Little Mermaid Birthday Cake – A Decorating Tutorial

I made this Ariel the Little Mermaid birthday cake back in 2012. It was for a 4-year-old girl. The mom had also separately ordered a castle cake for the school celebration (click here to see how I made the castle cake). This cake was meant for celebration at home with family.

Little Mermaid Birthday Cake with Cute Toppers

The cake was fairly easy to decorate. Ariel on the cake was a toy figurine. And the only other 3D fondant decoration on the cake were Sebastian and an octopus. The cake itself was covered in butter icing and accented with fondant decorations.

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How to Make a Little Mermaid Birthday Cake

Main supplies needed:

• Cake – this was a single layer birthday cake, baked in 6.5 inches by 10 inches rectangle cake pan. I used half the measurement of my pound cake recipe calculated an eight-inch square cake.
• Butter icing – Since the cake was only a single layer (with a height of about 2 inches), I did not layer and fill it further. I only covered the cake with butter icing. This icing is a much stiffer version of buttercream (click here for the icing recipe).
• Fondant – I used this for the accents as well as to make the sea animals – Sebastian and the octopus. I used my homemade recipe and you can find it here.
• Food color – I used Wilton gel colors in red, yellow, green, black, and violet.
• Star cutters – I used star-shaped cutouts on the cake board to place the birthday girl’s name.
• Ariel the Little Mermaid cake topper – This was provided by the customer. She preferred a toy topper instead of an edible one so that her daughter could keep it and play with it later.
• Brown sugar – I used brown sugar to decorate the cake board, to give it a beach feel.

Assembling the Little Mermaid birthday cake:

Sebastian and the octopus toppers

• I prepared Sebastian and the octopus toppers for the Little Mermaid cake ahead of time. And made them both out of my homemade fondant which dries hard. Hence, there was no need to add any tylose or CMC to it. But if you use store-bought fondant, it is best to add tylose or CMC to it.

Baking and covering the Little Mermaid birthday cake

• Next was the Little Mermaid birthday cake. I baked a single layer cake (hence it is not filled with any buttercream) and covered it with icing. As I mentioned earlier, butter icing is a much stiffer version of buttercream. It is stiff enough that you can take it with hand without it sticking all over.
• And because of this stiff consistency, piping this icing with a piping bag is not very easy. What I did was take a little of the icing at a time in my hands and flatten it directly onto the cake. I purposely left the finishing rough so that it looked like sea waves on the cake. To make the waves, all I did was use my fingertips to press on the icing and make the dents on the cake).

Top view of the Little Mermaid Birthday Cake

Assembling the cake

• I used a large square cake board for this Little Mermaid birthday cake. I purposely placed the cake on one side of the board. This is so that there is ample space at the front for me to place the birthday girl’s name.
• Next, I made the stone for Ariel to sit on. To make the stones, I added some black coloring into white fondant. For the marbled effect, I kneaded it by twisting both colors until the white and black were only just mixed. I then formed rough balls and stacked them on one another. I then placed Ariel on the stones while they were still soft. This is so that the stones could be adjusted to hold the Little Mermaid in place.

Ariel the Little Mermaid cake topper

The side decoration

• For the sides of the Little Mermaid cake, I used Wilton Pattern Press Set to imprint scrolls all around the cake. 
• And then, I cut seagrass out of fondant. I cut these freehand using my pizza cutter. And attached them randomly to the sides of the cake as well as the stones earlier. Since the cake was covered in butter icing, the grease was enough to hold the grass in place. No glue was required. The fondant had no trouble sticking to the icing. 

Edible grass on the sides of the Little Mermaid cake

Lettering on the cake

• Once the main deco on the Little Mermaid cake was done, I placed Sebastian and the octopus on the cake. And then I sprinkled brown sugar on the cake board.
• Next, I did the wording on the cake. The wordings “Happy Birthday” were cut out of fondant. I placed them on the cake itself. The birthday girl’s name was placed on star cutouts, on the cake board. And I cut out a 3D number “4” for the girl’s age, poked a toothpick to it, inserted it near one of the octopus’s tentacles, as it the octopus was holding it. 

And that was it! An easy to make Little Mermaid birthday cake.

Ariel the Little Mermaid Birthday Cake

Hope you liked this sharing.

Happy decorating 🙂