This hamburger cake was for my son’s 3rd birthday. We got the idea while looking for drum cake instructions. I loved the look of the ones I saw so I decided to make it my own.
I used a white cake mix and round pans that are about 5 inches in diameter. I filled them about 2/3 full for the top and bottom bun pieces. I then used the last bit of batter for the meat.
I found a recipe for peanut butter icing for the buns. I utilized the hump in the cakes for the rounded look of the bun (I still have not figured out how to not have the hump!) This turned out to be perfect for the color. I iced the bottom bun first and set it on the plate.
I then iced the meat with chocolate icing cause what goes better with peanut butter? After carefully placing this on the bottom bun I started to ice the top bun and ended up with white icing drops for the sesame seeds. Of course every hamburger needs ketchup mustard and lettuce. So I tinted some plain icing with red green and yellow to my liking. I used a Ziploc bag with a small corner snipped off for the ketchup and mustard. This was smaller than any of my icing tips. I then used the leaf tip for the lettuce.
Everyone at the party was surprised by this hamburger cake.
More Hamburger Cake Ideas
Cake by Patricia V., Douglasville, GA
My cousin had a party for her 1 year old and I volunteered to make the cake. Since they were planning on serving hamburgers a hamburger cake seemed just perfect and Sandra’s idea stole my heart.
For my cake I made two 9-1/2 in. yellow cakes and one 10 in. chocolate cake (I just went to the store and got 3 boxes of cake mix). For the icing of the buns I used chocolate butter cream; however I wasn’t pleased with the color (next time I will skip the icing on the ‘buns’). I reserved a little bit of buttercream (before adding the chocolate) and used it as mayonnaise.
For the patty I added crushed chocolate cookies (as suggested by Sandra) glued to the cake with melted chocolate. It really gave it a realistic look! For the lettuce, tomatoes, onions, slices of cheese and ketchup I used Wilton’s Fondant in primary colors. My favorite part was molding the lettuce leaves!
The base of the hamburger cake was a round board that I covered with green fondant (same as lettuce) and added a ribbon to make it look prettier. Whenever I use fondant I like adding artificial flavor to it. For this cake I used “bubble gum” and everybody loved it.
I have very little experience making cakes and this hamburger cake was as simple as it can get. Using cake mix from the box made things even smoother and working with fondant was a lot of fun!
Cake by Lisa H., Walbridge, OH
A friend of mine’s daughter loves cheeseburgers. For her 3rd birthday She wanted cheeseburger-burgers for dinner and a Cheeseburger-burger Birthday Cake. It had been a LONG TIME since I made a “hamburger cake”.
This is my finished product. She was thrilled. The cake is a 10-inch round layer cake. I used a yellow cake batter for the bun and a chocolate cake batter for the burger. What fun!
Cake by Rachel E., Surrey BC, Canada
For this hamburger cake, I used 1 and a half cake mixes (and made cupcakes with the other half of the chocolate cake mix). Use one light cake mix in 2 round cake pans for the bun. Use one chocolate cake mix in 1 round cake pan for the meat.
I cut the chocolate round cake around the edges for a roughed up look and to make it smaller than the bun. I iced the bun both top and bottom – and don’t forget too pipe on some sesame seeds. I then used icing for the ketchup, mustard, lettuce, and cheese. Pretty simple.
Cake by Stephanie S., Washington, PA
I was looking for a unique cake to make for my mom’s birthday party, which was also a cookout. I came across your site and got the idea for my hamburger cake from you other food cakes.
The entire hamburger cake took two cake mixes (I used just basic white mixes). I split the first mix between the bottom bun and the burger and used the entire second cake mix for the burger top. The bottom and top buns were both baked in 9-inch pans; the burger was cooked in a casserole dish to achieve a more rounded appearance. I used a whole mix for the top bun hoping to achieve a “Kaiser roll” appearance; the mix tends to crack a little when used as a whole.
The decorating is surely the hardest part if you aren’t prepared (which I wasn’t)! I would really recommend getting some of Wilton’s dyes for the less common colors. It took a very look time to mix up a “bun” color and a “burger” color!
