How to Make a Cheeseburger Cake + Durable Butter Cake Recipe
A few weeks ago my Daddy asked me to make a cake for him to take to work. He’s never asked me to do a cake for him… I was so excited!! I adore my Daddy and the truth is, my family rarely ask me to do cakes, so it was a treat!
In fact, other than cakes for my kids… I can only think of two or three that I’ve ever done for my immediate family (the Cowboy cake for Tucker was the most recent… then a Trojan Mascot (Teacher Appreciation) cake for my Mama to take to school last year… and… is that all? Maybe so!)
Anyway, Daddy didn’t want just any cake… a coworker of his had found a picture of a cheeseburger cake from Food.com and he asked if I could do it. I said “Yes!!!”
I did make some changes… I used a butter cake (my doctored cake mix recipe below) for the buns and I used homemade vanilla & chocolate buttercream instead of canned frosting. Oh, and I used my homemade sugar cookies recipe for the “tomatoes”.
I baked a level cake (the easy way!) for the bottom bun, but I didn’t use that method for the top bun so it would dome and look more rounded. I still carved it a bit, but not much. After it was said and done, this was a really fun cake. It had lots of components, but still… my kids, my Daddy & his coworkers all loved it!
So, the layers were…
- Butter cake for the buns, two 9″ cakes (covered in chocolate frosting… although I added less cocoa than the full recipe so it wouldn’t be so dark). I carved a curved edge for the top one to mimic a rounded bun.
- Fruit slices candy for the lettuce (rolled thin with a rolling pin).
- Brownie (from a box) for the burger, also baked in a 9″ round pan
- Vanilla buttercream (thinned with milk and orange added to get cheese color).
- Sugar cookies with melted red vanilla buttercream poured over them (and allowed to set)
For the butter cake, I used a mix (as usual – it’s very similar to my vanilla cake recipe) and adapted it to make it denser and more durable for carving. This is also the recipe I use for tiered cakes when someone asks for butter cake…. it’s delish!
photo courtesy of Michael Albritton (one of my Daddy’s coworkers)
Did I miss anything? Any questions about this cake? Please leave them in the comments and I’m happy to answer & help!
Durable Yellow Cake Recipe
- Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Description
This durable hamburger cake is fun to make and fun to eat.
Ingredients
- 1 Butter Cake Mix (I prefer Pillsbury Golden Butter Recipe)
- 1 box (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/3 cup real butter, softened
- 3 large eggs
- 8 oz. sour cream
Instructions
- Thoroughly mix all ingredients together.
- Bake at 325° for about 30-35 minutes (longer, depending on pan size), until the cake springs back when touched. Cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then turn out on a cooling rack.
Notes
*I love to add 1 cup of mini chocolate chips to this recipe for a chocolate chip cake! It’s SO delicious!!
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Category: desserts
Girl, every cake you make gets cooler. 🙂
Thanks Terry!
The cake board this cake is on is awesome. All I can find is the thin cardboard ones. Where can I find this? Your cakes and blog is very inspiring, thanks for all your incite!
Thankyou Rose for all your shared ideas for us amateure bakers. Your cakes are awesome and doable. Have a question. On tiered cakes what is the ideal height of one tier. Some of the pictures show morthan a 4 inch norm. Or is it the way the pic is taken. Thankyou for helping.
Mine usually end up being between 4.5 to 5 inches tall.
Thankyou Rose for your input. Love your page and prompt
Replies.
How neat! I am impressed with how you got the “cheese” to droop just perfectly without falling down!
Thanks Megan.. honestly, I thought I had made it too thin – I was sure it was going to drip right off! But I put it straight into the frig to get it to set and then it was fine!
Wow this looks great!
In fact I am just having a cup of English tea and would love a slice of this cake to go with it! 🙂
Thank you much!
This cake looks fantastic!
Can hardly believe it’s a cake
Thanks!
Hi Rose,
Thanks so much for linking up to Creative Thursday this week. This is BEAUTIFUL! I can’t believe how real it looks. How long did it take? Thank you so much for sharing.
Can’t wait to see what you link up next week.
Have a great week,
Michelle
Thanks Michelle! Not counting the baking time or making the frosting, I probably put the whole thing together in less than an hour! It’s really not hard at all!
Okay, that is beyond awesome. 🙂
Hi! I m very happy to found your page! But I have a little problem to follow your recipes because I m from Costa Rica and we don’t have sour cream, can I substituted that ingredient whit anything else? Thank you!
A friend of mine has substituted plain yogurt in place of sour cream and said to worked very well!
OMG!!! This looks amazing. I just got into decorating cakes and found your site today while looking for something. I really love your site. You have amazing tips for cakes, candies, and more. I will definitely be making this cake soon!!
I hope it works out beautifully for you and I’m so glad to have you reading RoseBakes.com!
Rose, love this cake! What is the size of the Pillsbury mix needed? I’m wondering if the recipe needs extra mix according to one of your posts on “retooling” mixes for changes in sizes.
It’s not absolutely necessary, but as a habit now, I had an extra 3 oz. of cake mix or flour to every 15.25 oz. box of cake mix. I primarily use Pillsbury with Pudding in the Mix. Either white, yellow, butter, etc. For this particular recipe, I used Butter flavored cake mix.
1 box of cake mix for bottom and top bun? And add 3 oz of flour to it?
It’s been years since I made this cake, but you’ll need two cakes mixes for two 9″ pans and then you’ll probably have some leftover batter.
Hi Rose,
Is the butter in this recipe salted or unsalted? Thank you! !
I use salted! 🙂
How do you melt the buttercream to pour over sugar cookies? Thanks.
I microwave it for a few seconds.
Hi. Can you tell me how you melt buttercream to decorate cookies?
Thank you.
I melt it for a few seconds in the microwave until it gets runny.
I truly really like this recipe and the specific twist that
you have put on it. Pretty smart. I’m probably going to be
cooking this for my partner next week and I’ll let you know on how I get
on. Thank you for the great idea!
I am so excited to try these for my amateur cake decorating. I have been branching out into carved things a bit and definitely needed more structure than i have achieved. I typically use whatever cake mix is on sale, but Pillsbury is my fave. (I did a comparison with cupcakes and think Duncan hines came is second) My favorite has been pillsbury as well. I am going to have to buy a food scale to do what you suggest so for this go round (at a late hour) i’ll look up cake doctor’s flour trick. Thanks for sharing both. Fortunately,my “clients” are all friends, so if something doesn’t work perfectly they are still amazed. i look forward to having some new things to practice.
Made hamburger cake was a big hit with both kids and adults. Used the butter cream frosting tinted green, and a little thicker for lettuce, yellow and running for cheese.