicely at an even height so cakes 4, 5 and 6 were cooked individually after the first average batch! 

Below is a photo of the layers stuck together with butter icing. 




Still much filling in to do because of the wonky cakes. 


I mixed a few drops of red into the butter icing to make pink icing and plastered up the cake. I didnt have enough icing sugar so blended up white sugar which made the icing a bit grainy and hard to smooth properly. O well, it tasted nice :) 

To break up the sides I made simple white clouds which the kids liked. 




In summary it was a fun first girl cake.  I look forward to more of them :) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deconstructed Construction Cake

My 3 year old is a typical boy and loves all building and construction related items. We have been fortunate enough to build a house in the last year much to his joy. At one stage I think his vocabulary solely consisted of 'digger', 'bulldozer' and 'tractor'. And 'no', he knew how to say 'no'... As usual I asked him what sort of cake he would like for his birthday and a 'building' cake it was. I had a quick think of the various building or construction cakes I could make and settled on a quarry type design where trucks could ride up and down levels doing their thing. Our sons Godfather (not the Italian type with horse heads lying about) is a civil engineer so I sent him cryptic messages over a number of days seeking his input on plant and equipment management at a quarry site.  After a few days of intrigue I finally let on that my questions were cake related. Poor guy, I think he was keen to sink his teeth into a big ca...

Random Cakes

Below is a random list of cakes I would like to write articles about at some point. Plenty of fun memories here from problem solving my way to make these cakes. 4 year old Lightning McQueen racing cake: 2 Year old "Where's the green sheep" cupcakes 5 Year old dinosaur volcano cake complete with smoke (dry ice) We had a ball freezing things in the sink! Random other items I just did the Autobot face for a friend, they made the cake. My modified tool box.

How to bake a cake with a flat top

Cake with a flat top My cakes often had large domes which cracked. This leads to a fair amount of wastage when you need level cakes for stacking. If only there was a way to bake nice level cakes without having to cut them level... Turns out something called a "baking belt" does wonders. True to form why purchase a proper "baking belt" when I can cut up one of my kids towels (shhh, don't tell my wife) and safety pin it into a modified baking belt. How to use the belt: Wet the belt Wring out excess water so that it's still wet but not dripping everywhere Place the belt around the baking tin Pop the tin into the oven I have better results on a non fan forced bake at a slightly lower temperature for a little longer.  I forgot to use the baking belt for the last cake and it shows. No prizes for guessing which one it is!