Elephant with a Cupcake!~ A Blog Tutorial
In today's cake tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create an adorable Elephant with a Cupcake design from a sheet cake.
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!
Table of Contents
How to Make an Elephant Shaped Sheet Cake
First, we made a 9x13 sheet cake and reserved enough batter to make a cupcake too. Our elephant loves cupcakes! ;0)
After baking the sheet cake, I drew out a template, which you can print out and use if you would like~ Elephant Sheet Cake Template
Carving the Sheet Cake
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! ~
Save Scrap Cake for Party Hat
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)
Frosting the Cake
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.
Smoothing the Frosting
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. (We have a tutorial on this Viva Method of Smoothing if you'd like to see!)
There are other methods for smoothing- the Hot Knife Method is another one. Or, you could comb the cake with a decorating comb for a fun ridged pattern- anything goes!
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!)
The Finishing Details for Our Elephant Cake
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!
Party Hat and Cupcake
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!
More Cute Sheet Cake Designs!
Don't miss these other fun, easy sheet cake designs for young birthdays!
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 and your crusting vanilla buttercream recipe https://www.mycakeschool.com/crusting-vanilla-buttercream/ . My questions are:
1. Will that chocolate cake be dense enough?
2. Should I double the cake recipe to fill the 9x13 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 9x13 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 9x13 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!