Hello everyone! Today I am sharing an adorable “Elephant with a Cupcake” Design!
This cake tutorial is short and sweet…but I hope it brings a smile to your face! We wanted to create an animal of some sort…and after a bit of consideration, a pink polka dotted elephant won out over the rest!
Let’s get started!
First, we made a 9×13 sheet cake and reserved enough batter to make a cupcake too. Our elephant loves cupcakes!After baking the sheet cake, I drew out a template, which you can print out and use if you would like~ Click HERE to see!
Since I was working with a fairly dense cake, I had no trouble carving out my elephant shape while the cake was at room temperature. If you are working with a fragile cake, you can carve it while the cake is partially frozen.
Here we go! ~
You’ll have a few scraps leftover~ don’t throw them away! You’ll want at least one of the scraps for a party hat ;0)
After carving, I frosted my cake with a Crusting Vanilla Buttercream. This has been tinted with a little Americolor Deep Pink coloring gel. We have a few crusting Vanilla Buttercream recipes in our Recipes section, here is one of them!: Classic Vanilla Buttercream.
Once my buttercream had had a chance to crust (5-10 minutes assuming that your cake wasn’t frosted while cold), I smoothed it with a Viva brand paper towel. There are other methods for smoothing, or you could comb the cake with a decorating comb. Anything goes! ;0)
After smoothing the frosting, I used an xacto knife to cut away the excess cake cardboard. All of my cakes rest on a cardboard, which makes it easier to transfer it to it’s final base later. (If you’d rather do this “cut away step” before frosting the cake, that works too!)
Now, to give our elephant a sweet face & some personality! This is the time for you to have fun with your design–but feel free to copy mine if you’d like!
I piped on some polka dots with a Wilton (medium round) tip 12. My buttercream dots are also tinted with Americolor Deep Pink coloring gel.
I piped on and filled in my elephant’s ear using my Wilton tip 12 also, and then smoothed it with a Viva paper towel after it crusted. The small dots and outlines on my elephant were piped with a Wilton tip 3 (smallish round tip).
The elephant’s eye is a chocolate chip (with a small buttercream dot in the center). The eyelashes & mouth were drawn with a toothpick!
You’ll see the full photo soon…but here’s a sneak peek!
Our elephant could have been done at this point, but we wanted to give her a party hat & cupcake. It is a birthday party, after all!
We cut a small wedge of scrap cake into a triangle and frosted it with some buttercream tinted with Americolor Electric Green. I found it easiest to pipe on my frosting with a Wilton tip 12 and then smooth it. You could also just use a star tip to get a different effect.
I frosted the party hat cake while it rested on a paper plate. After smoothing it, I chilled it in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm things up, so that I could then pick it up and place it on our cake board, right where it belonged.
We decorated the party hat with Wilton Jumbo confetti sprinkles, and added fringe with a Wilton star tip 12. Our cupcake was “glued” to the board and elephant trunk with some dots of icing. Then, I used my 2D large star piping tip to pipe on a little frosting.
Don’t go too heavy on the cupcake frosting, or it may tip over! I added a few sprinkles..and a candle with a buttercream flame piped onto the wick!
That’s all there is to it! I think that this sweet elephant would be the perfect guest for any little one’s birthday party. I hope that you agree!
Thanks for stopping by, and if you make a sweet elephant cake of your own, we would love to see! Feel free to leave a photo in the comments!
Adorable!
cute cake to make with children
Very cute and simple too! Love it!
so cute! thanks for another wonderful idea! :)
That’s so precious, any child would love this cake
That is so cute. Thanks for giving us the templates along with the how to blog. Going to see if I can make this for my granddaughters…. They are going to love it…
I love it I was wondering what cake recipe did you use
We used the White Almond Sour Cream recipe
I can’t see all of the photos are they larger ?
Hi Linda–There are two that were more closeup shots (5th and 7th photos) that only show a section of the cake, is that what you mean?
Sooo cute!!!!
What a darling little cake. Any child (or adult who acts like a child) would be thrilled to receive this cake! Another great idea and great job!
You are so incredibly talented and creative! God bless you,
Una torta de elefante es precioso exelente para un compleaños especial para los niños,Muchas gracias por compartir,Cuidate que el Dios te bendiga.
This cake would look really cute as a baby shower cake as well ! :)
Lovely creation!!
Can you tell me how many people this cake will feed?
Can u post a video tutorial for this one?
I’m planning on making this cake with your chocolate durable cake recipe link to mycakeschool.com and your crusting vanilla buttercream recipe link to mycakeschool.com . My questions are:
1. Will that chocolate cake be dense enough?
2. Should I double the cake recipe to fill the 9×13 dish?
3. Do you shave the top of the cake to make it flat, or is there a way to ensure a flat cake during baking when using a glass 9×13 dish?
