Lion King Cake

5 from 1 vote

Here's a DIY lion king themed birthday cake with easy Simba topper. Get the tutorial for this simple one tier buttercream cake right here!

Prep Time40

Cook Time50

Decorating time3

Total Time4 30

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: Six inches round cake

Calories: 9503.7kcal

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
Beat butter and sugar till soft and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
In another separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt 3 times. Fold in the sifted ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour.
Finally add vanilla extract and combine well.
Pour the batter into two well greased and floured 6 inch cake tins. Level the top and bake the cakes for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cakes come out clean.
Remove the cakes from the oven and let them cool completely before decorating.

Preheat oven to 170 °Celsius.
Beat butter and sugar till soft and creamy for about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in the sifted ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour.
Finally, add in vanilla extract and combine well. Pour batter into two greased and floured 6 inch cake pans and bake for 45 to 50 minutes until the top of the cakes spring back when lightly pressed. The cakes are done when a skewer inserted in the center of the cake come out without any wet batter.
Remove the cakes from the oven and let them cool completely before icing and decorating.

The first step is to find a printable image of Simba to make the topper. I found mine on the internet. Resize the image to fit the cake and print it in color on a piece of white paper.
Cut the image along its outline.
Apply glue to the back of the image (Simba cut out) and paste it onto the front side of a gold glitter cardboard.
And then cut the cardboard, leaving a thin outline of the gold visible around the Simba image after cutting.
In order for the topper to stand upright onto the cake, attach a long thin skewer to the back of Simba cut out with some tape. And then apply glue all over the back of the topper and attached it to the reverse side of another piece of glitter card board.
Cut the cardboard out, following the Simba topper outline as closely as possible. Set aside until ready for use.

To make the letters, knead some CMC into white fondant. And then roll it to about 1 cm thick, and cut the letters out using the alphabet cutters. For ease of attaching them to the cake, insert a toothpick halfway into the bottom of each letter.
Paint the front surface of each letter in gold, to match the gold border of the Simba topper.
Let the letters rest for a few hours to set and hold shape before putting them on the cake.

Tint some white fondant green and roll it thin.
Using the leaves paper templates as guide, cut out the leaves using a sugar craft knife.
And then use your sugar craft tools to draw the veins on each leaf.
Dilute some green food color with water and paint the fondant leaves. Leave them aside for the paint to dry.
As for the leaf that is used as a topper on the cake, since it was going to be placed upright on the cake, add some CMC into the green fondant before cutting it out. And roll it slightly thicker than the rest so that a toothpick can be inserted into it.
Cutting the leave will require a bit more effort since it is thick. You may also need to use your sugar craft tools to smooth the sides of the leaf after cutting for smooth edges.
And then paint it just like the other leaves but attach a toothpick to the bottom of this one. Leave it aside to set and dry so that it could stand upright on the cake.

Once all the cakes are baked, let them cool completely before leveling and layering them with buttercream.
Cover and smooth the entire cake with buttercream and pipe a small rope border all around the sides with the star tip number 18.
The first decoration on the cake is the edible image of the Lion King characters in Pride Rock.
Roll some black fondant thin. Attach the edible image onto the fondant with a damp brush. Using a large round cutter, cut out the fondant, making sure the image is right in the center and there is a thin black border around it.
Attach the edible image (along with the black background) onto the front side of the cake with some buttercream. Make sure it is properly centered.
After that, attach all the 4 leaves around the edible image, 2 on the left and 2 on the right. Use buttercream to help attach the leaves if they do not stick to the cake without it.
Next, poke in the Simba cake topper followed by the leave topper.
And finally, finish of the Lion King cake decoration by attaching the alphabets to the cake.