How to Make a Trolls Cake

This year for her birthday Miss O wanted a Trolls theme. It seems those creepy little dolls from the 70s are making a comeback thanks to an admittedly adorable movie last year. She loves the songs, the characters, and cheesy jokes. Below you will see how I made this cake, with figurines and did it all on a small budget. I also will share where I got what is needed to create this same theme.

I’m not a baker, of course, but I do enjoy making a fun birthday cake for my girl each year, as long as it’s just once a year. Last year I decided to go for height and make a 4-layer drip cake, this year I wanted to do something a little easier to transport.

As always, I use this trick from Budget Savvy to get my boxed cake mix to taste homemade. Miss O wanted both chocolate and vanilla so I made 2 9×13″ sheet cakes. To get them to flatten out I covered each with parchment paper, then I placed large books on top of the parchment until the cakes cooled. They came out perfectly flat.

For the frosting I use this recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything. I’m not a big frosting fan – it’s too sweet – but this is seriously THE BEST FROSTING I’VE EVER HAD. I could eat a bowl of it for dinner. I make a double batch for this cake so I’m certain to have enough, plus some for eating.

When assembling your cake, if you’re using chocolate and vanilla like I did, put the chocolate on the bottom, cover with a layer of frosting, then carefully place the vanilla cake on top.  Use the frosting to crumb coat the top and sides.  (A crumb coat is a light covering of frosting that catches crumbs from the cake so they don’t get mixed in with the top coat of frosting.)  Place the cake in the fridge for at least an hour, uncovered.

When you take it out of the fridge, cover the top of the cake with a nice, thick layer of frosting.  No need to save any, so go wild.

The rainbow piping is fresh whipped cream.  Mix 6 cups of heavy whipping cream, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla until light and fluffy.  Separate the finished cream into 6 medium-sized bowls, then add food coloring to each bowl – pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.  I highly recommend Americolor Soft Gel Paste food color.  It’s the kind Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) uses, and that’s good enough for me!

Fill a piping bag with your purple whipped cream and pipe around the bottom edge of the cake.  Do the same with the blue, green, etc. until your rainbow is complete.  Depending on the height of your cake and thickness of your piping, your rainbow make come onto the top of the cake (like mine did).

On top of the cake I added this adorable Troll cake topper set – I didn’t actually use all the pieces – and a couple of rainbow candies I had left over from the cupcakes I sent in to her classroom.  Personally, I like a little white space, but you can feel free to load up your cake with whatever you like.

I have to say this cake was a HUGE hit. Kids at the party couldn’t stop staring at it, everyone loved the taste, and best of all, Miss O was thrilled.

Stay tuned for Monday’s post. I’ll be sharing all the other details of Miss O’s Trolls themed party, including how I pulled it off without buying a ton of expensive character/licensed products.