Take a look at these cool homemade Jungle and Safari cake ideas shared with us by cake decorators from around the world. Along with the birthday cakes here, you’ll also find loads DIY birthday cake-making ideas and how-to tips to inspire your next birthday cake project. Enjoy!
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Featured Safari Cake Ideas
12 Cool Jungle Cakes
This is a jungle cake I made for my son’s first birthday party. I got the design from the Whimsical Bake house cookbook and also used their recipes. It was all chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling. Read more »
Jungle Safari cake by Andrea B., Alberta, Canada
This safari cake was made using a half slab three layer cake baked from scratch. Once it was iced I used a grass tip to cover most of the cake leaving out the middle. I made the middle into a lagoon by icing it blue and adding some gum paste flowers.
The writing is also done using gum paste and the Wiltons letter cut out set. The palm trees were made using small waffle cones. I cut the ends off so they would be flat on top and I attached three pre formed gum paste leaves to each. The vines are made in much the same way. I rolled the green gum paste into ropes and cut slits into them using small scissors. Tip-make all gum paste accessories a couple of days in advance to ensure they are completely dry when you need them.
Jungle Safari cake by Tami B., Del Rio, TX
This safari cake was prepared in a 12″x18″ pan and covered with buttercream frosting and crumbled sugar cookies that had been dyed reddish-orange. In the corner I placed two smaller cakes to look like a small hill. The water was created by melting sugar in the microwave with a tiny hint of blue color.
The 3-D Nordic Ware cookie cutters were used to create the animals, however, some (i.e. the alligator tiger and leopard) were modified from the original cutters. The cookies were then decorated with a glossy icing recipe made of 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp milk, 2 tsp light corn syrup, 1/4 tsp vanilla then add food coloring. The tree and monkeys were drawn out by hand and cut directly on the cookie pan before baking.
Jungle Safari cake by Jessica S., Schenectady, NY
I made this safari cake for my son’s second birthday. The recipe came from The Whimsical Bake house cookbook. The animals are made out of melted colored chocolate. I made them about one month in advance and refrigerated them. They were quite time consuming. I also added a layer and extra animals. The techniques are all explained very well in the cookbook and there are many different cake and filling recipes that can be used.
This is the first cake I have ever made like this and if I can do it anyone can! This safari cake was a hit!
Jungle Safari cake by Angelique J., Aurora, IL
I made this safari cake for my daughter’s eighth birthday “Safari” party. It’s a 13×9 sheet cake (from a box) and an angel food cake (also from a box). I got the general idea from a cake I saw in a magazine but adapted it to make it my own. The cake is covered in white frosting tinted green or blue where appropriate and rimmed with grated graham cracker “sand”. The yellow rocks are rock-shaped gum pieces (sort of like Gold Rush gum only bigger). The pool is made of blue jello (which the kids actually ate!). I made the Jigglers recipe on the box so it wouldn’t be watery at room temperature after cooling. I frosted the hole in the angel food cake so that there would be a barrier between the liquid jello and the cake itself. The river is also Jigglers jello that I chilled in a cake pan then cut a strip long enough to go from one side of the cake to the other.
Now for the fun part of the safari cake- the decorations! The people are just teddy grahams dressed up with royal icing that was tinted various colors. I have them toasting marshmallows, sleeping, standing around, and climbing the rope, swimming, playing with a beach ball, riding the waterfall, sitting in the canoe and sunbathing. The beach balls are just gum balls. The tents are graham crackers draped with starburst fruit chews. I heated the fruit chews in the microwave to soften them up a bit then rolled them out. The canoe is an Airheads candy pinched into a canoe shape with a pretzel jammed in for a seat. The fire is a pile of pretzels with bits of fruit chews to simulate flames. The logs are tootsie rolls.
The flowers are flower-shaped sprinkles I applied with tweezers. The tall grass along the outside edge consists of fried noodles dipped in green candy melts cooled on waxed paper then stuck into the green frosting. The climbing rope is made from Twizzlers Pull & Peels that I peeled apart and knotted. The beach towels are Airheads Extremes Sour Belts (rainbow). The tiki torches are pretzels with bits of fruit chews stuck to the tops. The “foam” in the water is white decorator’s gel.
