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Coolest Butterfly Cake Ideas and Decorating Tips

I made this butterfly cake for a friend’s little girl. It was a fairly easy cake. I used two rectangular cakes and joined them together. I then drew a butterfly and cut around it. I covered the cake with sugar paste and made the inserts out of sugar paste. I used different sized glasses to cut out the circular sections for the body and then cut out the head. I used some colored sugar for the cheeks and to go around the outside of the wings.

More Butterfly Cake Ideas

Cake by Dena K., Williamsburg, OH

Butterfly Cake Photo

I was totally inspired by your wonderful website! As you can tell by my color choices and design I was specifically going for a replica of another one of the submissions for a butterfly cake on this page. The theme for my daughter’s first birthday was butterflies and this was perfect!

The cake was strawberry because I wanted it to be pink inside with purple icing. I used four 9″ rounds, one each for the top part of the wings and then I had to engineer the bottom halves of the wings from the other two rounds.

I was so excited to find icing color tint by Wilton. I loved getting the rich bright color results. The butterfly cake was a hit! I can’t wait to do her next one! Thank you for this website, it’s a true inspiration!

Cake by Elaine A., Poway, CA

Butterfly Cake Photo

I got the idea for a butterfly cake from this website. I make this cake as a cake donation for a cake walk at a local school. I started with two boxes of cake mix and two 6 inch round pans and one 9 inch round pan.

After the cakes cooled I placed them onto a baking sheet and cut the bigger round cake into pieces that would fit the look of a butterfly. Then I iced it all and put rolled fondant and decorated with fondant.

Cake by Stephanie B., Decatur, AL

Butterfly Cake Photo

My sister adores butterflies and for her birthday asked if I could make her a purple butterfly. This is the Wiltons butterfly pan and for the icing colors I found the neon colors food dye and followed the directions on the box for the color mixtures.

I also had an idea about “bug guts” so the inside of this white cake was dyed neon green! So while you’re cutting it has a glowing green inside!

I found that regular food coloring works better for my buttercream to get the right colors than the Wilson gel color, and it only takes a little color to get what you need!

Cake by Deidre Z., Tomahawk, WI

Butterfly Cake Photo

This butterfly cake was two 10″ round cakes layered with butter cream frosting and raspberry filling. The butterflies, dragonflies and flowers on the cake and on the sticks are all sugar cookies decorated with butter cream frosting.

The butterfly on the smash cake was made the same way. The butterflies on the side of the cake were made by pushing the small butterfly cookie cutter into the frosted cake and tracing it with a thin line of frosting

This butterfly cake was easy to do but very time consuming. I did it in stages. I made the cookies and froze them. Then decorated and froze them. Then I made the cake and froze it (easier to trim down and frost if it’s frozen) then frosted it and decorated it the night before.

Butterfly Cake Photo

The large butterflies on the sides of the cake were cut in half before baking. I then put them at angle on the cake to form a 3D effect. I put a thick line of frosting down the middle of the butterfly.

Cake by Holly G., Mount Orab, OH

Butterfly Cake Photo

I made this butterfly cake for a friend’s daughter’s first birthday. It is an 11×15 cake iced smooth with white icing. I traced a picture from an Anne Geddes picture onto tracing paper.

I then traced the picture with piping gel onto wax paper. I placed the wax paper with the piping gel side down and was able to transfer the image. I then used different size star tips to decorate the top of the cake and the image.

Cake by Liz P., Webster, MA

Butterfly Cake Photo

My daughter wanted a butterfly cake for her sixth birthday so I turned to the coolest birthday cakes website for inspiration from all the wonderful submissions. And this is what I came up with. I decided to use my Wilton 12″x18″ sheet pan for each side of this cake (two boxes of yellow mix and two boxes of chocolate mix). I then used confectioner’s sugar to outline the wings before I cut them out.

Next I frosted it with white frosting to lock in all the crumbs and then I used a toothpick to scratch the inner wing design before I used two tubes of black Wilton frosting. I then filled in all the other colors with Wilton star tips. We had a tough time getting the color purple we wanted but we were still real happy with this butterfly cake.

Cake by Julie F., Smithfield, UT

Butterfly Cake Photo

I baked two round cakes a day ahead and froze them. Each round became a wing of the butterfly cake. I cut each one in the shape of a butterfly wing. The center of the butterfly (the body) was comprised of 2 HO HO’s end to end.

I frosted the cakes pink and decorated them with mini Oreo’s. I also used mini Oreo’s on the body and put green skittles for decoration. The eyes are blue skittles. The head of the butterfly is a regular Oreo placed on top of one of the HO HO’s. The antenna is chocolate licorice with the other side of the mini Oreo for the balls at the end of the antennae with green skittles on top. The cream side of the mini Oreo’s is the eyes that the blue skittles are on.

Cake by Sarah S., Manassas, VA

Butterfly Cake Photo

We originally got the idea for a butterfly cake from the internet and improvised from there. We baked a round layer pan with a little less than one full box of cake mix. We then cut the cake in half vertically and flipped it to where the straight lines were on the outside.

Then we cut a wedge out of each piece along the straight outside pieces of the cake at about a 45 degree angle and about an inch wide. Then we placed a Twinkie in between to create the body.

Once that was complete we added the frosting which we smoothed by dipping a spreader or a butter knife in cold water to keep the frosting from sticking.

Butterfly Cake Photo

For the color of the butterfly cake we used the edible spray paint and did a layer of pink on the bottom with pink on top covering the body so that we could spray it yellow. We then added a bit of yellow edible glitter for a shiny effect and it turned out quite nice!

Cake by Vanessa T., Norwich, UK

Butterfly Cake Photo

This butterfly cake is made by cutting a round cake in half, then cutting a triangle out of the middle of each half (flat side). Then put the two triangles together as a square to make the head, then make the wings from the two halves, back to back.

Cake by Abigail S., Roseburg, OR

Butterfly Cake Photo

My husband and I made this butterfly cake together for our daughters first birthday. We were semi inspired by the butterfly in Bugs Life.

For the wings I baked two regular rectangle cakes. I enlarged a picture of a butterfly so that each wing filled up a full page and printed it. Then I cut out each wing laid the paper one wing on top of each cake and cut it out. To make the wings raised we cut out wings from foam board and propped them up under the cake wings.

My Husband sculpted the body from two loaf sized cakes. And then I frosted with a star shaped frosting tip.

Cake by Rachael S., Galesville, WI

Butterfly Cake Photo

I made this butterfly cake for my niece’s 1st birthday. She loved butterflies so that’s what we decided to do.

I outlined the shape of a butterfly onto a sheet cake with a knife then waited until it was cooled and shaved off the edges around the outline I made up the design and went from there. I also used a Wilton pan for the mini cake so she could have her own cake to dive into! This was very easy and she loved it!


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