This Lion cake design was created for little Casey who was turning 2. It was a simple 2 tier cake decorated with celebration-themed cheerful colors and a lovely fondant lion topper.
The cake was based on an image provided by my customer and I tweaked it slightly to suit my customer’s request. The original designer of this cake is tortenberlin.blogspot.com.
Lion Cake Design for Casey
Now, this cake had extra deco in the form of bursting stars from the sides of the cake but I just realized as I was writing this post that I do not have any pictures of the complete cake! And that was because I only put the stars on the cake upon delivering it to my customer’s place. And then I forgot to snap a photo of the complete cake! So here I am with my not-so-complete cake. Anyway, the cake still looked very beautiful without the stars, thanks to tortenberlin.blogspot.com for designing it.
I definitely enjoyed decorating this cake and totally loved how the lion topper turned out.
How to Make a Lion Cake Design
Main supplies to decorate this lion cake:
Raw Material
- Cake – this was a 2 tier cake, measuring 6 inches and 9 inches in diameter. Each tier was approximately 4 inches high and I used my butter pound cake recipe for the cake.
- Buttercream – I used buttercream to fill the cake as well as to crumb coat it.
- Fondant – I used Satin Ice for this project. I used white fondant and tinted it with Wilton Golden Yellow , Wilton Royal Blue , Americolor Mint Green and Americolor Electric Purple . I also used Satin Ice chocolate and black fondant .
- Gum paste – I used Satin Ice gum paste in white and tinted it blue with Wilton Royal Blue color for the lettering on the cake.
- CMC powder – I added this to fondant when making the lion figure. CMC helps fondant to set firm and that helps 3D figures to hold shape.
- Shortening and fondant glue – these were the glues for this project. I used shortening for lighter pieces of deco and glue when I had to stick heavier pieces.
Tools
- Fondant extruder – I used this for the cake borders as well as the bunting string on the cake. All were piped using circle discs in 2 different shapes.
- Star plunger cutter set – these were used for the stars that were attached at each end of the bunting string on the side of the bottom tier.
- Oval plunger cutter set – I used this for the lion’s mane in chocolate fondant. Once cut, I pinched the ends to make it pointy before attaching to the lion topper as its mane.
- Floral wire – This was used to make the bursting stars on the sides of the cake. You cannot see the stars anywhere on this cake as I attached the stars to the cake upon reaching my customer’s venue and then totally forgot to snap the cake photo with the stars on! The pictures I have on this page were all taken at home before the delivery.
- Star cookie cutter – I used this to make the bursting stars on the sides of the cake (again, these stars are put up on the cake upon reaching my customer’s venue so they were not on at the point I took the pictures on this page).
- Round cutter set and round plunger cutter set – I used the round set (the smallest size) and my round plunger set to cut out the colourful circle polka dots on the first tier of the cake.
- Fondant modelling tools – I used these tools in making the lion topper.
- Lollipop sticks
- Pizza cutting wheel – This was mainly used for the strips in addition to all other general fondant cutting work for the cake.
Lion Cake Design - Top View
Assembling the cake:
The lion cake topper
- I started by making the lion topper first. In fact, I made this a few days in advance. This is so that the lion was all set and firm by the time I put him on the cake. It was also to avoid last-minute rush in completing the cake.
- To make the lion, I used white fondant that has been tinted with Wilton Golden Yellow color and kneaded some CMC into for added stability. For the mane, I used chocolate fondant. I started by forming the body of the lion and attached all four legs to it. And then I did the face. I added all the facial features first, including the ears before attaching it to the body with glue. Only after that did I add the mane. All around the face. For the mane, I cut out oval pieces of fondant using my oval plunger cutter and pinched the ends to make them slightly pointy. And then I attached them all around the head with fondant glue. I also added these to the back of the head.
Lion Cake Design - Lion Topper
The bursting star toppers
- I also made the bursting stars ahead of time. I used fondant that has been added CMC and used my star cookie cutter to cut the stars out. And then I attached them to one floral wire each. These were let to set in a horizontal position until they were ready to go on the cake, at the customer's place.
Lion Cake Design
Preparing the cake
- As for the cake, once it was baked and cooled, I leveled the tops. And then I layered and sandwiched them with buttercream and covered them in fondant. I covered the bottom tier in the same yellow fondant as the lion topper and the top tier in blue.
- And then I added the wide and narrow strips alternately all around the bottom tier. I used 3 different colors for the strips namely magenta, green and blue. These strips were cut using my pizza cutting wheel guided by a ruler. I attached these to the cake with shortening at equal intervals.
Lion Cake Design
The number '2'
- Next, I did the large number ‘2’ on the front of the top tier. The fondant was rolled and shaped into number 2 by hand. I used a paper template (which I drew myself) as a guide to form the number. I let the number firm up a little before putting it on the cake with shortening.
The colorful polka dots
- After that, using the same magenta, green and blue that I used for the strips on the bottom tier, I added round cutouts in random sizes and order. I also added yellow colored round cut outs for this tier. And these were again attached to the cake with shortening.
Lion Cake Design
The birthday boy's name
- Next to go on the cake was the birthday boy’s name. I made white bunting using my triangle plunger cutter. The lettering on the cake was made using FMM block letters cutter. I attached the letters to the bunting before putting it up on the cake. For the string, I used my extruder tool to pipe out a long strip of blue fondant and covered the ends with blue stars.
Lion Cake Design
The cake border
- And then I added the borders. For the top tier, I used my extruder tool to pipe out the yellow and green strips separately and then twisted them by hand before placing them around the cake as the border. The bottom tier border was also piped out using the extruder tool. Both the borders were attached with shortening.
- And finally, I added the lion topper and the bursting stars on the sides of the cake. Since the stars were only put on the cake at the customer’s venue and I did not capture any photos at my customer’s place, I do not have any images of the cake complete with the stars. Nevertheless, when putting the stars on, I inserted the wires into a lollipop stick each before poking them into the cake. This was to avoid direct contact of the wires to the cake.
And that was that. Lion cake design for 2 year old Casey's birthday.
Hope you find this useful. Happy decorating:)
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