On the back of the safari cake is an underwater scene. It shows fish bubbles, seaweed, sand and rocks. The fish are of course Goldfish! The seaweed is fruit-by-the-foot that I cut into tapered strips and stuck into the frosting. The bubbles are little dots of white decorator’s gel and the sand and rocks are of course graham cracker crumbs and rock gum. The palm tree trunks are Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies Cereal Straws. The palm fronds are candy melts that I piped through a zip-top bag onto waxed paper that was draped over some spoons (so they weren’t flat). After they cooled I “glued” them onto the straws with more candy melts then added Cocoa Puffs cereal coconuts and set them upside-down in shallow cups to cool and harden. The cereal straws are rigid so sticking them into the cake was enough to keep them standing. Whatever green candy melts were leftover I made into flat “bushes” and stuck them here and there in the green frosting too.
The Humvee is the only non-edible piece on this cake! I used super-tall super-skinny candles and made sure to put them between the trees and not under them! On a personal note the teddy grahams dude that’s going “kowabunga!” down the waterfall…yeah that was definitely both of my kids’ favorite part of the whole cake! If you make this safari cake consider involving your kids in the process of which teddy grahams are doing what activity. They’ll love it!
Jungle Safari cake by Ericka T., Miami, FL
This safari cake was for my niece’s first birthday. I made a single layer sheet cake (pound cake) with buttercream Icing. I covered it in white fondant. Since this was my first time using fondant I practiced making the animals, trees, rocks etc. earlier in the week. However most of them turned out too big or got very hard and broke (I guess I didn’t store them properly).
I used Wilton’s predyed fondant and dyed some fondant myself (the brown and yellow). I thought of movies like the Lion King and Tarzan for my design layout. I used the buttercream icing like a glue and dowel rods to help things stay in place.
The sand is just brown sugar. I used a lot of Wilton products (fondant, roller cutters, flower makers etc.)
Jungle Safari cake by Kim J., Ankeny
My son turned one in August and I knew I wanted to have a jungle them birthday. I began my search for the perfect safari cake and the more I looked the more I thought “I can make his cake”! The idea for this cake came from a combination of several pictures I found online. I combined ideas and came up with the cake you see here.
The bottom layer was white cake with strawberry cream filling. I used white buttercream icing for the entire cake and then cut triangular shapes for the zebra stripes wrapping them around far enough that the top layer would cover and blend. The top layer was chocolate with a caramel filling. I colored the icing for the second layer with a golden yellow and cut the spots out of brown fondant. The top of the cake is green fondant (I just traced the cake pan onto the fondant for a perfect fit) and I used the grass tip to create the border. I made my fondant animals by following the instructions on the Wilton website. The same was true for the palm trees.
This safari cake was a hit and the best part is it has jump started a side business for me!
Jungle Safari cake by Heart F., Wilmington, NC
After a trip to the zoo with the twins that I have been babysitting for over a year I decided to design and make a safari cake for their birthday. I reviewed many other submissions to gather ideas and decide how to make it work. To give myself more time for the fondant details I used boxed cake mixes and pre-made icing.
After baking I trimmed the top tier to appear as if it was tilting. Next I made two batches of marshmallow fondant and began covering each tier in sand colored fondant. Then I cut blue fondant to look like waves on one side and attached it to the bottom tier with a few drops of water. I made sure to leave extra blue fondant along the bottom of the cake so that I could use it as a platform for the sand and whale. Next I cut out and attached strips of fondant for sea weed and fish.
I sprinkled brown sugar around the base of the cake and got to work on the animals. I rolled out each body part individually for the animals and let them dry before attaching the parts with drops of water from a paintbrush. For heavy body parts like the elephant’s trunk, I inserted toothpicks for stability. I used a food safe marker to draw in the faces lastly.
I made a small banner by printing the message from my computer cutting it into the right shape and attaching it to toothpicks to stick in the cake. The palm tree trunk for the top tier is a pretzel stick and then I cut the leaves out of fondant attaching them to a ball of fondant smashed on top of the pretzel. I used dowel rods and cake plates to secure the tiers and would recommend keeping them separate until right before serving – it won’t travel well totally completed.
