I made this Luau Birthday Cake for my niece’s 5th birthday. I got all of the idea’s online by searching for pictures of luau cakes. I took ideas I liked from the cakes I had seen and combined them to make this cake. This was the funnest cake I’ve made so far.
A few days in advance I made the fondant palm tree. You need to do this in advance because the fondant has to have time to dry. This was the first experience I had with fondant and it was so much fun! I just purchased the premade fondant from the craft store. If you want to make the tree just google search fondant palm tree and you will find directions.
This cake is a 2 layer 11×15. It needs to be 2 layer for the grass skirt effect to look nice. When icing the cake it doesn’t have to be perfect and have smooth sides because you will be covering it with all the different elements of the cake. I just made the icing where the water was a little rough as to look like waves.
1st step: The sand. I used crushed vanilla wafers and sprinkled the crumbs on the top of the cake being careful not to get the crumbs in the water part.
2nd step: Coloring the water. All I did was color piping jell a blue color and just piped over the rough icing.
3rd step: Grass skirt siding. I removed some of the wafer crumbs around the edges so the butter cream was showing. You have to do this so when you do the grass skirt it will stay. I used tip #233 for the grass skirt.
4th step: The hula girl. I used the Wilton mini-wonder pan for the skirt. The doll is a Barbie I purchased at the store. She was the perfect size for the mini-wonder pan. I just put her down through the skirt. It was nice because her feet also went into the cake for a little more stability. Once she was in I used tip #233 again to pipe the grass skirt.
5th step: The flowers around the edges. I used tip #2D for the flowers around the top.
6th step: Placing the palm tree. The palm tree was made by wiring (with floral wire) drinking straws together. I just put skewers (probably 7) in the cake and placed the palm tree over them. The skewers just go into the straws.
Ta-Da! Now you have the Coolest Luau cake! Hope you have as much fun as I did!
Super cute