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70+ Coolest Under the Sea and Ocean Cake Ideas

Take a look at these cool homemade Under the Sea and Ocean cakes 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!

And don’t forget… if you end up with a cool cake, have great tips to share or pictures of awesome birthday cakes you’ve made in the past, share them here and be a part of our coolest birthday cake community.


Latest Under the Sea and Ocean Cake Ideas



Featured Cakes

Cake by Shauna B., Merrill, WI

Coolest Ocean Cake Ideas and Photos

Cakes are my new hobby. Being a mom of FOUR with two children in school I’ve got plenty of them to make! This ocean cake was for my daughters Kindergarten class learning about the ocean.

I made a butter cream frosting, made the octopus seaweed barnacle (red barnacle is twizzler) and starfish freehand with the frosting. The lobster and fish are made from M&M’s and Peanut butter M&M’s.

The bottom is made of hand crushed graham crackers and the island sand is made of crushed vanilla wafers. Also the treasure chest was made of a small 3 musketeers candy bar cut in half and opened to look like a chest with M&M “gold”.

The sea shells are gummy sea shells! The whales/dolphins are gummy also. The only thing that is fake is the palm trees on the island (which is a cake picture) and the shark. This ocean cake is EASIER than it looks and will put a smile on any kids face!!! Try it and have fun with it!

Cake by Pam R., Champaign, IL

Under the Sea Cake Picture

The birthday boy wanted something octopus – like for a sea themed party (a summer swimming party.) It needed to serve a large number of people, so I wanted to create an ocean cake that was made of three stacked cakes.

The bottom cake is a two-layer chocolate cake, baked in a large oval pan, and then “deconstructed”: irregularly cut and arranged to look like uneven undersea terrain.

The middle cake was a two-layer vanilla cake, baked in an 8-inch round pan. The top was a 2-layer, 5-inch round cake that was “tropical vanilla” (vanilla cake with some mango and pineapple flavors blended into it.)

Under the Sea Cake Picture

Each part of the ocean cake was covered in marshmallow fondant tinted aqua, and placed on a foil-covered cardboard cake circle. They were stacked and then a dowel (sharpened with a pencil sharpener!) was pushed through the whole thing to hold it together. The octopus is an egg-shaped cake, and the crab was baked in a mini-ball pan (half a ball).

The crab’s eyes, legs, etc. are all formed out of fondant. I used a food-coloring marker to add the pupils of the eyes and the black dots that give the crab depth and shadow. For the octopus, I rolled out a large circle of fondant, and cut triangles out of the perimeter to create the eight tentacles, which I draped over the top tier of the ocean cake, using toothpicks to hold them in random undulating shapes. I piped on the little circles under the tentacles and the orange dots all over him.

The red starfish is made of cherry-flavored candy clay, pressed into a candy mold and then decorated with piped icing dots. The rocks are chocolate candy (similar to M&m’s) that I get at the local candy store at the mall. There are a few molded sugar items (sand dollars and sea horses) done in candy molds as well. This ocean cake was a lot of fun to make!

Cake by Priscilla M., Bainbridge Island, WA

Under the Sea Cake Picture

My son’s 6th birthday party was held in the aquarium. So we thought it would be nice to have an under the ocean cake to go with the theme., I used 2 of Wilton’s hexagon pans in different sizes, put the smaller cake on top of the bigger one. For decoration I used sea creatures made from sugar (available in most cake decorating stores) and also some plastic sea creatures.

Cake by Mary-Lou C., Curacao Neth. Antilles

Under the Sea Cake Picture

I made this ocean cake for an under the sea birthday party for the Kairo family. Mrs. Kairo brought me the party invitation so I could make this ocean cake. It’s a two-pound cake decorated with an icing made of shortening, milk, and confectioners sugar.

Cake by Yung L., San Jose

Under the Sea Cake Picture

This was for my friend’s birthday. He loves his aquarium so this was the theme that I decided to make.

I made a chocolate cake for the sheet, frosted it with white frosting and then spray painted it with edible spray paint. Then I used different items to decorate the underwater theme. All edible!

