Shrek Birthday Cake

This is a fun Shrek Birthday Cake that anybody can do! The cake doesn’t even have to be level or smooth… just add flowers and grass and the toys and you’re done!

I have to start this post by admitting, I’m not a fan of the Shrek movies. In all fairness, I’m not a fan of most animated movies, but I did try to watch these (or at least the first two) and I just was not impressed.

However, when I was asked to do this cake I did a quick search of Shrek cake pictures and when I saw the ideas and possibilities, I had to say yes.

Other than not really liking the movies, my only other immediate turn-off about this cake was attempting to make the characters with fondant. She wanted Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey. I knew I wasn’t up to the challenge of such detailed characters, so I asked Lillian’s mom if she minded me using toys and when she said no, I was on board!

Here are a few details of how I made this cake.

Shrek Birthday Cake

First, I made a two layer 8″ round chocolate cake and filled it with cream cheese frosting. Then I had a third layer that I crumbled up and mixed with frosting to get a consistency of maybe Play-Doh.

Actually, it was just like what I use for cake pops, but this time I used it to sculpt the small hills and add the landscape to the cake. Then I covered the whole thing, including the 12″ cake board, with green marshmallow fondant (MMF).

For the tree stump (sorry about Donkey’s butt in the picture…teehee),  I baked 2 cakes in the Mini Wonder Mold, cut off the top of the domes and stacked them for height. They were glued together and covered with with cream cheese buttercream, then chilled really well.

After I took it out of the frig, I rolled out a square of chocolate fondant and gave it the tree texture (see the mats I use on this post). I cut out a circle to cover the top of the stump, then I cut out a rectangle wide and long enough to wrap around the cake.

I laid the tree stump on it’s side and rolled the fondant around it for the look of a tree. I used a lollipop stick to attach it to the cake… it sank a little overnight and that’s it you see sticking up in the middle of the stump (oops!).

Everything else was pretty easy… I used flower cutters from this Wilton Gum Paste Flowers set and this daisy cutters set to do the pink and white flowers (respectively). I made the mushrooms by hand with Satin Ice Red Vanilla fondant and MMF.

I used my grass tip for all the grass on the cake and I used these Wilton Alphabet cutters (my least favorite letter cutters) to make her name.

Don’t misunderstand, I like the way the letters look on cakes, but actually cutting fondant with them is a real pain! Anywho… I added the toys I bought on eBay and wha-la… a really cool (IMHO) Shrek Cake!

Did I miss anything? Any questions about this cake? Please leave them in the comments and I’m happy to answer & help!