4. Do you do a crumb coat before you put on the buttercream? If so, what do you use for the frosting? I’m good at baking and making frosting but decorating is my weakest skill and I ALWAYS end up with crumbs in my frosting, even when I do a crumb coat!
Sorry for bombarding you. Thanks so much!
Also, how many batches of the frosting should I make to frost this and the hat?
Oh gosh, last question! Can I make this and decorate it on a Saturday for a party on Sunday? How long with the frosting keep without cracking and the cake without drying out?
Hi Sara, I’m glad you are going to make this cake. The chocolate durable recipe will be fine for this cake. I would double the recipe, you probably will not need all of the batter for you cake pan but it will ensure that your elephant won’t look to thin…..filling the pan 2/3’s full. You may need to level the top of the cake to get it level. If there is only a slight dome you can press gently down on the dome while the cake is warm to level it. We usually crumb coat, be sure to scrape your knife or off set spatula off into another container rather than into the frosting bowl. This will keep any crumbs on your spatula out of the frosting bowl. Some decorators do not crumb coat but prefer to put on a very very thick layer of frosting so when they are smoothing the frosting are not getting down to that “loose crumb” area of cake, you might prefer this method. The frosting recipe you plan to use makes enough for this cake. Making it on Sat. for a Sunday party is perfect. Just cover and keep in a cool area of your home. If your cake board is thick enough the buttercream will not crack when moving the cake. This cake will probably need to be on 3 cake boards (taped together) to be stable. Hair line cracks appear in a crusting buttercream when the cake board bends (even slightly) when moving the cake. Hope all goes well.
Did you print the template on an A4 sheet?
Hi honey james~ I used just a standard sheet of computer paper. The elephant template fills up the page. After cutting out the template and placing on your 9×13 cake, you can position it so that you can slightly widen it here or there if you’d like as you cut out your cake shape. The template is a nice guide, but can easily be altered if you’d like to create even less scraps. Glad that you are making it!
How many does this cake feed? Can I make it with one box of cake mix or should I use two boxes? If I were to use two could I make it a double layer cake?
How many people would the elephant cake feed?
Hi Regina, A typical 9×13 single layer sheet cake will serve 24 if cut 2x2x2 inch servings. If cut 3x3x2, you would have 18 servings. This cake has some waste in carving the elephant. I think you would be able to get 15 to 20 servings, depending on how generous the portions are. If you need more, I would prepare cupcakes for the extra servings.
I just made this for my niece who turned 5 and she loved it! It was pretty easy to make, thank you for sharing the idea. Here’s mine.
@Becky- I’m so happy that you made it! You did a great job! xo
Hi Becky, Your birthday elephant is a cute as can be. We are very happy you found the tutorial helpful !! Thanks for posting your picture !
My best friend decorated it I made the template. We ended up using rice cereal treats for the hat. Boxed cake mixes are rather soft which made dealing w the trunk a bit rough. Also canned frosting is kind of a pain. But we lived it and it was perfect for our theme!!
@Dianna, this is so cute! I’m so glad that you all decided to make it, thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for this tutorial – and for making it easy enough for an amateur like me to make last-minute the night before someone’s birthday! :) It was for a boy though so I didn’t Include the eyelashes and tried to make it gray like his lovey. And I was afraid to pipe on the ear though so I just sliced a scrap piece thinly and frosted it before sticking on. We had baked mini muffins the day before so It was a perfect stand-in for the cupcake. Almost ran out of frosting (only one can on hand) but somehow managed. Thank you – this was so cute and a lifesaver!
Awww I’m so happy that you made it, and on such late notice too! The cake is adorable! ;0) xo
Making this cake for a friend, so cute!
Curious of how much I should charge for it? Any suggestions?
Thanks for beautiful design and diy . I did not quite get it quite right.
Almost done
Final product
HI Di, Your elephant is so cute, nice work! Thanks for posting.
My daughters 1st birthday
Hi! We are making this cute cake for my daughters first birthday this weekend. Thank you for sharing it’s so cute! I was wondering how I could firm up my cake, I’m using a yellow box cake. Also, what is your buttercream recipe if you wouldn’t mind sharing? I know some use vanilla, or just butter and then some use the almond extract. So was just curious about yours. Thanks again! Can’t wait to make it!
