Unicorn Birthday Cake
Happy birthday to Isabelle! (and me – we celebrated a joint birthday for us together)
Big milestones this past year have been starting preschool, continuing to improve her speech, starting phonetics, and having an active imagination. Isabelle continues to be a doting big sister, although Alanna is old enough for them to have sisterly squabbles.


She continues to be a girly girl and loves her dresses, pigtails, and fashion accessories. She loves playing “family”, hide and seek, monster (chase), and Izzy’s Kitchen/Restaurant/Ice Cream Shop. I happy to see she has made some friends at school and her best friend Sarah from my residency friends.
She loves her stuffed animals and “small pillow”. She is a great artist and loves coloring with crayons and markers. We’ve introduced her to hiking at Olympic National Park (so proud of her hiking a few 1-1.5 mile hikes on her own) and swimming.
Isabelle has an excellent memory which she will use mom and dad’s rules against us (“Daddy, you can’t sit too close to the TV!”) and a remarkable sense of direction – if I get lost or take a wrong turn driving, she immediately knows this isn’t the route (“Where are we going, mommy?”). She got an animal matching memory game from the grandparents and is pretty good at it!
Like her parents, Izzy LOVES vacations. We had some major trips the past year, and she eagerly asks about our next vacations (“Mommy can we go to vacation in Hawaii again? I like Hawaii”). We told that alas, we have to work to pay for vacations, which is a disappointing revelation to her.

Isabelle has been obsessed with space so I offered her a space themed cake vs a unicorn themed cake, and to my surprise she really wanted the unicorn cake. I’ve been wanting to make this viral unicorn birthday for a long time now, so no complaints from me. Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.


This cake uses a lot of frosting and took a lot of extra butter since the first batch was messed up. The butter brand I used was so yellow that it was difficult to get the colors right. As always, every cake decorating seems to be a mad race against the clock, but I finished in the knick of time.
Unicorn Birthday Cake
Ingredients
- Chocolate cake (your preferred recipe or a box mix)
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 5 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted (additional as needed)
- 3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons milk (additional as needed)
- Food coloring (I used pink, purple, and blue)
- raspberry jam
- Unicorn cake topper (mine is from Amazon)
- Sprinkles
Instructions
- CAKE: Prepare your chocolate cake recipe and make three 6 inch rounds.
- FROSTING: Cream butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until smooth and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar. Beat in milk and vanilla extract. Set aside 1/3 of the frosting for the colors.
- ASSEMBLY: Stack the cake layers and apply raspberry jam in between the layers. Apply the white frosting crumb coat (a thin frosting across the cake that will seal in any loose crumbs) to the cake and chill for 30 min. When you're ready to decorate, apply a thicker layer of white frosting with a large offset spatula.
- Divide the reserved frosting into 3-4 portions and add desired colors by adding small amounts of food coloring with a toothpick. To create variance in colors, I first started with light colors and added more drops to make the brighter colors. I used 1M, 4B, and 2D piping tips in disposable piping bags to create the unicorn mane. Add sprinkles and add the unicorn cake topper pieces when ready to serve. Enjoy!
Notes
Sift confectioners sugar and make sure the butter is at room temperature- this is necessary for a smooth frosting.
Use a paddle attachment (not the whisk) to reduce air bubbles in the frosting.
Not all butter color is the same – I found Challenge butter to be the whitest.
I keep a cup of hot water to dip my knife/scraper for smoothing the frosting.
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