My husband and I made this elephant birthday cake for our daughter’s “Zoo Theme” 2nd birthday. The base was a piece of plywood that was covered with aluminum foil and then covered with a thin layer of rice krispie treats (as well as coconut clouds and coconut grass!)
The elephant was made from three 9 x 13 cakes (Chocolate, Yellow and Spice). I drew a template on card stock and after we butted the 3 cakes together, I laid the template on the cakes and cut around the shape.
We used some of the scraps to give dimension to the trunk and tusks.
My husband made a basic homemade frosting (buttercream) and we dyed several different batches for all of the colors needed.
We used a very simple decorating tip set that we found at Safeway, and stuck them into Ziploc baggies to hold the frosting. Nothing fancy! We had never attempted piping before and we did not want to invest in any professional tools!
Our daughter loved her cake, so we feel that it was a success!
This is the cutest elephant cake!!! How adorable!
I’m going to try my own elephant cake for my daughter’s 4th birthday. She loves elephants. I hope mine looks as awesome as yours!
It’s a beautiful cake!
I too am doing a zoo theme for my daughter’s 1st birthday. I am going to attempt your cake but pink. I hope it turn out really I do. Your cake is so great! I am very creative but I have never attempted decorating cakes. Wish me luck!
This is amazing!
This might be really stupid but how did you dye the icing grey…? Grey food colouring!
You can make grey food coloring by getting black food coloring and adding it to white frosting and if you had it to chocolate frosting it will turn it to black. It will tell you directions on the food coloring box.
I would really like to make this cake for my boyfriend. He loves elephants, but how did you get it to come off the tray like that?