How to Make an Owl Cake

Today, I'm going to show you how to to make a CUTE and simple Owl Cake!

This is such a fun cake design for a winter birthday party, owl themed party, or for little ones that love owls. Our owl cake features a white owl with a winter hat, but the owl's color and hat could easily be changed up! It would be adorable with a birthday hat also!

Why we Love It

There are so many reasons to love this cute owl cake! Here are just a few!

The owl shape is so easy to create

Perfect cake for young birthdays

Aside from the hat, the owl is decorated entirely in vanilla buttercream and chocolate candy coating!

Bird Themed Cakes

You may have noticed that I love bird themed cakes, and designs involving owls are some of my favorites!

We've done quite a few owl cake designs as well as other fun bird themes! Here are just a few favorites: 

Owl Love You Forever Cake- Free Video

Sweet Woodland Owls Cake- Free Video

Birdcage Cake- Free Video Tutorial

Birdhouse Cake- Free Video

Flamingo Ruffle Cake

Make sure to check out our other cute and simple cake designs in our collection of birthday cakes! Our easy Elephant Birthday Cake and Dinosaur Cupcake Cake are just a couple of examples!

Materials for owl cake:

(We used a three layer, 6 inch cake frosted in our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. Our Classic Vanilla Buttercream is a great choice also (and doesn't contain shortening.)

We used our doctored white almond sour cream cake recipe but any cake will do that is dense enough to hold up to light carving. If you're worried, you can carve while the cake is partially frozen.)

Owl Cake Templates (For eyes and wings)

Chocolate Chips (We used Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Chips for the eyes & beak-- a little larger than regular chocolate chips.)

Ball Tool for texturing (see notes below for alternatives)

Piping Tips: Large Leaf Tip 366, Round tip 4 (for small white dot on eye)

White Chocolate Candy Melts/White Bark Coating (we used Wilton candy melts)

Candy Coloring - We used Americolor Blue Candy Coloring (you could also used pre-colored Wilton Candy Melts instead)

Cardboard cake circle (cake is resting on cake cardboard cut down to size)

Miscellaneous: Piping Gel for "glue", Small paint brushes, Wax or parchment paper, cookie sheet, serrated knife for carving, Americolor food coloring pen (optional), Vegetable Shortening, Fondant rolling pin

White Fondant for covering hat (plus a small amount that has been tinted with Americolor Blue Candy Color)

FMM Multi Ribbon Cutter (optional) we used this to cut our strips for the pom pom.

Lollipop Stick

2 bubble tea straws or your supports of choice, cut to the height of the cake (beneath hat)

5 (22g size) Rice Cereal Treat Bars.

Notes for making the Owl Cake:

-We used a ball tool for creating texture but there are a number of alternatives if you do not have one. You can texture with a small angled spatula, small spoon, or even a piping tip. You could also actually pipe small feathers with a small leaf tip.

-We tinted our white candy coating with blue candy coloring (although just a small amount and so it looks like a blue/grey). Using "regular" gel coloring would have made the chocolate thicker and more difficult to work with. You could also use pre-colored candy coating.

-If you don't have the Ghirardelli chips that we used, which are larger, you may prefer to use buttercream or fondant to create the eyes and nose.

-Our template has 4 eyes so that you can make an extra pair just in case of breakage.

Enjoy the Video!

Thanks so much for stopping by. We hope that you enjoy this easy Owl Cake tutorial. Don't miss our full collection of cake decorating tutorials! Here are just a few more favorite kids cakes!