How to make fun party cakes

Forget Colin (or Cuthbert) the Caterpillar – we’ve teamed up with Chris Murphy, baker to the stars, to help you make your own showstopping (and secretly quite easy) birthday cakes for the gang.

To make magical unicorn cupcakes

These unicorn cupcakes will brighten up any party. Follow the recipe using really brightly coloured sprinkles so they’ll show up in the cake.

Cupcakes often cook at slightly different times depending on your oven, so don’t be afraid to remove some early if they have baked before others. For the best results, make sure all your cupcakes are the same size before baking.

Most importantly, don’t leave baked cupcakes in the muffin tin once they’ve baked! This steams the bottom, which can make the cases fall off.

To decorate the cupcakes

You don’t want droopy unicorn horns, so it’s best to make your decorations a day ahead to give them time to dry out (if you’re in a rush, you can dry them in a 60C oven for half an hour).

You’ll need 750g white fondant icing for 12 cupcakes. Half of this is for the decorations, and half is for icing the tops of the cupcakes. Take 375g fondant icing for the decorations, and split it in half again. Mix one half with pink food colouring.

Always keep your work surface well dusted with cornflour and icing sugar when working with fondant or it will stick.

Follow the slide show below to find out how to decorate your cakes.

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The finished cupcakes, complete with cute decorations. Look through the images to see how to make your own.
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Dust your work surface with a half-and-half mixture of icing sugar and cornflour. Roll out both the pink and white fondant to around 2mm thick, and cut the ears out as shown.
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Cut out slightly larger ears in white and use a dab of water to stick the pink and white together – take a look at the finished cupcakes to see what the ears should look like.
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Take a ball of pink fondant (the size of a small walnut) then roll it into a thin tube shape with tapered ends. Bend in the middle to bring the ends together, then twist the ends around each other to make a spiral. Leave to dry overnight.
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Load each cupcake with a generous dollop of buttercream. Use a small round-tipped knife to smooth the buttercream down and around into a dome shape.
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Dust the palm of your hand with the icing sugar and cornflour mixture, and use your palm to pat and smooth the buttercream into a smooth dome.
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Cover the buttercream with a circle of white fondant. To shape, cup your palm over the fondant and use your index finger to gently stretch it down to meet the edge of the muffin case (use small movements and keep turning the cupcake). Smooth the top using your palm. Your cupcakes will look like the picture above, ready to add your decorations!

To finish decorating the cupcakes, mix buttercream with a dash of purple food colouring. Fit a piping bag with a small star nozzle, fill with the purple buttercream and pipe little swirls on the ‘forehead’ of each cupcake. Press the horn and ear decorations into the buttercream and scatter over some sprinkles. Decorate one cupcake at a time, or the buttercream will dry and the decorations won’t stick properly.

Use writing icing to draw on the eyes. Store the finished cupcakes in containers where the air can circulate, such as cardboard pastry boxes, rather than tupperware.

To make a fabulous funfetti cake

The funfetti cake uses the same colourful cake batter as the unicorn cupcakes, but in a four-tier party cake!

Once you’ve made your buttercream and chilled your sponge cake layers, trim off the domes of the cakes with a serrated knife to make them flat, then follow the steps below to assemble the cake!

To assemble the cake

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Click through the images for a step-by-step guide to decorating our simple, but impressive funfetti cake.
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Once you've baked your sponge layers, build your cake by layering sponge and pink buttercream, as shown. The top layer of cake should be bottom up to give you a flat surface on top. Gently press the top of the stack down to ensure the cake is level and free of air bubbles. Put the cake back in the fridge for 10 minutes.
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Trim the sides of the cake with a serrated knife or a grater, to within a few millimetres of the cake board it’s sitting on.
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Now it’s time for the crumb coat – this is a very thin coating of buttercream that holds the sponges in place and catches any loose crumbs, ensuring your final coat is flawless. Apply two large serving spoons of white buttercream to the top of the cake, then spread from the centre of the cake outwards, and down the sides with a palette knife. Scrape away any excess buttercream and discard, then return the cake to the fridge for 10 minutes.
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Apply the final coat of buttercream. Place all but 3 tablespoons of the white buttercream on top of the cake. Spread the buttercream evenly over the top and down the sides of the cake.
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Use a scraper or palette knife to smooth the sides of the cake and remove any excess buttercream. Keep the blade at a 45 degree angle against the side of the cake. Clean the excess buttercream off the scraper after each pass and repeat until you have a smooth finish.
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Spread any excess buttercream that has gathered at the rim of the cake towards the centre. You want sharp edges, straight sides and a flat top. When you’re done, put the cake back in the fridge for 10 minutes.
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Thinly apply the last 3 tablespoons of the buttercream to the bottom third of the cake in a rough pattern, then press sprinkles into it. Have a bowl underneath to catch any loose sprinkles!
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Fit a piping bag with a star nozzle and fill with the remaining pink buttercream. Pipe swirls on the cake...
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... and scatter on more sprinkles to finish!

When you’re icing the cake with buttercream, it helps to dip the palette knife in boiling water from time to time – this will give a smoother finish. If you see any gaps, just add a little buttercream and gently smooth over with the hot palette knife. Watch our video for more tips on covering a cake with buttercream.

The key to getting a really slick finish is smooth, steady movements. Keep cleaning any excess buttercream off your palette knife and side scraper, and put the cake back in the fridge for 10 minutes if you need it to firm up a bit.

To make a roarsome dinosaur volcano cake

This amazing volcano chocolate cake, with its fondant dinosaur, is the biggest challenge of the three, but it’s still very achieveable if you give yourself plenty of time.

