Valentine Flamingos Cake
This sweet Flamingos Cake is perfect for Valentine's Day and anniversaries! We just love flamingo themes, and have created several over the years.
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we thought that it would be fun to make a love-themed flamingo cake, with our flamingos creating the shape of a heart.
This was such a fun cake to make, and we love how it came out!
Keep this flamingo cake in mind for anniversaries as well. We hope that you enjoy this sweet and simple tutorial!
Table of Contents
How to Make a Flamingo Cake
You can find the full, printable instructions as well as the video tutorial below, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!
- First, we extruded pink fondant (with a little tylose powder kneaded into it). We made two 4-inch strands which we used for our flamingo necks and heads.
- Slightly flatten the end of each strand to form the head, and pinch the end to form beak, adding a slight curve to the beak.
Next, arrange the fondant shapes on parchment paper, to face each other, and curve them to form a heart shape. - For each flamingo, flatten a pink ball of fondant shaped to form the body and attach to base of the neck- this is optional as we will be covering with buttercream. This step helps to ensure that the flamingos will be identical in size.
- Add accents with a black food coloring pen and a bit of white coloring gel mixed with a touch of vodka.
Decorating the Flamingo Cake
Our cake is a 6 inch double barrel cake, frosted with our classic vanilla buttercream recipe. The cake consisted of four cake layers with a cake cardboard halfway up and 5 bubble tea straws beneath the cardboard to support the top half of the cake. The cake is resting on it's own cake cardboard cut down to size.
We used our Classic Vanilla Buttercream to frost and decorate our cake but our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream is a good choice also!
- After applying the vanilla buttercream frosting with a smooth finish (I do this by applying the second coat of frosting to the chilled tier using a metal bench scraper that has been heated under hot water--this is the Hot Knife Method of Smoothing).
- Next, apply blue buttercream around the bottom of the tier- this will be our water.
Smooth over the blue buttercream with a bench scraper. - Apply the dried flamingos to the cake using a bit of buttercream as glue.
- Add the grey buttercream legs using a small round piping tip (tip 3 or less). Add pink buttercream feathers- I used a leaf tip 352 for this (you could also use a small ruffle tip if you prefer buttercream ruffles).
- We used a small round piping tip to add hearts around the sides of the cake.
More Flamingo Cakes!
If you love flamingo cakes, don't miss these other favorite free cake video tutorials from our cake decorating section! A few of our favorites are Flamingo Ruffle Cake, Flamingo Cake, and Flamingo Bridal Shower Cake!
*Also, here is an elegant swan version of this cake for you that is great for engagement parties, bridal showers, and more!
Cake Recipes
We have so many cake recipes that would be perfect for this design. A few of our favorites are pink velvet cake, lemon cake, strawberry cake, and marble cake. You can find many more options in our cake recipes section!
Enjoy the Video!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Valentine Flamingos Cake Tutorial
This adorable Valentine Flamingos cake is perfect for Valentine's Day, anniversaries, beach themed parties, and more! Learn how to make it in this free cake video tutorial.
Ingredients
- For today’s cake, I decorated a double barrel 6 inch cake. This was four stacked 6 inch cake layers with a cardboard cake circle halfway up and 5 bubble tea straw supports beneath. This design idea would be great for any size cake tier or sheet cake!
- Fondant for the flamingoes- I kneaded a bit of tylose powder into mine so that it would set up more quickly but that is optional.
- Food coloring pen- I used a black food writer pen for the eyes and beaks
- Coloring gels; Wilton Rose (or your favorite color of pink), White, Black (for the grey buttercream legs), Americolor Sky Blue
- Piping Tips: 352 tip for feathers, 3 tip (or similar size) for legs and bead border
- Extruder (optional)- If you don’t have an extruder, you can just roll your fondant by hand.
- Buttercream- I used our Classic Vanilla Buttercream but our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream is a good choice also
- Miscellaneous: Disposable piping bags, turntable (optional), bench scraper or offset spatula, cake pedestal or cake plate/board, cake cardboard(s) – I used two- one beneath the cake cut to the size of the cake and one halfway up with bubble tea straw supports beneath (double barrel cake).
Instructions
For the Fondant Flamingos
- Extrude pink fondant (with a little tylose powder kneaded into it) in equal amounts- approximately two 4 inch strands.
- Slightly flatten the end of each strand to form roundness of the head, and pinch the end to form beak, adding a slight curve to the beak.Arrange these necks/heads on parchment, facing each other and curve to form a heart shape.
- For each flamingo, flatten a pink ball of fondant shaped to form the body and attach to base of the neck- this is optional as we will be covering with buttercream, but it helps to ensure that the flamingos will be identical in size.
- Use black food coloring pen for eyes and marking on the beak. Add a bit of white coloring gel to beak with a toothpick also.
The Cake
Our cake is a 6 inch double barrel cake, frosted with our classic vanilla buttercream recipe. Four cake layers with a cake cardboard halfway up and 5 bubble tea straws beneath the cardboard to support the top half of the cake. The cake is resting on it's own cake cardboard cut down to size.
- After applying the vanilla buttercream frosting with a smooth finish (I do this by applying the second coat of frosting to the chilled tier using a metal bench scraper that has been heated under hot water), apply blue buttercream around the bottom of the tier- this will be our water.
- Smooth over the blue buttercream with a bench scraper so that it is nice and smooth. (You don't want the water to be thick as we have to pipe the flamingos legs on top of it).Apply the dried flamingos to the cake using a bit of buttercream as glue. (You may want to chill the tier for about 10 minutes in the freezer to firm everything up before adding the flamingos).
- Add the grey buttercream legs using a small round piping tip (tip 3 or less). Add pink buttercream feathers- I used a leaf tip 352 for this (you could also use a small ruffle tip if you prefer buttercream ruffles).
- We used a small round piping tip to add hearts around the sides of the cake.
Notes
- Adjust the size of your flamingos to what makes sense for your cake. I made two extruded pieces of pink fondant that measured a little over 4 inches before curving to make the head as well as the shape of the heart.
- The flattened round pieces used for the body/feathers of the flamingo measured just under 2 inches horizontally in length and about 1.5 inches at the widest part.
- You can make the flamingos hours or even days in advance (as long as they are out of direct sunlight or florescent light which can fade the pink).
- Go ahead and shape them so that they form the heart shape with their necks before drying. If you are short on time, the flamingos can applied to the cake when still a bit soft! Mine had probably set up for about an hour or so before I applied to the cake.
We hope that you enjoy the video! Let us know if you have any questions, and if you give this cake a try, we would love for you to leave a photo below!!
Super sweet! :-) Easy and fabulous as always! Love it!
This is so cute!
Thanks Teri & Rachel! xoxo