For my son’s 2nd birthday party we did a Luau theme. For his Tiki Mask cake and cupcakes I used 2 boxes of Duncan Hines cake total and about 4 lbs of store-bought buttercream icing from a local bakery.
For the cake I used a glass loaf pan and baked 2 separate cakes. I did this the night before the party, wrapped them in foil and put them in the freezer since I find it much easier to work with frozen cake. I also made the 8 cupcakes with the leftover cake batter and froze them as well.
When it was time to decorate, I leveled the cakes and frosted just the tops of them so I could put them together. I put one on top of the other. Then I used chocolate icing to ice the entire cake. It doesn’t have to be smooth since it is a Tiki mask which has lots of texture to it. I used whatever chocolate frosting I had leftover to pipe some of the cupcakes.
Then I used vanilla frosting and tinted it 4 different colors-sky blue, leaf green, violet and golden yellow. I used pastry bags and just cut a small hole in the tips of each bag so I could decorate the face. For the black icing, I used a premade tube since it is sometimes hard to get a real black color when you mix it yourself. I then used the rest of the vanilla icing to pipe the remainder of the cupcakes.
For the hibiscus flowers on the cupcakes I used fondant. I made these 2 days prior so they could dry. I took 5 small pieces of the fondant and kneaded sky blue, leaf green, golden yellow, or red into them. Then I rolled out each piece and just used a kitchen knife to cut out my flower and leaf shapes. I used the knife to sculpt lines into each piece to make them look more real. I then took a small amount of fondant and kneaded black into it and rolled out tiny lines to make the center of each flower. I put them on a plate lined with wax paper to dry. When it was time to put them on the cake, I just placed them right on top of the freshly frosted cupcakes so they would stay in place.
I lined a cake board with foil and placed the cake somewhat in the center. Then I alternated vanilla and chocolate frosted cupcakes around the cake to look like a lei. I used 2 cocktail palm tree toothpicks to put on the 2 cupcakes closest to the Tiki mask and added a candle for my son’s age!
This was a fun and easy cake to make! It was a big hit at the party!
you’re great!
I did an almost identical cake for my son’s birthday last year – brighter (read: tackier) colors. I bet we used the same picture to base our design off of!!
What an awesome cake! It’s super cute! Thank you for sharing. Also, where did you find palm tree cocktail toothpicks?
Thanks everyone! I bought the toothpicks at Party City.