Owl Cake Tutorial

If I had to choose a favorite cake that I make, it would be a toss up between the monster cake (tutorial here) and this owl cake. Most of the time I make this cake for little 1 year olds to smash. But this week I got to make this owl cake for our school secretary. {Intercom beep} “Mrs. Ferrie?” “Yes?” “Can I please get an absent slip?” “Oh, oh…yes! Right away!” That is the conversation that I get to have with her every day! Isn’t she lucky? (Okay, so it’s not every day but it must feel like it for her!)Terri is like an angel at our school! She not only puts up with mine, and all the other staff’s, procrastination and forgotten deadlines. But she reminds us with a smile on her face, even after the third or fourth reminder. She keeps everything ship shape and running smoothly. While running the whole school and keeping me on my toes, she also plays school nurse to puking and upset kids. Her job is busy. Her job is never ceasing. Her job is a thousand jobs in one. I think she needs a hug! But instead of giving her hug for her birthday this year, I decided to give her something that she mentioned liking a few months ago. An owl cake!

If you swing by the office at school, you will quickly notice a very strong, but well done, owl theme going on. She has cute little owls all over the place, even on the sheets for the sick bed that’s set up in her office. Since I’ve been wanting to write up a little owl tutorial for awhile, I stole the chance to kill two birds with one stone. Terri got a cake and I got to take pictures of the process.

What you will need:

2 six inch round cake layers
1 half of a ball cake layer
2 cups of chocolate frosting {Like my Whipped Buttercream} or white coloured icing
8 inch foil cake board or cake platter
1A round decorator’s tip
decorator bag
A few balls of coloured fondant
Round cutters – 1 1/2 inch, 2 inch, 3/4 inch (or base of 1A tip)

1. Start by baking your cakes.

2. Stack the layers with your icing in between and give the cakes a crumb coat.

It’s doesn’t have to be super pretty. It’s getting covered up anyway! Place it in the fridge to set up the icing.

3. While the cake is chillin’ in the fridge, color the fondant you would like for the belly of the owl.

I used some chocolate fondant that I just lightened up by adding pieces of white to each ball. You can also color some yellow and black fondant at this time.

4. Roll out your balls and cut out the circles using the 1 1/2 inch cutter.

You will need 5 dark, 4 1/2 medium/dark, 4 medium/light, 3 light. Start on the bottom with the darkest colour if you want an ombre look but you can also just randomly place them on the cake like I did for the more colourful owls in the picture at the top!

5. Once your belly feathers are in place, you are ready to frost the rest of the bird.

Place your 1A round tip in the bottom of your decorator bag and add your frosting of choice. I’m using Whipped Chocolate Buttercream.

6. Start by piping dots all around the bottom of the cake.

7. Take your decorators spatula and press into the ball and swipe up.

8. Make your way around the whole cake.

9. Add a row of dots above the first row and do the same thing. Continue this row by row until you get to the top.

10. Next we need to make the eyes and beek.

Take some golden yellow fondant and create a little round cone by shaping with your hands. Then use a 2 inch circle cutter to cut the base of the eye, 1 1/2 inch to cut the black eyeball and the top of a 2A/1A tip for the white reflection spot. You can also roll 6 small balls for the claws of the bird!

11. Place the eyes on first, putting them close together.

Then using a toothpick inserted in the beak, place it between the eyes. Place the yellow balls in sets of three at the bottom of the cake for the feet.