Besides those two minor setbacks everything else was a piece of cake! The burger is covered in crushed Oreos, the tomatoes are made from nilla wafers, the fries are sliced sugar cookies and all of the lettuce mustard and any other desired condiments are just icing from a cake decorator. It was a big hit and complimented the party theme very well!
I made this hamburger cake using a 9″ cake pan making 3 cakes. One for the top and the bottom, which were frosted with light brown tinted frosting, and one for the hamburger, which was covered in chocolate frosting and then covered with crushed cookies.
The eyes were marshmallows, with M&M’s; the lettuce and cheese were fruit roll-ups rolled out. The onions were gumdrops rolled out and the olive on top was a gumdrop. The tomatoes were nilla wafers covered with red frosting.
Cake by Annaleah F., Dacula, GA
This is my hamburger cake (actually a cheeseburger) and I! I am 17 years old and I made this for my friend’s birthday.
THE BUNS: For the bottom bun I used an 8″ round cake pan, and for the top I used an 8″ semi-circle pan. After baking the top bun, I shaved off part of the cake on top and bottom so that it was not too thick or tall. Then I used cream cheese frosting and mixed in a peach color die (Wilton’s icing coloring works the best for me, it comes in a jell form {a little goes a long way}). Then on the top bun I sprinkled brown/chocolate sprinkles.
THE BURGER: I use an 8″ round pan for the burger too. Then I used chocolate frosting to ice it. I used a star tip to make the right texture
THE TOPPINGS: to make the toppings of the hamburger cake, I used some of the left over cake batter and basically made pancakes with it. The first few may not turn out good, but you will get the hang of it. You will need to have 10 cake circles all about 3″ in diameter.
For the cheese, I used 4 of the circles so that they had 2 straight edges forming a point. I put those on the burger and made orange icing to ice them with. Then I made the tomatoes, they are really easy, just ice them with red frosting, and decorate them the way u want.
For the onions I cut the middle out of 2 of the cake circles, and then cut those in half (making 4 onions to go on the hamburger cake).
For the lettuce I just got green frosting and used a thick frosting tip, and put it where ever necessary. If the toppings are falling off, you can use toothpicks to help secure them.
Cake by Winnie C., Carol Stream, IL
I got my inspiration from all the hamburger cakes listed on this website as well as googling “hamburger” on the web. I also made the sugar cookie fries as well, using an actual crinkle fry cutter that you can buy for under $3. I used the pound cake idea as well since it formed a sturdier cake to ice.
Paula Deen’s “Sour Cream Pound Cake” recipe is wonderful for this one. I just had to double the recipe.
Most of the hamburger cake is done with tinted buttercream but I used colored fondant for the tomatoes and lettuce. The mustard was piped with buttercream. I also tried to smooth the surface of the bun but first letting the buttercream “crust” after a few minutes and then placing a piece of wax paper or parchment paper lightly over the icing and rubbing it smooth. You can also just use your finger directly on the icing if it’s dry.
My best compliment of the day was a 4-year-old adamantly proclaiming that it was NOT a hamburger cake but a hamburger.
Thanks to this site for the hamburger cake photos and ideas for helping me make this cool cake! We were doing a Garfield theme party and served lasagna of course. What else would Garfield love? Cake and hamburgers? A hamburger cake!
I made two cake mixes in 8″ round pans, one yellow mix and one chocolate. I used two of the yellow cakes and one of the chocolate ones. I frosted the extra chocolate in case we ran out of hamburger cake (which we did…cut thin slices!!) I trimmed the “bottom bun” yellow cake flat, and saved the rounded top to make the “top bun” rounder. This made it look better overall, but in cross section when you started serving you could see the patch-job. I used mostly colored frosting for decoration. I bought some of the red paste coloring to get the dark red, the rest I could achieve with drops.
I put the bottom bun down and put a layer of red “ketchup” frosting on it. This will only be visible in cross section.
I sat the “patty” chocolate cake on it, and put a layer of white “mayo” frosting on top. I then put the “top bun” yellow cake.
