Star Wars Birthday Cake – Darth Maul and His Lightsaber

Finally, a Star Wars birthday cake featuring Darth Maul and his lightsaber! This is an awesome birthday cake idea, one that will surely delight all Darth Maul fans!

This cake was for a 7 year old, die hard Star Wars fan in my family, my little nephew.

When the request came to me for a Star Wars cake, I asked if he had any specific characters that he liked in Star Wars. Darth Maul’s lightsaber was the answer I got.

This little boy, according to his mom, is particularly thrilled with Darth Maul’s lightsaber. It was simply because it could light up on both sides, hence his choice of Darth Maul and his Lightsaber.

I tried to keep the design as simple as possible as requested by the birthday boy’s mom. All in all was very happy with the way the cake turned out. I was able to put this cake together fairly quickly. And the birthday boy was absolutely thrilled with his Star Wars birthday cake.

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How to Make a Star Wars Birthday Cake (from scratch)

These were the main supplies I used to make this birthday cake:

• Cake – this was a 6 inches round cake, measuring 4 inches in height. I used my butter pound cake recipe for the cake.
• Buttercream – I used vanilla buttercream to sandwich the cake layers. I also used chocolate buttercream (tinted with black cocoa powder and black food coloring) to cover the cake
• Black cocoa powder – I added this to the buttercream to give it the dark base for a truly black buttercream.
• Black and golden yellow food color – I used Americolor Black and Wilton Golden Yellow.
• Edible silver dust + Lemon extract – I mixed these to form a thick silver paint.
• Fondant – I used Satin Ice in white and red.
• CMC powder – I added this to fondant when making the 3D lightsaber
• Edible food marker – This was used to trace the Darth Maul image onto fondant.
• Darth Maul face template – This is a paper template I used to make Darth Maul’s face.
• Star Wars Logo template – This is also a paper template used as a guide when cutting out the logo in fondant.
• Star plunger cutter – I used the entire set of 3 cutters for the yellow stars in 3 different sizes.
• Alphabet cutters – This is a plunger cutter set which comes in a full set of capital letters.
• Pizza cutting wheel – I used this to cut out Darth Maul’s face in fondant
• Sugar craft knife
• Food grade brush
• Fondant glue

And this was how I put the Star Wars birthday cake together:

Darth Maul topper

• I started by getting the Darth Maul and Star Wars logo templates ready. I got both from an internet search and resized and printed them to fit onto my cake (see here for my tips on how to resize images for cake decorating).
• The printed paper templates were basically what I used to cut out the Star Wars logo and Darth Maul’s face on fondant.

Baking the cake

• Next was the cake itself. I baked 2 layers of my vanilla pound cake, let it cool down, and then leveled and sandwiched it with vanilla buttercream.

The black buttercream for the Star Wars birthday cake

• I then covered the entire cake with black buttercream. To make my buttercream totally black, I added some black cocoa powder to my vanilla buttercream. And then I added some black food coloring for a perfectly black buttercream. The buttercream will take some time to turn to its final color. So after adding the food color, let the buttercream rest for about 20 minutes. The color will darken significantly when you let it rest as opposed to the color you see immediately after adding food color to it. 
• I used this black buttercream to cover my entire cake smoothly.

The Star Wars logo on the birthday cake

• Next was the Star Wars logo. I cut the logo I resized and printed earlier along the outline of each letter. I placed each letter on thinly rolled yellow fondant (white tinted with golden yellow) and cut them out with my sugar craft knife. The letters are a lot easier to cut when the fondant is slightly dry. So if you find it hard to cut the fondant, leave it out for a few minutes. Also, if you find it hard to keep the paper template in place, apply some shortening to the paper and attach it to the fondant. That way, the paper would not move much while you are working on it. Once done, simply peel off the paper.
• Once all the letters were done, I attached them to the birthday cake. Since they were going onto a buttercream covered cake, attaching the letters was easy. All I had to do is press the letters into the buttercream until they are the same level as the icing. Pushing the letters in also helped to keep them in place without having to apply any special glue to them.

• This is a close up of the logo on the sides of the Star Wars birthday cake:

Darth Maul image on fondant

• Next was the Darth Maul image. Initially, I tried to mark the lines of Darth Maul’s face onto a piece of white rolled fondant by placing the paper template on it and using my sugar craft knife to cut through the lines on the template so that they lines were imprinted onto the fondant. 
• After a couple of lines, I decided that there were too many lines of his face. It was taking too long. 
• I then changed my plan. I rolled another piece of white fondant, this time as thin as possible to the point that it was almost ‘see-through’. Then, I placed the Darth Maul template underneath it. And I literally traced the pattern onto my fondant with a black edible mark. This was a much easier way to transfer the pattern. 
• Once the face was completely traced, I used a pizza cutting wheel to cut the face out. And then I painted it red and yellow using slightly diluted red and yellow food coloring. 
• After that, I used my black edible marker to draw out all the lines again. This was how the Darth Maul looked like upon completion. I let him rest aside to set : 

Making the fondant lightsaber

• Next, I made the lightsaber. The saber was formed in fondant, by hand in white and red.
• I started with the center part of the lightsaber in white. I shaped it by hand and imprinted a couple of lines on both ends. After that, I formed deep indentations on the ends of each side. I did this with the back of one of my larger food painting brushes. Once that was done, I attached the red part of the lightsaber.

• I then rolled 2 equal-sized thin long strips in red. And attached them to ends of the white fondant earlier with a touch of glue. 

• Once completed, I set the lightsaber aside to let the glue dry completely and all the components attached securely.

• Only after it has set completely that I painted the white part of the lightsaber in silver edible paint. To make the paint, I mixed silver edible dust with a few drops of lemon extract.

• Again, I set the lightsaber aside for the paint to dry completely before putting it onto the cake.

The stars and alphabets on the cake

• While waiting, I cut out my stars and lettering for the cake. The stars were in 3 different sizes using my star plunger set.

• And I used the same yellow for the letters on the cake.

Assembling the Star Wars birthday cake

• To assemble the cake, I carefully lifted the Darth Maul’s image onto the cake with my icing scraper and placed him on the cake. And then, I placed the letters to form my nephew’s name. Finally, with the remaining space on top of the cake, I positioned the lightsaber.

• Similar to how I secured the Star Wars logo on the side of the cake, I pressed the Darth Maul image, the birthday boy’s name as well as the lightsaber into the buttercream on the cake. That way, I did not have to use any special glue to hold these in place.  

The lightsaber on the Star Wars birthday cake

• Once the top of the cake was done, I attached the ‘Happy Birthday’ wording on the cake board on the front side of the cake. I used glue to hold these in place on the cake board. 

Adding the stars

• And finally, the last deco that was put on the cake were the stars. I pressed these into the buttercream all around the cake. This was done in random order, making sure they were well distributed all around the cake. Letting the stars to set slightly before putting them on the cake helped in making sure they did not lose their shape as I lifted and pressed each one of them onto the buttercream. 

And with that, the Darth Maul Star Wars birthday cake was complete.

Hope this Star Wars birthday cake decorating guide was useful. 

Here are my other posts you might want to check out:

• Star Wars Lego Cake
• Angry Birds Cake Tutorial
• Food Cake Decorating Ideas
• Pink 21st Birthday Cake
• Lion Cake Design for 2nd Birthday

Happy decorating 🙂