I made this Ariel the Little Mermaid cake for little Hashreyaa on her 3rd birthday. This cake is one of the many cakes I have made for this little girl and her brother, Arya. Hashreyaa’s mom is a special customer of mine who happens to be my sister’s close friend and I have always enjoyed decorating cakes for her as she truly appreciates the taste of my cakes and my decorating.
This 3rd-year birthday celebration was a little special as the girl had 2 cakes. This Little Mermaid cake was one of them, while the other one was a “Jake and the Never Land Pirates’ themed cake. I have written all about Jake and the Never Land Pirates cake on a separate page and you can read all about it here.
Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
Back to this cake. This is a buttercream cake. Well, butter icing to be precise. What’s the difference you ask? Well, buttercream is buttercream, and butter icing is the stiffer version of the buttercream which means it has more icing sugar in it, thus making it stiffer. These are my own terms to describe my two different versions of the butter-based icings. You can get the buttercream recipe here and the butter icing recipe .
Generally, between the two, I prefer to use butter icing as I find it easier to achieve a smooth surface on cakes. I am just not a skilled buttercream person so achieving a smooth surface on the cake is not quite my forte.
Anyway, back again to the cake. Overall, this was a pretty easy cake to decorate. All the figurine toppers on the cake were toy toppers provided by my customer and the rest of the decoration on the cake was made using fondant.
Let’s look at my decorating guide for this Ariel the Little Mermaid cake below.
How to Make Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
Main supplies for the cake:
- Cake – this was a 9 inches square cake baked using my pound cake recipe. I baked the cake in 2 layers and once stacked, the overall height was approximately 4 inches.
- Buttercream – I used this icing to fill and crumb coat the cake. Get the recipe here.
- Butter icing – this is the stiffer version of the buttercream. Click here for the recipe.
- Fondant – I used Satin Ice for all the sea themed decorations on the cake (except for the figurines).
- Ariel the Little Mermaid themed toy toppers
- Pizza cutting wheel – I used this as a general cutting tool for the deco on the cake.
- Sea waves cutter – This was sea wave-shaped, and I purchased it from Not Just Cakes by Annie.
- Fondant shaping tools
- Round plunger cutter set– these were for the holes on the brown sea sponge on the cake.
- AmeriColor White gel food coloring & fine tipped cake decorating brush
- Wilton gel food colors in royal blue, pink, juniper green, violet, brown, yellow.
- Hot glue – I used hot glue to hold the figurines on the cake board securely in place.
- Block letters alphabet cutters
- Needle scribe tool – this was to mark the lines on the seagrass.
- Small daisy flower cutter – I used this for the brown starfishes on the cake.
Assembling the Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
The cake toppers
- I told my customer to hand me the toy toppers a few days in advance so that I had enough time to estimate the cake design based on the size of the toppers.
Preparing the cake
- And so, closer to the cake delivery date, I baked the cake. Once the cake has cooled, I leveled and filled and crumb coated it with a layer of buttercream. The crumb coat was to make sure the top and sides of the cake were all level.
Sea effect on the cake
- Next, I covered the cake with butter icing. I tinted it with Wilton Royal Blue food color. Since the icing has a natural yellow hue to it, adding blue to it turned it into a blue with a slight hint of green. That was just convenient for this cake as the blue cake covering was meant to represent the seawater.
- I applied the icing all over the cake and then, instead of smoothing it flat, I pressed it down with my fingers. The icing was slightly crusted by the time I finished covering the cake. And so it was no longer sticking to my fingers as I made the dents. The dents were meant to represent sea waves.
Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
- Once the entire cake was covered in butter icing sea waves, I made the border. I used blue fondant for the border and used my sea waves cutter to make a layer of waves and attached them all around the base of the cake.
The cake wordings
- After that, I added the wordings on the cake. The letters were made using my block letter cutters. I purchased these from a local cake decorating supplies shop. I used pink tinted fondant for the wording.
- Once the wordings were in place, I made the rest of the deco. I started by adding the long sea grass on the corners of the cake. The grass was cut using my pizza cutting wheel and the lines on the grass was made using my sugar craft needle scriber tool.
Hand cut sugar grass on the sides of the Little Mermaid cake
The edible pink corals
- Next were the pink corals. These were shaped by hand and I used a thin wooden skewer to poke holes all over the coral. And then I attached it to the sides of the cake. I did not need any special glue to stick the deco to the cake, the butter icing was able to hold the deco well in place.
Pink edible sugar coral on the side of the Little Mermaid cake
Edible sea creatures
- For the brown and yellow sponge, I rolled some brown and yellow fondant thin, and used my round plunger cutters to make random holes in random order all over the rolled pieces. And this went on the sides of the cake (brown sponge) as well as the top (yellow sponge).
Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
- Next was the cluster of purple cylinder-shaped sea plants. I made these individually by rolling some purple fondant into sausages and using the pointed end of my shaping tool ( the one that is shaped like a pencil), I made holes on one end of the sausages. I then grouped a few of them together and attached them to the cake.
- When grouping these together, I dampened them slightly with a damp brush so that they would stick to one another. And in attaching the cluster to the cake, again, the icing was sufficient to hold them in place. I made a few clusters of these and added them to the sides of the cake.
Sugar fishes
- After all the sea plants were done, I made the yellow fishes for the front side of the cake. These were formed by hand using yellow fondant and the shapes were then enhanced with the help of my shaping tools and sugarcraft knife. I then added light blue strips and black eyes for the fishes.
Hand cut edible sugar fishes on the Little Mermaid cake
The fondant starfishes
- The next deco to go on the cake was the brown starfishes. I cut these with my small daisy flower cutter and added white polka dots using a fine-tipped cake decorating brush. The white paint was undiluted white gel food coloring. These were randomly placed on the sides and top of the cake.
Sea themed decorations on the Little Mermaid cake
- Once all the deco was done, I arranged the toy toppers on the cake. For the figurines on the cake board, I used hot glue to hold them in place. The ones of the cake were simply placed on the cake and since they had a wide bottom base, they were able to stand on the cake well.
- I added more deco on the sides of the figurines on the cake just so that everything looked as naturally placed as it could be.
And that’s that. My Ariel the Little Mermaid cake.
Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake
Happy Decorating 🙂
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