Sunday, April 11, 2010

Daniel's Lion Cake

This is a shower cake I made for a very special baby!! They gave me a theme of a lion cake...after searching for a lion cake that was nothing but shaped cakes I saw this idea. I modified it and added lots of little details.

It is 2 cake mixes, the main round cake is chocolate & the cupcakes are yellow. And 2 batches of buttercream frosting. Prepare the main round cake as directed on the box, this was two 9in cake pans, and prepare the other cake mix as directed for cupcakes. This only took 16 cupcakes around the 9in cake, they fit tight and look very cute!
Dye the 1st batch of buttercream-Wilton colors- Golden Yellow
2nd batch of buttercream- Wilton colors- Brown, Orange & more Golden Yellow

To Decorate the main round cake:
Place the 1st cake in the center of the cake disk and frost the top of the 1st layer. Place the 2nd cake on top and give it a good frost, there was some yellow left over to match with the next batch of yellow frosting. Smooth & even it out. Take a little brown frosting and put it into the corner of a sandwich baggie. For little detail jobs like this I don't mess with a pastry bag Make the face of the lion. Find the middle...and make the nose, upside down triangle and mouth. Make the little wiskers. 2 ovals make the eyes. And at the tip top on the sides make half circles for the ears.

To decorate the cupcakes:
Take your pastry bag and put a big star tip in the bottom and trim. I used yellow for the base color of half and orange for the other half Take the thinnest spatula or butter knife and smear 1 color up from the bottom up on one side. Do the same with the 2nd color. Take the base color and fill the rest of the bag, only half full. This is called striping, I got the directions from  Wilton It just made the cake! Starting from the outside swirling to the center make a continuous swoop.

Arrange the cupcakes around the lion's face and wait for the ooohs & ahhhs!!

Make: 30ish servings, depending on how you cut the cake (wedges 16 or traditonal circular cake cutting will make more servings, but smaller pieces)
From: Google searches modified by: Miranda

12 comments:

  1. I love this!! I will be creating this for my son's first birthday next week. I saw others like it in my search, but love the swirly colors that you added for the lion's mane. Thanks for sharing!!

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  2. like the above commenter, i love this! and plan on trying to make my own next week for my little guy's first bday next week. thank you!!

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  3. looks great! thanks for the idea! I'm going to use it this week for my son's first birthday

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  4. I made this for my 4 year old's party and it turned out amazing. Thanks for the great idea and great tips!

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  5. This is such a cute idea! Thanks so much for sharing! I'm going to make this cake for my son's 2nd birthday, it's a jungle animal theme!

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  6. This is brilliant thank you :) DS loves lions so this is perfect for his 1st birthday on Saturday :)

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  7. This cake is axactly what I was looking for - my son's having a jungle themed party. Just one question - the cupcakes are not stuck to the base, so they will move or fall off when the cake is carried, right? Is there a way to "stick" the cupcakes to the base? maybe with a bit of frosting?

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  8. We made this for our son's second birthday and even though we are far from pros it turned out great aka looks like a lion and is cute! Our guests arrive in a few hours and hopefully they will like it but it certainly has put a smile on our son's face! Thank you for the idea and the recipe!

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  9. I will try to make it too for my baby Daniel and hopefully will look so cute as the picture.I just didn't understand 2 or 3 cake mixes? Two for the round cake and 1 for the cupcakes? Thank you for sharing!

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  10. I copied this from another blogger that copied you and the results were stunning! Thank you :-)

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  11. When you say to smear the frosting on the side of the pastry bag...do you smear the 2nd color over top the first one, or do you smear it on the inside of the other side of the bag? Thanks!

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  12. Smear next to the other color. Like a pallet.

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