How to Make a Minecraft Cake

May 20, 2015 by Jennifer Lori 11 Comments

From the lootbags to the toppers, next up in the Minecraft-themed birthday party is the yummiest part… the cake!

Jakob turned 8 over the weekend.

I know. I don’t know where the time went. I’ve been blogging since before he was born, and now he’s 8 and such a good kid. Of course he wants a Minecraft-themed party too, but, um, I haven’t begun to do anything for it yet, so instead I’ll finish showing you what I’d done for Henri’s Minecraft party, back in January.

To be honest, it’s not my favorite-looking cake. I’m a lot prouder of the loot bags and the toppers than I am of how the cake turned out. But- and here’s the important part- HE loved it. (And it was delicious).

I started out by baking 2 9×11 chocolate cakes. My kids prefer vanilla but going for the ‘dirt’ look I knew it would be easier on me to have a chocolate base in case the chocolate icing didn’t fully cover everything. I also filled an 8×8 greased dish with blue Jell-O prepared as Jigglers, and set that to chill.

When I sat down to work on it I didn’t have a plan. I knew I’d baked enough cake to stack layers, similar to the grass in the forest biomes. (Yes, I play LOL). I knew I had enough chocolate icing to slap it all together. I knew I had a finite amount of “water cubes”, so I started with that.

I turned the Jell-O out onto a mat and squared the edges, then cut it into 2″ sections. Then, after leveling the cakes, I used toothpicks to divide the cakes into 2″ sections as well. Then I began to cut. I held my platter over the cake to figure out how much to cut off to make it fit along at least 2 sides, and then cut away enough of the ‘front’ to fit the water ‘cubes’. Then I cut the upper layers, holding and testing until I had something that had as little waste as possible while still looking as ‘unboring’ as I could manage. (Technical term).

I stuck the upper layers down with icing then dirty iced the whole thing before sticking it in the fridge a few minutes to set up. Then I gave all the sides a thicker coating of chocolate icing. The ‘grass’ was piped with a star tip and not-completely-mixed vanilla icing and green icing gels, so there’s a slight variation in the color. I was hoping that the shading, along with the star tip, would help it look ‘pixellated’ like the game. I also piped some areas, leaving others blank, so as I ran low on icing and mixed in more, the colors would be different even within those areas. (Best seen in the overhead view, above).

I placed the Jell-O in only AFTER the cake had chilled for a few hours. I was afraid one would leech water out of the other and that I’d end up with a gooey, dissolving mess. Then, at the party, I stuck the figures on just before serving, including tucking Mr. Squid under a few water cubes.

Even though I wasn’t as crazy about it, the kids loved it, the birthday boy loved it, and there were enough fondant figures so everyone who wanted one got one to eat. (Apologies to their parents for any resulting sugar-rush).The great thing about Minecraft is that it’s SUPPOSED to look boxy – it’s all squares! So whether it’s by shaping a cake, cutting rice krispy treats into cubes, or cutting brownie squares and topping them with green-tinted shredded coconut, there are a ton of ways you can make an easily-recognizable Minecraft cake.