Hi Nicole, I’m glad that you are making the cake! To make the Yellow Cake Mix a little firmer, you can use the White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe from our Recipes section, and just substitute Yellow Cake Mix (and omit the almond). Here is a link:
link to mycakeschool.com
Also, I would use the Classic Vanilla Buttercream Recipe (all butter, no shortening)…. or you could use the Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream recipe (which uses butter & shortening). Both of these are in our Frosting section which you can find here:
link to mycakeschool.com
Have fun! ;0)
Thank you so much for the info and for getting back to me. My sister in law stumbled across this blog when I was looking for a cute elephant cake idea, it’s a great blog. Keep up the good work:)
Thank you for the inspiration :)
Awww thanks for sharing, Lee! Great job! xo
Thanks for the tutorial! (And the inspiration!) so cute! I just need to add some sprinkles to the cupcake next week (didn’t want it to bleed since I’m freezing it)
Hi Breanna, We’re so happy you like the tutorial!! Your elephant is a cute as can be, great work!!
This is amazing! And I love everyone’s photos of their creations. :) I’m a TOTAL beginner and am wondering if I could make this today and freeze it? The party is this coming Sunday morning (1/22). If so, when would I thaw? The day or night before? I see above that someone else was freezing there cake. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Hello Bridgette! We wrap and freeze unfrosted cakes all the time and then thaw & decorate the day before.
Ideally, I don’t like to freeze frosted cakes because of the condensation that can happen when bringing it back to room temperature. However, if you really need to decorate the cake today, I would recommend boxing in a bakery box taped tightly shut.
You can begin the thawing process in the refrigerator (still boxed) on Friday night, and then just bring to the countertop on Sunday morning. The bakery box should absorb some of the moisture, and thawing in the refrigerator rather than room temp also will reduce condensation. However, if there is any condensation left, you can place the cake in front of a fan to speed along the evaporating.
Good luck!!
This is so cute! And the best thing is that this cake-elephant has its very own cake. Love everyone elses different decorations in the comments too!
I am super NOT a cake decorator!! I always manage to come up with something for my 3 boys birthdays, but it’s never Pinterest cute. My newly 3 year old wanted an elephant cake and I found your tutorial. Thank you so much for the stencil and for giving me the confidence to tackle this. I am so pleased that it actually looks like an elephant! Thanks so much :)
@B Holmes- I’m so happy to see your cake! You did a great job!
Thank you for the recipe and guidelines. Attaching a pic.
Hi my name is kristal and I really want to try to make this cake but I can’t ice a cake to save my life I always lift the top of the cake while icing so all the bread crumbs end up in the icing. I was wondering if you could give me some advice??
Hi Krista, The crumb problem can be solved by doing a crumb coat. A crumb coat is a very thin coating of frosting over your cake. This will trap the crumbs in the frosting so that when putting on the final coat of frosting, you will have no problem. Also, make sure your frosting is not too stiff and thick, that also contributes to pulling up too many crumbs. When doing the crumb coat, don’t scrape the frosting from your spatula back into the frosting bowl. Scrape it into a cup or something else, you don’t want to have any crumbs in the frosting that you will be using for the final coat of frosting. Also, when carving the elephant it is helpful (but optional) to carve when the cake is partially frozen. However, it you are going to use the Viva Paper Towel method of smoothing the frosting, you must let the cake come back to completely room temperature or it will take forever for the frosting to crust (crusting is when you can touch the frosting with your finger, and no frosting will transfer to your finger) The frosting must have a light crust before you can do the paper towel smoothing method. Also, I forgot to mention that after you crumb coat a cake, you can refrigerate for maybe 10 minutes ……. you don’t want the cake to become cold, just the thin crumb coat of frosting. This will help when applying the final frosting. Hope this helps.
Melissa has a free video on Making a Cake Start to Finish that I think will be helpful. Part 2 is on frosting the cake.
Here is a link:
link to mycakeschool.com
Are you able to recommend which of you chocolate cake recipes would be suitable for this cake to make carving the cake simple?
Kind regards
Belinda
Hi Belinda, if you are waning a scratch cake, the Classic Chocolate Cake (reverse creaming method) would hold up well to this type of carving. If you like doctored cake mix, I would go with the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake. In either case, it’s easiest to carve when the cake is partially frozen.
link to mycakeschool.com
link to mycakeschool.com
Thanks Melissa I have just looked up the Doctored Sour Cream Cake and plan to make that one. I will be using the Betty Crocker Chocolate Devil Cake. This maybe a silly question, but is the All Purpose Flour the same as using Plain Flour? Also is ok to use brown sugar instead of granulated sugar? Just looking at what I have in the cupboard. I will also freeze the cake as you recommend
Cheers
Belinda
Hi Belinda, yes you would use the same amount of Plain Flour. I’m not sure about the brown sugar. It would be an experiment! You may notice a slight flavor difference and brown sugar brings in a bit more moisture than white, but cake mixes are generally very forgiving and give you a little wiggle room to play around with ingredients. Let us know how it goes!
Thanks Melissa. I found that I have some caster sugar so will use this. Thank you for all your great tips.
Much appreciated