Everyone loves unicorns… even if they don’t want to admit it. And everyone will love this unicorn cake when you bring it out on your favorite person’s special day! It’s sweet, magical and easy to bake!
We don’t think we’ve ever met anyone who didn’t think unicorns were at least a little cool. They are certainly loved by little girls all over the world, but these days adults are also getting into the magical aesthetic. Heck, we even know some younger boys who love these fantasy creatures! Even if dragons! It’s really hard not to love a shiny pony with a shinier horn. Check out My Little Pony…super popular!
That’s why today we’re going to show you how to make this adorable unicorn birthday cake! It is a vanilla cake with a simple decoration that we will go through step by step. There is no need to do something like this professionally. You can easily prepare it at home. This cake has to be one of the best cakes I have ever made!
Even better because it was for one of my best friends who is turning 30 in a few days.
With all the one year old cake smashes I do, we thought it would be crazy fun to do a dirty 30 cake smash and we were 100% right.
Unicorn was the obvious theme, but who doesn’t love a unicorn?
First, we started this party with a classic blue bottle of Bartenura (everyday drink at its best).
How to make a unicorn cake?
Here is our easy tutorial to bake a really cute rainbow unicorn cake!
You will need…
- Your favorite vanilla cake recipe: Use a store-bought mix…or follow our tried-and-true easy vanilla cake recipe. We can highly recommend it!
- Buttercream Frosting: This is another ingredient you can buy at the store or follow our easy buttercream recipe that produces a creamy, smooth frosting every time!
- Buttercream Food Gel Coloring: By adding gel coloring to your buttercream, you can add all the pretty colors to the unicorn’s mane. You can use whatever colors you (or your special someone) like, but we used pastel blues, pinks and purples.
- Alcohol bags and alcohol tips: You will of course use these to decorate your cake. (You have to make these beautiful frosting moons!) Specifically, we used Wilton 6B, 1M and 32 piping tips for the cake you see in the pictures. If you want to copy ours, get these tips!
- Sprinkles: for decoration! To recreate our images, be sure to grab our Pastel Quin Sprinkles Mix.
- Flower Topper: Your cake requires flowers because, as we’ve asked (ha!), unicorns need flowers to make themselves even more amazing. Our flower toppers are the perfect decoration for your unicorn.
- Unicorn Horns, Ears and Eyes: Unicorn themed cakes can usually be found online or at your local party store. We got our ears, horns, and eyes from Amazon, but you can also find them on Etsy (or, again, locally!).
Step 1: Bake your vanilla cake base.(Unicorn Cake)
As mentioned above, we recommend you our vanilla cake recipe, with which you will get a delicious homemade cake. (It’s easy, too!) You’ll want to divide the batter evenly between three separate pans. For this cake, we made 3 layers of 15 cm, each painted in different pastel colors.
Step 2: Prepare the icing and frost the cake.
Wait until the cake has cooled and divide the buttercream between 4 bowls. Paint 3 separate bowls in a different pastel color. (You should have white, pastel blue, pastel purple, and pastel pink frosting.) Once the cake has cooled, stack and layer the cake. Apply an even layer of unpainted white buttercream to the outside of the cake. Then let the cake rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
Step 3: Time for the booze bag!
Place the painted icing into three separate piping bags, each fitted with a separate piping tip. Use this to make your unicorn’s “man” out of bows. Here again we used Wilton 6B, 1M and 32 piping tips, although it doesn’t matter which tip you assign to which color! Take the cake out of the fridge and spread a simple bow on the side of the cake in the center at the top. We use this bow to mark the front of your unicorn.
Step 4: Add some color by styling your unicorn’s mane!
Using a utility knife, carefully mark a line in a corner next to the rosette. This means everything stays clean when you spray the unicorn’s mane. Check out our cake pictures to see what we mean! Make sure there is enough space for the unicorn eyes, which you will later place under the first bow. Now pipe different bows with different colored icing to form the mane. Cover the top of the cake and the side at the corner line.
Step 5: Put the finishing touches on your unicorn cake!
Carefully add your unicorn’s eyes, ears and horns. Sprinkle some Pastel Quin Sprinkles over the cake wherever you like and carefully place the flower tops in random places along the mane.
and that’s all! Enjoy this beautiful unicorn cake!
Ingredients
1. 4 eggs, large
2. 1 egg yolk
3. 1 cup vegetable oil
4. 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
5. 1/2 cup brown sugar
6. 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
7. 2 teaspoons of baking powder
8. 1 teaspoon kosher salt
9. 3/4 cup milk or soy milk
10. 2 tsp vanilla extract
instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F and spray two 9-inch cake pans with cooking spray or line with parchment paper.
2. Place eggs, egg yolks, oil and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl and mix until well combined.
3. Slowly add the flour and mix on low speed. Add baking powder and salt.
4. Slowly add the milk and vanilla and continue mixing until a smooth batter forms, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
5. Pour the batter evenly into the molds and bake for 30-35 minutes. The cake is ready when a toothpick is inserted and it comes out clean and when the edges pull away from the sides and are golden brown.
Comments
6. It’s easy to duplicate or quadruple this recipe. Just adjust the time as you may need more if you want to make larger quantities.
7. Double this recipe if you want to bake it in three 9-inch pans.
8. You can add 1 cup of classic sprinkles to make it a funfetti cake.
Serving size: 1 g, Calories: 264 kcal, Carbohydrates: 29 g, Protein: 2 g, Fat: 17 g, Saturated fat: 3 g, Polyunsaturated fat: 14 g, Cholesterol: 62 mg, Sodium: 36 mg, Sugar: 27 g
while you might see some unicorn cakes that are short & stubby, we highly suggest your base be at least 5 inches tall.
Decorating a unicorn cake doesn’t have to be difficult, here is how I decided to decorate this one: Bright colored buttercream: I used pink, yellow, green, blue, and purple to create the whimsical rainbow swirls, but you can use any colors or combination of colors you want!
However, it wasn’t until 2015 that the rainbow unicorn birthday cake as we know it today exploded in popularity. That’s when bakerCColemanCakes posted a photo of a beautiful six-layer rainbow cake decorated with swirls of colourful buttercream Frosting on Instagram.