I made this Cow cake for my friend’s daughter’s 5th birthday party. The cake needed to serve 30-40 people, so a 9″ round cake wasn’t going to be big enough. I used a 10″x13″ pan for the body (2 layers) and a 6″ round for the head (single layer).
To assemble it, I first assembled the rectangular cake in the traditional way (two layers with a filling and crumb coated it. I sliced the 6″ round into two layers. The top layer (with the slightly domed top) I crumb coated and placed on the rectangular cake for the head.
The bottom layer I carved into two ears, crumb coated them, and put them in place. All the left over cake scraps were devoured by my two small children.
I then carved out the shape of the cow’s body and frosted the whole thing with vanilla buttercream for the white body, then tinted some buttercream with pink dye to form the cow’s nose and ears. The rest of the buttercream I mixed with cocoa powder to make it brown. I used that to frost the spots, and used a small round (#4) tip to pipe the outline.
The eyes are licorice jelly beans, the nostrils are vanilla jelly beans, and the horns are fashioned out of gumpaste with a touch of black dye to make them grey.
We look forward to celebrating my daughter’s 2nd birthday!
This is really cute! My 4H club will love it. Thanks for sharing!
this one actually has ears like a cow, not a bear or dog. Thanks for sharing!
Thank-you for posting your cake pictures. My son loves bulls. He wanted a cow cake this year and this looks like the perfect one.
and 3D too. Love your ideas. Can you tell me what is the meaning of crumb coating the cake. Not familiar with that. Also do you have any other ideas for making the horns?
I want a cow cake for my cow themed birthday but my mom is too stubborn to make one. (I’m turning 13 by the way) thanks so much for giving me what i need to make my own!!!
My granddaughter will be turning 2 this week. She wants a bull cake. There are cattle out here in my area, so we call them bulls. Anyway, she wants a bull cake and your cake design gives me the best idea to create a bull cake. Thank you for sharing.