Everyone was amazed at how great the safari cake turned out including me. This is my third cake and I never thought it would come out like this.
Jungle Safari cake by Jessica K., Katy, TX
I made this safari cake as a practice run for the cake I am going to make for my son’s fifth birthday. I used MMF to make the animals and decorations. The cake is white with buttercream frosting between the layers and underneath the MMF. This was actually a very easy cake to make, a little time consuming but easy. I used no special tools or pans either so anyone can make this with what ever they have laying around.
The cakes where cut down from 9″ to 8″ and 5″. I only have two 9″cake pans so I had to bake the cake in stages. And the MMF worked perfectly. I recommend it to everybody.
Jungle Safari cake by Tabetha M., Saskatoon, SK, Canada
I got the idea for this safari cake from the Nick Jr. Web site. My daughter is a Diego nut! So a rainforest theme for her second birthday was a hit! The cake is simply two 8″ rounds with icing in-between iced green. I pre made all the edible decorations.
The trees are easy. Buy a small paint brush, microwave green Wilton’s chocolates for 30 seconds and paint in the shape of leaves. Allow the leaves to set (freezer or fridge speeds this up), then use a dab of the chocolate to attach the leaves to the trunks (pretzel sticks). The bananas are Runts banana candies (but could be made of chocolate the same way); they were also attached with a dab of chocolate.
The leaves on the cake are cut out of green fruit roll up. The Bobo brothers are made out of chocolate. Simply print off the outline from the nick jr website and paint with Wilton’s chocolate. We also made more than two so that each child at the party was sure to have one chocolate monkey and one tree to eat! They had ideas for more animals on the cake but we chose to put plastic store bought Diego and baby Jaguar in the middle of the forest because it is my daughters favorite!
Jungle Safari cake by Amanda M., Warrensburg, MO
I saw a similar safari cake in the Dora section and modified it! The top is a mountain (which I should have used the cupcake to make a peak)! I bought the Mountain Rescue Diego set and some 88 cent animals! The cake is four 6in rounds on bottom, 10in round then two 6 inch rounds. The top 6 inch has a triangle cut out of the side! (Don’t forget the cupcake like I did)!
I couldn’t find the pillars for the top tier. So I improvised with a “fish” bowl found in the craft section at Wall-mart! The top is on a fondant covered cake separator that we had to trim a little off the bottom with things to stabilize it…but in retrospect I would have covered them with green fondant.
The blue is another separator covered with fondant and my husband made those fondant goldfish! Then the bowl held a real goldfish!!! The top is dark chocolate. The middle is fudge marble and the bottom is classic white! I used some cocoa baking powder and a touch of brown Wilton’s coloring.
For the green I mixed leaf and Kelly green Wilton colors. The blue was just Wilton’s royal blue! And we put the candle on last minute! The little boy in my daughter’s preschool class wanted Diego and the mother couldn’t find anything at the grocery bakeries. And several kids in the class have special diet needs. So I am now the new cake lady! This is only the fourth cake I have made and I am learning new things each time! Enjoy making this. It feed about 40 people with the mountains and two bottom ones left! Even the adults went for seconds! Happy Baking!
Jungle Safari cake by Brenda M., Phoenix City, AL
This safari cake I made for my grandson. I used butter cream icing. I bought safari animals to sit around on it and palm trees. I put a small pond on the bottom cake which is the largest cake .I used blue piping gel for the lake. I also put sand around the lake as well as sand on the other cakes.
I used brown sugar for the sand. I used 18 floral wires to hang from one tree to another tree on a different cake. I took some green thread and hand sewed two monkeys hanging from the tree vines.
I really enjoyed making this cake. Every one at my grandson’s birthday party loved it.
Jungle Safari cake by Nicole H., Springdale
I used a couple of ideas I had seen online for a safari cake but also added a bit of my own. The flowers and the animals on the top are made from white fondant that I dyed with food coloring gel according to which color I wanted.
The animals on the sides are just miniature frosted sugar cookies. The cake is frosted with dyed butter cream frosting and I used a grass tip for the outline on the layers. Entire cake was edible except for the candles and the balloons!
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