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Tiered Unicorn Cake
The endlessly-popular Unicorn Cake - sized to serve a party! Don't be intimidated; this tiered Unicorn Cake is easier than you think!
Equipment
- Baker's floured cooking spray (you can use grease and parchment rounds, but I usually just use this floured spray!)
- 1 10 inch cardboard cake circle (8" would work, but moving the cake is easier with a larger circle)
- Cake leveler (or a serrated knife + ruler)
- large offset spatula (to spread frosting)
- cake scraper or pastry cutter (to smooth frosting)
- 5 Cake dowels or large plastic straws (I usually use dark straws, so they're visible when cutting the cake)
- Ruler (for spacing dowels or straws and centering top tier)
- 2 large piping bags + star tips (I used the large open star and French star tips; linked is a set that contains bags & both tips)
- 2 small piping bags + tips (linked is a set that contains bags & both tips)
- 1 textured cake comb (optional; but I loved the look this Wilton comb gave the base tier)
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake Layers: (1.5x)
- 4 ½ cups all purpose flour (525g)
- 3 1/3 cups caster sugar (675g)
- 1 ¼ cups cocoa powder (150g)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter (3 sticks, softened)
- 6 large eggs (room temperature)
- 2 1/4 cups buttermilk (500mL)
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting – 2x recipe
- 16 ounces cream cheese (two packages; softened)
- 2 cups butter (4 sticks, softened)
- 12 cups powdered sugar
- 4-6 Tablespoons milk
- 2 Tablespoons clear vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)
- 2-4 drops soft pink gel food coloring (save & add later)
- 2-4 drops yellow gel food coloring (save & add later)
- 2-4 drops teal gel food coloring (save & add later)
- 2-4 drops Purple gel food coloring (save & add later)
Decorations
- 1 Unicorn decorating set (you can use a packaged set or make your own with fondant, lustre dust, and a bit of black icing! A several great tutorials (like this one) are available on YouTube!)
- Gold pearlized sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
Cake layers
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180C). Prepare 3 8-inch cake pans and 2 6-inch pans with baker's floured spray (or grease and line pans with parchment paper).
- Mix together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt) in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle (or hand mixer or whisk) until well combined.
- Add in bits of softened butter, mixing until no lumps of butter are visible and the mixture looks crumbly.
- Whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and mix until no dry ingredients are visible. Scrape down the bowl and beat for another 20 seconds.
- Fill your pans evenly - I find a kitchen scale helpful for this part. I had about 550 grams in my 8-inch pans, and about 375 in my 6-inch pans. Bake for 30-35 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow cake layers to cool for 10-15 minutes on a wire cooling rack before removing from pans, and cool completely before frosting. Set in the fridge or freezer to accelerate the cooling process if desired.
- While you’re waiting…make your frosting!
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- Beat together softened cream cheese and butter; slowly add in powdered sugar alternating with milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. Add vanilla and salt and beat until well combined.
Assembly
- Once the layers have fully cooled, they can be leveled if needed with a leveler or serrated knife and ruler. (Be sure the layers are completely cooled or chilled before trimming. If you try to trim the layers while they’re still warm, they will crumble apart.)
- Place a smear of frosting on your cake circles (to keep the cakes from sliding while you decorate) and center an 8-inch cake layer in the center of the large cake circle. Spread the layer with frosting and add the next layer on top. Repeat the process with your remaining cake layers.
- Next, repeat the same process with your smaller cardboard circle and cake layers. Of note – if your circles aren’t pre-center-punched, be sure to grab a dowel or straw and make your own hole in the exact center of the circle! This will allow you to center the top tier on the base tier later on.
- Now you're ready to crumb-coat . If you're unfamiliar with crumb-coating, it's just what it sounds like – spreading a thin layer of frosting over the entire outside of the cake tiers to keep crumbs out of your final layer.
- Once your crumb coats have set (this takes about 5-10 minutes in the fridge), add your final layers of frosting and smooth. I like to use a large offset spatula and bench scraper for this part, and I used an icing comb to texture my base tier.
- For my larger tier, I was able to smooth the frosting fairly well free-handed, but I struggled getting the sides smoothed on my smaller one. Trimming the layers just smaller than the cake circle and using the cardboard as a guide for my bench scraper worked well for smoothing the frosting on the top tier! Once your cakes are covered, place them into the fridge or freezer to set the frosting.
Okaaaay. The stacking process!
- ‘How to Make a Tiered Cake’ by Chelsweets is still my favorite video tutorial to date – sometimes seeing the process can be very helpful!
- Basically, doweling a tiered cake is done to ensure that the top tier doesn’t crush the lower tier, as well as keeping it centered. I used four shorter cut-to-height plastic straws for my base tier dowels, and one taller one cut at an angle in the center to hold my top tier in place.
- Grab your ruler for this next part! Push the straws/dowels (cut to the height of the cake) down into the base tier just over one inch from the cake edge, placing them evenly at quarter intervals around the cake. Place your last, tallest straw or dowel into the exact center of the cake, making sure to keep it straight up as you press down. Now you’re ready – center the hole in the bottom of your top tier cake circle over the tallest dowel and let the top tier gently down onto the base tier. The dowel will poke into the center of the top tier to hold it in place.
The fun part - Decorating!
- I found that my cardboard cake circle showed more than I was happy with, so I piped some extra frosting onto the base of the top tier and added some sprinkles to hide it.
- (I placed my unicorn horn / ears at the beginning so I could pipe around them, but you can add them at the end if you prefer!)
- To pipe on the unicorn ‘mane,’ split remaining frosting into four parts, and color them purple, pink, yellow, and teal. Transfer your colored frosting to each of four piping bags fitted with piping nozzles – I used a variety of mostly star-shaped tips, but you can use whatever shape you would like!
- I started with the larger piping bags and piped a large rosette onto the unicorn’s ‘forehead’, and worked my way backward from there. I love being able to see the mane when looking at the cake from the front, so my unicorn had a very wide mane of frosting decorations, but you can make it as wide or narrow as you choose.
- Add (or pipe) unicorn eyes to the front of the top cake tier.
- (Optional - add some pearlized sprinkles to the frosting for a bit of extra shine!)
- Step back, admire your cake, and find someone to give you a high-five! (Shoot me a DM on Instagram if you can’t find anyone right away!) Enjoy!
Video
Notes
(Please note nutrition information is an estimate and may not be exactly accurate.)
Nutrition
Serving: 1slice (1/24th cake)Calories: 745kcalCarbohydrates: 103gProtein: 9gFat: 38g
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