To make the volcano cake and decorations

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The cake is made with layers of vanilla buttercream and chocolate sponge, all covered in a delicious chocolate buttercream – perfect for children’s parties! Look through the images to see how it’s done.
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Start by trimming the domes off your sponges. Do not discard these or feed them to your kids – you will need these offcuts to make the cake!
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Take three of the sponges and cut out an 18cm, 15cm and 12cm circle from each. You should be left with four decreasing cake circles and four cake rings.
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Spread a thin layer of buttercream on a cake board and use two of the cake rings (not the circles) to create a circular bottom layer that is the same diameter as the cake board. Fill the hole in the centre and any gaps around the outside with the reserved offcuts.
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Spread a layer of buttercream on top of this layer, then lay the 20cm sponge on top. Repeat this process using smaller sponges each time. Spread a layer of buttercream on the top sponge, then create an opening to the ‘volcano’ with the remaining sponge rings. Pack any leftover sponge into the ‘steps’ of the volcano to give it a more natural look, then put the cake in the fridge for 10 minutes.
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To make the coconut grass, mix a dash of green food colour paste with a few tablespoons water. Add this to a sandwich bag along with some desiccated coconut. Seal the bag and scrunch the coconut around until coloured. Spread on a lined baking tray to dry out. Mix some plain buttercream with green food colouring and spread over a large cake board, then sprinkle with the coconut grass.
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Make a sugar syrup and add a little green food colouring, then stir in the popcorn to coat. Spread the popcorn on a lined baking tray to cool.
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Cover the volcano with chocolate buttercream and press the popcorn into the bottom third of the cake. Put the cake on the large cake board, and sprinkle any remaining popcorn around the base of the cake.
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To make the 'lava', mix sunflower oil and orange food colouring with melted white chocolate. Coat the top of the cake with 'lava', then drip half of the mixture down the sides in a similar style to the picture.
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Spread the remaining chocolate mixture on a lined tray and place in the freezer for 5 minutes. When the lava has set, break into shards and stick in the top of the volcano.

To make the fondant dinosaur

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To make the dinosaur, colour fondant icing with food colouring until you have your desired shade – we used a combination of green and blue. Roll most of this into a vase shape for the body. Push a wooden skewer into fondant from the top down to the bottom, then trim the stick to 3cm above the fondant. Sit it on a surface dusted with icing sugar.
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Shape two legs using some of the same fondant. Pinch the end of each leg to shape the feet.
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Attach the legs to the main body using a tiny bit of water. Use a skewer to indent the toes and make holes for the claws.
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Colour a walnut-sized chunk of fondant using whatever colour you want the chest to be. Roll the fondant out to a thin sheet, then cut into an oval shape and stick onto the body using a tiny amount of water. Score horizontal lines in the chest with a knife or skewer so it looks as above.
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Take three more large walnut-sized pieces of coloured fondant and roll into long sausages. Shape two of these sausages into arms...
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...and pinch at the end to fashion the claws. Use a tiny dab of water to stick the arms into place. Shape the third piece of fondant into a tail and attach to the back of the dinosaur in the same way.
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Make the remaining coloured fondant into a wide pear shape for the head. Use a wooden skewer and a knife to indent a mouth, nostrils and eyes.
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Using some of the white fondant, cut out triangles for the teeth and stick to the mouth with a dab of water. Attach the head using the wooden skewer that’s sticking out from the main body. Colour a tiny bit of fondant black, and stick on the eyes and eyebrows. Adding a dab of white on top of the black really makes them come alive!
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Colour another walnut-sized piece of fondant to the shade you would like the spots and spikes to be. Shape these with your hands and apply with a dab of water.
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Place the dinosaur in situ on the cake board. If you have any white fondant remaining, marble a little black colouring through it and roll between your palms to make rocks. Finish the cake by placing them around the dinosaur.

Top tips for easier bakes

Before you start, here are some simple tips that’ll help you take your baking to the next level.

Get everything ready before you start! Read the recipe in full, weigh all your ingredients, line any tins that you’re going to use and preheat your oven. Once all your equipment and ingredients are prepared, the rest is a doddle.
Take your butter and eggs out of the fridge in advance. These ingredients don’t like being different temperatures (if you add cold eggs to warm butter, they’ll curdle). Also, butter needs to be soft to beat air into it – if the butter is cold, it'll be much harder to get your cake light and fluffy.
Don’t worry about overbeating your eggs and butter – whipping lots of air into the mixture will give you a lighter cake. After each addition of egg, turn the speed up on your mixer and give the mixture a good beating.
Either fold in your flour or mix in using a low speed on your electric mixer. Don’t overmix as this can make your cake dense. Once you’ve added self-raising flour to the cake batter, get the cake in the oven as quickly as possible. Self-raising flour is activated by water, so as soon as you mix it into your wet ingredients, it will start to release the CO2 that makes the cake rise.
When the cake is baking, don’t open the oven door for at least 15 minutes. The first blast of heat is important to start the rise – letting heat out of the oven too early can leave you with an underbaked cake.
It’s always helpful to give your cake a turn midway through baking. Most ovens have hotspots, so turning the cake around will help it bake more evenly and avoid any burnt edges.
Once the cakes are baked, let them cool to room temperature and then pop them in the fridge until you're ready to start decorating. Chilled sponges are much easier to work with and you can even freeze sponge cakes for up to 3 months – just make sure you freeze them individually wrapped tightly in cling film and defrost them at room temperature.

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