I have had the pleasure of decorating a number of cakes for kids birthdays, and I have come to realize that they are my favourite kind of cake to decorate. I mean, I love all cakes, but kids cakes are the most fun because they are full of colour, happiness, and generally very cute themes.

Below is a photo summary of the cakes I have made. Each cake was really fun to make and each taught me something different about my style, which evolves over time. I frequently search for inspiration on Instagram and Pinterest, and from some of my favourite cookbooks. Most themes come to me by request and then I come up with a way to make it in cake form…. That is my favourite part, coming up with the ideas!

From a cat themed birthday, to Thomas the Train, My Little Pony, to a Titanic themed birthday, I have come a long way since cake week in pastry school, just take a look.

The Cat Themed Birthday:

This cake was fun, and the ears were the tricky part. I wanted the ears to be sculpted cake, so that part i worked on right away so they had time to set before fitting on top. I used a large grass tip to pipe the hair onto the cake, and I used swiss meringue buttercream too, my go-to frosting!

  

A Titanic Themed Birthday

This cake was an unusual request, but very creative! At first the birthday boy requested to have the broken ship post-crash, but it evolved into the whole ship and iceberg. I was impressed by this request, and spent time researching the real ship, before embarking on this voyage of a cake! As this is a character version of the real thing, the proportions are off — intentionally. Both the ship and the iceberg is made of sculpted cake, and covered in fondant for finishing details.

  

Thomas the Train

…and A Hungry Caterpillar too

These are fun cakes because the colours are so vivid, and it’s such a classic theme. I remember having these trains around when I was a kid, and it is still a huge theme for little ones. I love Thomas the Tank Engine. This cake is made with swiss meringue buttercream, it is a chocolate cake, and covered in fondant details. The train tracks as letters for the name was my favourite idea for this cake, and part of why I love cake decorating so much – your theme can manifest in different ways than you would ever imagine.

  

My Little Pony

Pinkie Pie

This was SO fun to make. Pure pink. My hands were pink for a few days after making this cake, and all the pink food colouring! The My Little Pony characters have evolved a lot since I was little, but the one part that remains the same is the intense colours! Love it. Their eyes are alarmingly large, but somehow cute, when you put everything together. I loved piping the ruffled border for this one too, simply using an open star piping tip, and finishing off with a variety of my sprinkles collection and some hand-made fondant garnishes. The entire topper was made with fondant and shaped by hand.

  

Rainbow Dash cupcakes

These were actually from last year, but I am sharing them again because they were a lot of work to replicated the same design for each cupcake. It was ALL done by hand, and looked great in the end!

So that is it! I am sure there will be many more kids cakes to come in the future…. please share in the comments which one is your favourite!