Big Little Miss M requested a 5th birthday with everything unicorn and rainbow... so off to Google, pinterest and all about to find some inspiration to make a Homemade Rainbow Unicorn Cake. The final product was a blend of about 5 or so different cakes I'd seen photo's of with touches of my own desire.
The base slab cake that the unicorn sits on is made up of a seven layered rainbow cake.
I made the rainbow, tie die fondant by making up 2 long skinny sausages of fondant in each color and then randomly twisting two colors together and then twisting all the twists into a big thick rope.
I then spiraled them into a snail like shape and then rolled it out thereby creating the lovely multicolored effect. Keep rolling to a minimum as you don't want to end up with a mucky khaki blob of fondant.
To roll it out super thin and smooth I used one of my new favourite kitchen thingys... simply called "The mat" which basically is two large clear food grade sheets of plastic that the fondant is rolled between. It also makes getting the fondant onto the cake super easy... I ordered my mat here in Oz from Cakes by Karen... watch the video on the link when you get a moment - I promise you it REALLY is as easy as it looks!!!
The horn was made using a white and rainbow colored fondant sausages twisted and tapered to a horn shape around a wooden skewer and sprinkled with edible gold glitter with the very tip dipped in glitter for a solid sparkle tip.
The rainbow fondant curlicues were made by rolling multiple color strips of the fondant side by side very thin and slicing strips to curl around a chopstick, sliding them off and setting them aside to harden ahead of time.
The unicorn is made using the Wilton Little Lamb Cake pan. I trimmed off the ears and shaped the head a little whilst also molding legs and the nose using a biscuit cake pop mix.
Now I warn you, it's not pretty at this stage... in fact it's quite fugly. I honestly began to wonder at this point if my girls cake was going to be the most ugly, wrong looking unicorn cake in the history of unicorn cakes!!!
The nose was molded around a small toothpick to make attaching easier. The whole unicorn shape was then crumb coated and butter creamed.
I used white homemade marshmallow fondant to cover the unicorn - this was a little tricky to try to not have too many seams or joins. Believe me I sat and simply stared at my rolled out fondant on the mat and the cake above for quite some time just trying to get my head around how I could get the fondant on and over all the shapes. In the end I just went for it... I know, I know, your probably thinking... reckless, regular wild one here... oh, how domesticated my life is - if only you knew people, if only you knew (we all have background stories don't we that feel like another lifetime ago... maybe I was reckless once but now... fondant brashness is it - for now anyways).
I ultimately used two pieces and had the seam/join below the chin and behind the head where the mane covered most of the join. I rubbed some gorgeous translucent edible glitter over the entire body - but in truth I think the two photos above are about the only two where you can see the glitter sheen/sparkle.
I rolled out some pink fondant to cover the unicorns hooves and the eyes and lashes were cut from colored fondant and then attached with fondant glue.
Grrr... that black smudge above the eyelash irritates the bahjeezus outta me!
I then piped small amounts of butter cream to attach the tail and mane curls. The horn was simply attached with the skewer it was wrapped around and the ears made from fondant were attached into indents with a little fondant glue.
The cake was a huge hit with the children and adults alike and I was very happy with the results... but most importantly - my beautiful birthday girl LOVED it!
It might look tricky or daunting to take on but seriously if you don't try you'll never know... you just might surprise yourself!
If you want the recipe I use for either the buttercream or marshmallow fondant CLICK HERE to go to the post I did some time ago – the recipes are within the post!
And as always I love knowing the SOMEONE is reading along or enjoying my ever so sporadic blogging… feel free to pop a comment my way, say hi, ask me to clarify – as it’s late here and what makes sense to me may, in the light of day be a muddle!