What I should have done then was frost the “patty” chocolate cake FIRST, because I put chocolate cookie crumbs on it as someone suggested and had a time keeping them from falling onto the “bun” frosting. So I’d do the patty first if you were going to put cookie crumbs. I mixed beige icing for the “buns”.
I frosted 2 graham crackers light orange and slid them in as “cheese”. I then added frosting “lettuce”, “mayo”, “ketchup”, and “mustard”. Some thought the mayo loops were onions…could be! The “sesame seeds” were actually Rice Krispies.
Before serving, we put green gummy circle candy as candle holders/”pickles”. They weren’t all that pickle looking, but every kid was begging to have a “pickle” on their slice!
Cake by Nadia L., Ottawa, Canada
Not much more to add about this hamburger cake. I followed all of the instructions from the talented bakers on this site and baked my cake! Two vanilla cakes, one chocolate cake, all frosting is buttercream (homemade, Wilton recipe – except the beige frosting that is BC from the can died the right colours). Thanks for all of your help!
I took ideas from other hamburger cake photos and tips on this website, and combined them to make this fun cake for my daughter’s 2nd birthday. My daughter has egg allergies so everything on this cake is egg free.
The bottom bun of my hamburger cake is a White Cake recipe from Theresa Kingma’s “Dairy Free, Egg Free, Kid Pleasing Recipes and Tips” cookbook which I purchased off the internet. I used her Brownies recipe for the patty, and the Lemon Pound Cake recipe for the top bun, however I hardly put any lemon in it, and no lemon zest.
Essentially, the pound cake and white cake recipes are the same. I made the French Fries from Theresa’s Sugar Cookies recipe. I made the French Fries, the brownies and the cakes ahead of time, and froze them. I found this to be most helpful, when it came to working with and assembling the cake.
I also made sculpting fondant for the first time. It really is neat stuff, and not near as scary to make as I thought it might be. I found I needed to add more water to the fondant than the recipe indicates, but be sure to add it a few drops at a time.
I used the Pastillage-Fondant for Sculpting. I made the cheese, onion rings, and tomatoes from the fondant. The cheese is just a thinly rolled sheet of slightly yellow-food colored fondant, draped over the brownie.
The tomatoes are a less thinly rolled fondant, cut out with a drinking glass, to get round shapes. The onion rings are also “thickly rolled” fondant. We added a touch of blue to the fondant, hoping it would give it a slightly grey coloring, but it really just gave it a light blue color. I would suggest just leaving the fondant in it’s natural white state for the onions.
To make the rings, I cut out a large circle with a round drinking glass, and then used a smaller round drinking glass to cut the inner circle. I took the centers out, and just re-rolled them with the excess fondant to make more onions. The layers that I used were this: Bottom layer of white cake, topped with store-bought white icing.
On top of the white icing I used Smuckers squeezable strawberry jelly. I also dabbed some “mustard” made from powdered sugar, yellow coloring, and little water. Then I put the brownie layer on. I put the fondant cheese layer on top. I squeezed more strawberry jelly on, and then I put the “lettuce leaves” on. The lettuce was made by using green rolled up fruit snacks (I threw the box away, or I would have told you what I used), microwaved for a few seconds, and then rolled flat with a rolling pin.
Then I made the tomatoes and onions. I iced the bottom of the top bun (the flat side) with plain white icing, flipped it on top of the “burger” and that was that. I put it all back in the freezer overnight, and let it thaw the next day until the party in the afternoon. The cake was surprisingly moist, despite the thickness and the lack of icing.
We served the hamburger cake with ice cream. I considered drizzling caramel ice cream topping over it for moistness, but I don’t think it was necessary. I put the French Fries next to the hamburger and put a cup of “ketchup” for dipping the fries in. The ketchup was strawberry jelly, powdered sugar, a little water, and red food coloring. Have fun!
Cake by Courtney R., Union, MO
I bought a hamburger cake pan from eBay and used 2 cake mixes in it to make sure it was big. I then used Wilton buttercream icing and colors to make it more 3D. My son liked it.
We called it a Krabby Patty from Spongebob and he had Spongebob plates. The kids loved it. They fought over the pickles (bright green icing)!
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