How to make Unicorn Cake - Step by Step Recipe

Easy Unicorn Cake Tutorial

There is fashion in all things, including confectionery. And since lately Unicorns are all the rage, we decided to make our own Unicorn cake. We really like it a lot (and not just because it’s ours) and it’s perfect for a kids birthday party. You will definitely need some patience and special cake decorating tools, but in general it looks more difficult than it really is. Prepare all the needed materials in advance as otherwise the preparation process might take longer. If you don’t have fondant in different colours, you can always use white, divide it into a few different balls and colour it with food colours. You will need a wooden skewer to attach the unicorn horn, and if you would like to give it even more of a fairy tale appearance, you can also use gold shimmer spray, and why not even a silver one? After you have made it, you can stick it into a piece of polystyrene while you’re making the rest of the decoration, or you can fill a tall glass with rice and prop up the unicorn horn inside.

Modelling fondant is very similar to working with playdoh. Don’t forget to sprinkle your working surface with icing sugar, as otherwise the fondant will stick to it. Fondant dries out very quickly, but it’s easy to notice it – it starts forming an “elephant skin” and even crumbles. To avoid that, use 1-2 drops of water to moisten it a bit. If you have added too much water and it starts to stick, add a bit of icing sugar. Even if you have never worked and decorated with fondant before, don’t worry at all, you will learn what’s the best consistency very quickly.

Prepare a cake plate or a serving plate, but don’t forget you need to store the Unicorn cake in the fridge, so mind the cake pedestals.

Ingredients for the Unicorn cake layers:

315 g self-raising flour
315 g sugar
315 g margarine, at room temperature
6 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Ingredients for the buttercream:

480 ml heavy cream
450 g butter
200 g icing sugar
56 g pudding mix
Food colours – pink, red, purple, blue

Ingredients for the Unicorn cake decoration:

70 g white fondant
30 g fondant – different shades of pink
10 g black fondant
3-4 small meringues (optional)
Gold shimmer spray (optional)
Different cake decorations – hundreds and thousands, pearls and hearts

You will also need:

A wooden skewer
A few piping bags (it will be even better if you have different nozzles)
Plunger cutters – flowers and hearts
Heart shaped cookie cutters in different sizes
Palette knife
Cake leveller
Empty egg crate (optional)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease and line with parchment paper in 2 cake tins of 6-7 inches (if you don’t have 2 tins of the same size, you can just bake the layers one after the other).
Put the sugar, margarine and the eggs in a large bowl and mix well.
Sift in the flour and baking powder and add in the vanilla extract. Mix until a thick, homogeneous mixture is obtained.
Divide the batter equally into the baking tins and bake for about 45 minutes until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Leave the cake into the baking tray for a few minutes, then turn it over a cooling rack until completely cool and peel the baking parchment from all sides.

How to make Unicorn cake fondant decoration:

Take 45 g white fondant and shape into a ball. Roll it out with your hands, making the roll thicker in one end. Place the sharp end of the wooden skewer in the thin end of the roll and start winding it around it. It’s easier if you keep everything horizontal instead of vertical. If your wooden skewer is 25 cm, you can make the horn 10 cm long and leave the rest empty, so you can insert it into the Unicorn cake.
Spray the horn with gold shimmer spray or use a small painting brush to spread the gold dust.
Roll out the rest of the white fondant and cut out a big heart using a heart shaped cookie cutter. Using a sharp knife, cut the heart right in the middle into 2 equal shaped halves for the unicorn ears.
Roll out 10 g light pink fondant and use a smaller heart shaped cookie cutter. Cut it in the middle and brush lightly the “backs” of both halves with water, then glue them in the centre of the outer part of the ears. Using a veining tool or a toothpick, indent the centers of the ears, then pinch the tips before leaving them to set in an egg crate.
Use the remaining fondant (different shades of pink) to cut out little flowers and hearts for decoration.
Divide the black fondant into 2 equal sized balls, roll them out with fingers and shape sleepy and smiley eyes.

Preparation of the buttercream:

Pour the heavy cream and the pudding mix into a small saucepan. Stir continuously for about 5 minutes over a medium heat. The mixture has to have the same consistency as mayonnaise. Transfer the pudding into a bowl, wrap with cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes to overnight.
in a big bowl, mix together the butter and the icing sugar. Add in the chilled pudding and continue beating on medium-speed until the frosting is smooth and creamy.
Pour ½ of the buttercream into a few separate bowls – depending on how many additional colours/shades you want to make the unicorn mane. We divided it into 3 bowls and used food colours to dye the buttercream light pink, dark pink and violet colours. Transfer the buttercream into piping bags with different nozzles attached and chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

Assembling the Unicorn Cake:

Cut each one of the cake layers into 2 (if they have risen too much, and you feel confident, you can even cut them into 3). Place the first layer onto your cake plate and spread some of the remaining buttercream (the half you haven’t died/coloured). Place another cake layer on top, then a layer of the buttercream and repeat until you run out of layers.
Using a palette knife, spread the buttercream on top and on the sides of the cake. Put it in the fridge for 10 minutes, then put another layer of buttercream on all sides so your Unicorn cake will look smooth. You’re now ready to decorate!
Start from one of the edges of the cake, where you want to place the “fringe”. We found it easier to start piping big roses and flowers first, and then fill in the gaps using different nozzles and piping smaller swirls and flowers. Alternate the colours or use them as you think they look the best.
Place the ears on both sides of the horn but about 1 cm further back. You can now place a few meringues, all little fondant flowers and hearts and sprinkle with all sorts of cake decorations on top.
Put the sleepy eyes on the front side of the cake, insert the horn and voila! Your Unicorn cake is ready!

Tip: In case you don’t have enough room in the fridge, you can remove the horn, before putting the cake back into the fridge, and then insert it back in before serving. If you would like to make your Unicorn cake even more colourful, you can even colour the cake layers before baking them.