Coolest Crocodile / Alligator Birthday Cake

I used one rectangle cake pan, 1 bunt cake pan, 5 butter cake mixes, 4 packets of’orchard’ icing (pink box available in baking section of supermarkets), green food colouring, 1 packet of m&ms or smarties, black decorating icing tube, plastic wrap, tooth pics and alfoil for this Homemade Crocodile / Alligator Birthday Cake.

Bake 2 cakes, one after the other in the rectangle cake pan. I doubled the mix because the pan was quite big. Bake the bunt (large doughnut shaped) cake. Once cooled I put them in the freezer. Then kneed 3 packets of the icing to soften and then carefully add green icing until happy with the colour, kneed until the colour is even. Work with it quickly and cover in glad wrap so that it doesn’t dry and crack. Do not put in fridge.

Use baking paper to draw out croc stencil for the head and body (1 rectangle cake for the head, 1 for the body), place it over the frozen rectangle cakes and use a sharp knife to cut them out. Cutting while frozen means less crumbs and it tends not to sink down as you cut.

Cut the bunt cake in 3 even pieces and lay them out in the shape of a tail, assemble the whole crocodile. Use the off-cuts as feet and the eye-lid area. Secure in place with tooth picks. Between 2 large, long pieces of baking paper, use a rolling pin to roll out the green icing as long and wide as the cake. Remove 1 layer of paper and flip it over onto the top of the assembled croc cake. Smooth it down and fold it in around the edges. (do this quickly as it tends to dry out and crack!) Cover in glad wrap and cut out 2 eyes & several teeth from the left over white icing. Use a black icing writing pen to draw the mouth.

Use 12 green m&ms/smarties as the toes, 2 orange ones for the nostrils and 2 brown ones for the eye pupils. Cover the whole cake with plastic wrap until the party. If you make in advance, don’t apply the m&ms/smarties, freeze and let defrost at least 2 hours before hand. While it defrosts use paper towel to mop up any liquid and it should be fine to add the m&ms/smarties once defrosted. The hardest part was finding a tray long enough for the cake. I ended up using a piece of ply timber board and covering in alfoil.

I googled and searched eBay with key words ‘reptile party’ ‘alligator party’ and got plenty of ideas from the images that came up. We had swamp jelly cups, a croc pinata, frog cupcakes etc. I found croc napkins and used the colours blue, orange and green as the theme colours for everything else from the balloons, invites to the cordial colour. My kids all wore kahki, and Bindi(Irwin) Wear clothing. I may have gone to the extreme but everyone loved it!!

My son’s party was held at a local croc and reptile park & it was brilliant!!

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