Super Easy Mermaid Birthday Cake Recipe

How to Make a Mermaid Cake

Make the cake

• I used a mixing bowl instead of a cake tin to make the cake as I wanted a rounded dome shape. You could use round cake tins. (mixing bowl dimensions: 22 cm diameter at widest point, approx. 12cm deep (photo 1)
• line the mixing bowl: Fold a piece of baking paper over and over to form a long thing triangle. Hold the point of the triangle at the middle of the bowl, measure to the edge of the bold and trim the triangle to this length. (photo 2)
• Open out the triangle, it will now be a rough circle. Cut down one of the lines to the centre point (photo 3)
• You should now be able to push the baking paper down into the bowl, you can use the creases to fold the baking paper to fit (photo 4)
• Prepare the chocolate cake batter: I used 2x Countdown 450g chocolate cake baking mixes to make my batter (photo 5) If you would prefer to not use a cake mix for the cake, my plain cake recipe would work brilliantly.
• Pour into the lined bowl or cake pans (photo 6)
• Bake as per the cake batter instructions. If you are using a large mixing bowl as I did, the cooking time may be longer than in a regular cake tin.
• Cool completely

Prepare the mermaid topper and cake layers

• Remove the legs from the doll (photos 1 and 2) this will become your mermaid cake topper
• I used a cake leveler to first level my cake and then split the cake into 4 layers. You could also just use a bread knife. If you are using a bread knife it can be easier to cut the cake if chilled and/or frozen. It would also be ok to do fewer layers. It's up to you
• Keep any offcuts of cake you end up with when leveling the cake, as you will use these cake crumbs to form the tail
• Prepare the buttercream (see recipe card).
• Take ¼ of the uncoloured buttercream mix in sprinkles to make it funfetti buttercream. (you can use as many or as few sprinkles as you like) (photo 3)
• Use the funfetti buttercream to stick together the cake layers (photo 4)
• Crumb coat: Take another ¼ of the uncoloured buttercream and apply a thin layer of it all over the cake. This is the crumb coat, it will make it easier to frost the cake later when you are applying the coloured buttercream. (photo 5)
• If you have any leftover buttercream save it as you can use it later to form the mermaid tail
• Use a small knife or spoon to cut a well out of the top of the cake that will fit the base of the doll. (photo 6)
• Refrigerate the cake until the crumb coat is firm. I often do this overnight, but an hour or so will work too.

Frost and decorate the cake

• Colour the buttercream: You should have ½ of the butter cream remaining. Use a little blue food coloring to colour the icing a pale blue.
• Remove ½ of the light blue buttercream and apply it to the top half of the cake, this can be done roughly with a knife or use a piping bag(photo 1)
• Add more blue food coloring to the remaining buttercream to make a darker blue colour
• Apply the darker blue buttercream to the bottom half of the cake you can use either. aknife, spatula or piping bag. (photo 1)
• Dip a bread and butter knife (or metal cake spatula) in hot water, shake to remove excess water Use the hot knife to smooth the buttercream, you will end up with an ombré effect (photo 2)
• If you have any leftover buttercream save it as you can use it later to form the mermaid tail
• Place the lollypops in a plastic bag. Use a rolling pin to break up the lollypops. I smashed around 12 lollypops, but I probably only needed half this quantity. (photo 3)
• Press the broken lolly pops around the bottom of the cake, this is meant to look like colourful coral and seaweed (photo 4)

Create the mermaid

• Take the offcuts you saved when leveling the cake, crumble them with your fingers so that you end up with cake crumbs. (photo 1)
• Mix these cake crumbs with a little leftover buttercream (photo 2)
• The crumb buttercream mix should be easy to work with, use your hands to form a mermaid tail shape. (photo 3)
• Position the tail on top of the cake in front of the well you created for the mermaid cake topper. (photo 4)
• Frost the tail with a thin layer of buttercream, just enough to hold the candy decorations in place (you can use any colour)
• Arrange the smarties or m&ms to look like scales and completely cover the tail. I used pink and purple smarties but you could use any colour combination that you want (photo 5)
• Take 2 jubes and position these at the end of the tail to look like flippers, you could also use spearmint leaves for this (photo 6)
• Position the doll in the well, you may need to fill in any gaps with a little buttercream and candies. (photo 7)
• Your cake is now complete! (photo 8)

If you made my Mermaid Birthday Cake or any other recipes on the blog please :

• leave me a comment and a star rating below to let me know how you got on, I love hearing from you.
•  FOLLOW ME on FACEBOOK,  INSTAGRAM,  PINTEREST to see more kid-friendly food and what I’m getting up to.