I used Goldfish crackers, candy that looks like rocks, Sour Straws for the seaweed, gummy sharks and crushed coffee cookies for the sandy bottom, etc. Everybody loved it!

Cake by Jody M., Des Moines, IA

Under the Sea Cake Picture

This ocean cake and cupcake tier are for my daughters 3rd birthday. The party was an “Under the Sea” theme.

The actual cake is a 9X13 chocolate cake, frosted with buttercream and tinted light aqua. A star border around the bottom, with a Wilton tip, neatens it up. The sand is crushed graham crackers. The rocks are edible chocolate rocks. The seashells are homemade, colored white chocolate from a mold. The seaweed is made from green fruit roll up, cut and twisted. The other sea plant is blue sour stick candy. The fish are plastic, ordered from a cake decorating website.

For the cupcake tier, 24 “funfetti” cupcakes were frosted with aqua buttercream, then each was topped with chocolate rocks, a colored chocolate sea shell, and either a turtle, oyster, starfish or octopus also ordered from a cake decorating website.

Under the Sea Cake Picture

Cake by Jessica J., Bowie, MD

Under the Sea Cake Picture

This cake was for my son’s third birthday party. We decided on an ocean theme. The cake is just a yellow birthday cake recipe. I iced it with a blue powdered sugar icing. The sand is crushed cookies. To find the candy rocks and shells I had to search several local cake decorating stores, they were difficult to find but they made the cake. The fish are all gummy fish and the seaweed is just air heads cut into thin strips and then twisted.

This Ocean cake recipe was very easy to do and everyone at the party loved it. I served it with blue jello with gummy fish swimming in it. I just had fun and played around with it.

Ocean cake by Aimee A., Baton Rouge, LA

Ocean Cake Photo

I made this ocean cake strictly from the theme. The cake is hexagonal with buttercream icing. The fish are made using color flow. The shells are melted chocolate. The sand is brown sugar. This cake is by far one of my most favorite.

Ocean cake by MaryKay C., Kiev, Ukraine

Ocean Cake Photo

This ocean cake, made to look like shells and sand in a beach pail, was made for an end-of-school pool party.  Yellow cake is layered inside the new plastic bucket, with vanilla pudding between the layers.

I topped the ocean cake with a layer of the pudding, and then covered the pudding with graham cracker crumbs and/or light brown sugar (to resemble sand).  I then placed shells on top.  These shells were made from candy melts, using shell molds.

I lightly brushed on the ocean cake luster dust (dry — not mixed with liquid) on top of the shells after they are set. This makes the shells glisten.

(You cold also buy shell chocolates, or shell-shaped cookies for the top of the ocean cake).  To serve the ocean cake, just shovel it out into bowls.

Ocean cake by Aimee A., Baton Rouge, LA

Ocean Cake Photo

Instead of having an ocean cake I decided to have ocean cupcakes. They were iced with canned frosting and then dusted with “sand” (made from graham cracker crumbs).  Shells are from candy melt molds, brushed with luster dust.  My five-year-old daughter enjoyed helping with all aspects of the decorating for these cupcakes, which she took to school to mark the end of the year and beginning of summer.

Ocean cake by Maria M., River Vale, NJ

Ocean Cake Photo

I used a boxed vanilla cake mix in a 9×13 inch pan, sliced it and made a two layer filled with homemade canolli filling. I frosted it with store bought icing tinted with Witon’s icing colors aqua. I crushed vanilla wafers for the sand and speckled jellybeans for the rocks.

I used apple fruit by the foot for seaweed and different sugar coated candies I found to make the other plants. Baby and colors goldfish were used for the schools of fish the large fish were iced goldfish sandwiches. I found colored rock candy for the coral. Nemo, Marin and Dory gummies were put by the anemone.

Ocean cake by Jessica J., Bowie, MD

Ocean Cake Photo

This is actually a wedding cake, but it’s more like an ocean cake that might give someone an idea still!

The layers were 14, 10, and 8 inches. I iced the cake in ivory and made all the sea shells out of white chocolate, I used petal dust to give them their color. I piped seaweed with a #4 writing tip, and used ivory edible pearls to accent around the shells. The cake took me about 6 hours from start to finish and was a big hit at the wedding!

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