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31 Incredible Birthday Cake Designs

Step-by-step recipes, designs and color pics of the easiest (and cutest) birthday cakes for boys and girls

Ingredients:

• 1 (13 by 9-inch) cake
• 2 cans (16 oz each) vanilla frosting
• Green food coloring
• Red food coloring
• Yellow food coloring
• 1 bag (16 oz) M&M's
• 2 blue Jolly Rancher Fruit Chews
• 2 brown M&M's Minis
• 2 strawberry-flavored Mentos
• 1 pink jelly bean
• 4 pieces Big Red chewing gum
• 1 red M&M's Minis

What you'll need:

• A bread knife
• A small paring knife
• A serrated knife
• 3 resealable sandwich-size plastic bags (Ziploc)

Trimming the cake:

1. Place cake on a clean work surface. Using a bread knife, trim the top of the cake to make it level. Following template, cut out shape with a small paring knife. Transfer the cake to a serving platter.

For the green, pink, white, and yellow frosting:

1. Spoon the contents of one can of vanilla frosting into a bowl. Tint the frosting green with the green food coloring.
2. In a separate bowl, tint ½ cup of vanilla frosting light pink with the red food coloring.
3. Spoon 1 Tbsp of vanilla frosting into a small bowl and add enough red food coloring to tint it dark red. Spoon into a small resealable plastic bag.
4. Spoon 1 Tbsp of the untinted vanilla frosting into another small resealable plastic bag.
5. Tint the remaining vanilla frosting bright yellow with the yellow food coloring. Spoon ¾ cup of the yellow frosting into a resealable plastic bag.

Frosting the cake:

1. Spread the face area with the pink frosting and make smooth.
2. Spread the remaining yellow frosting on the top and sides of the hair area.
3. Spread the green frosting over the body area and make smooth.
4. To add scales to her tail, attach green, yellow, and blue M&M's all over the mermaid's body in clusters of 3, as pictured.
5. Roll out the blue fruit chews and cut out ¼ by 2-inch triangles. Attach triangles to the tail fin.

For the finishing touches:

1. Snip very small corners from the bags of white, red, and yellow frosting.
2. Pipe white dots on the mermaid's face for her eyes and attach the brown M&M's Minis.
3. Pipe the mermaid's mouth with red frosting.
4. Add the pink Mentos as the cheeks. Add the pink jelly bean for the nose.
5. Pipe yellow eyebrows. Pipe curls of yellow frosting over the yellow hair area.
6. To make the bow, shape a loop from one piece of Big Red gum, squeezing the sides of the loop together at the seam. Repeat with a second loop of gum. Take the 2 other pieces of gum and use your scissors to taper one end while cutting notches into the other end for the bow's tails. Press the 4 pieces of gum together to form the bow. Add a red candy to the center of the bow.

Cake Anatomy:

Cake Cutout: