Ariel the Little Mermaid Cake Design

🧾Supplies Required

• 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. 
• Butter icing – this is the stiffer version of the buttercream. 
• 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.

👩‍🍳How to Make

Step 1: Prepare the Little Mermaid Cake Toppers

Purchase and have these ready at least a few days in advance so that you have them ready when you need to use, especially if you purchasing them online.

Step 2: Prepare the Birthday Cake

And so, closer to the cake delivery date, I baked the cake. This was a 2 layer cake sandwiched with buttercream.

Once the cake layers were baked and have cooled completely, I leveled the tops and filled filled buttercream. And then I crumb coated it with a thin layer of buttercream. The crumb coat was to make sure the top and sides of the cake were all level and flat.

Step 3: Cover the Cake with Icing

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 sea blue color was very fitting for this cake. It 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 dents were meant to represent sea waves.

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 butter icing was able to hold the fondant strips in place without the need for any additional fondant glue.

Step 4: Make the Lettering on the Cake

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 letters.

Once the letters were in place, I made the rest of the decoration for the Little Mermaid theme. 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.

Step 5: Make the Pink Fondant Corals

Next were the pink fondant 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 decoration well in place.

Step 6: Make the Edible Sea Creatures in Fondant

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) of 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. 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 clusters 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.  

Step 7: Make the Fondant Fishes

After all the edible sugar 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 sugar craft knife. I then added light blue strips and black eyes for the fishes.

Step 8: Make the Fondant Starfishes

The next decoration to go on the mermaid themed cake were the brown starfishes. I cut these with my small daisy flower cutter and added white polka dots using a fine-tipped cake decorating brush and white food color.

The white paint was undiluted white gel food coloring. These starfishes were randomly placed on the sides and top of the butter icing covered cake.

Once all the cake decoration was done, I arranged the Disney themed 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 wide bottom bases, they were able to stand on the cake well.

I added more decoration on the sides of the Little Mermaid themed figurines on the cake just so that everything looked as naturally placed as possible.

And that’s that. My Ariel Little Mermaid cake design.