Here’s a fun tutorial on how I made my cute chicken cake! For ease, I used my favorite boxed cake mix and store-bought blueberry jam, but made homemade Swiss meringue buttercream. This tutorial is enough to make two small chickens, but you can always make one larger one!
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❤️ Why You’ll Love This Tutorial
- It’s easy to make! I baked my cake batter in a 15″x11″ jelly roll pan, then used round cookie cutters to cut out 4 layers of the cake. Feel free to use any round cookie cutter sizes you want and make as many small or big chickens as you’d like!
- It’s extremely versatile. You can use any cake, filling, and frosting recipe. Plus, you can decorate it with different sprinkles, mini cookies, and icing! You can even use the base to make different birds: pigeons, crows, etc!
Looking for more cute recipes? Try out my pig snickerdoodles!
Ingredients
- Use your favorite cake recipe! For ease, I used my favorite boxed yellow cake mix and baked it into a 15″x11″ jelly roll pan.
- For the filling, go with whatever your heart desires. I used store-bought blueberry jam and made my Swiss meringue buttercream recipe, which is 1 part egg whites : 2 parts sugar : 3 parts butter by weight! You can flavor it with vanilla or almond extract.
- If dying the meringue different colors, I recommend gel food coloring over liquid, because just a few drops go a very long way!
For the full list of ingredients and measurements, see the recipe card below.
💡Tip
- If making the Swiss meringue buttercream from scratch, make sure your equipment is very clean and dry before making the meringue! If there are any traces of fat or grease on your bowls or whisk, the egg whites will not whip up well. For extra precaution, feel free to wipe down your equipment with some white vinegar, then dry well.
How to Make A Chicken cake
Step 1: Bake your cake and let it cool. I baked a boxed yellow cake mix into a 15″x11″x rimmed pan, which was enough to make 2 small chickens. For each chicken, I cut out three 4-inch circles for the body and two 2-inch circles for the head.
Step 2: Layer your cakes with frosting and blueberry jam. Make the body and head separately, then attach them using toothpicks to secure them together.
Step 3: Using an offset spatula, crumb coat your cake with frosting. Let chill in the fridge for 10-15 minutes for the frosting to harden.
Step 4: Decorate to your heart’s desire! I first decorated the entire chicken with white frosting using a leaf tip. Then, I dyed some frosting pink, orange, red, and black for the details, and green for the grass. Enjoy!
For full instructions, see the recipe card below.
Storage
Store cake in a box or plastic cake carrier in the fridge for up to 5 days. When ready to eat, let it sit at room temperature for about an hour so the buttercream softens.
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Thank you so much! -Bianca ❤️
📖 Recipe & Video
Chicken Cake
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Equipment
- jelly roll pan 15"x11"
- Round cookie cutters 4" and 2"
Ingredients
- 1 box (22.5 g) yellow cake mix Feel free to use any flavor cake mix, or your favorite cake recipe
- 6 cups frosting I made 1x batch of my Swiss meringue buttercream
- jam optional for the filling! I used blueberry jam, but you can also use ganache, curd, mousse, etc.
- gel food coloring I used pink, orange, red, green, and black
Instructions
Bake cake:
- Line a 15"x11" jelly roll or rimmed baking pan with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven and prepare 1 box (22.5 g) yellow cake mix batter according to package directions.
- Pour cake batter onto lined pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean with a few crumbs. Let completely cool in pan.
- Pour batter onto jelly roll pan and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely, about 45 minutes.
Assemble chicken:
- Use round cookie cutters to cut out your layers. I decorated two chicken cakes.Each cake had three 4-inch circles for the body and two 2-inch circles for the head.
- Begin building your chicken! I started off with the body first: I laid down one 4-inch cake layer, topped it with Swiss meringue buttercream with jam in the middle, and repeated with the other two 4-inch layers.For the head, I did similarly with the two 2-inch cake layers.
- Attach the head and the body using toothpicks and crumb coat the entire cake with your frosting. Let sit in the fridge for 15-20 minutes for the frosting to harden and the cake to be a bit sturdier.
- Pipe feathers on the cake using a leaf tip. Make the tail and wings by piping the frosting on top of itself.Dye remaining frosting red, orange, black, and pink for the chicken details, and green for the grass. Add eyes, blush, the beak, and red pieces.
- Enjoy! Serve at room temperature so the frosting is soft!
