How to make a birdhouse birthday cake with Peeps and jellybeans
Download the template for this cake here!
Serves 12
Ingredients:
- 1 (13 by 9-inch) rectangular cake
- 1 can (16 oz) vanilla frosting
- Blue food coloring
- 1 plain bread stick
- 1 yellow marshmallow chick (Peep)
- 30 light blue jelly beans (Jelly Belly)
- 30 yellow jellybeans (Jelly Belly)
- 2 Tootsie Rolls
- 11 chocolate non-pareils
- 12 Lorna Doone shortbread cookies
- 6 orange M&M’s Minis
What you’ll need:
- A serving platter
- A bread knife
- A resealable sandwich-size plastic bag
Trimming the cake:
- Trim the top of the cake to make level.
- Place the cake on a work surface, trimmed side down, with the 9-inch edge closest to you.
- Mark the cake with toothpicks as pictured to help guide the trimming of the cake. Trim the cake into the birdhouse shape as pictured. Place onto a serving platter.
Frosting the cake:
- Spoon ½ cup of the vanilla frosting into a resealable plastic bag. Set aside.
- Add blue food coloring to the remaining vanilla frosting to tint it a light blue.
- Spread the top and sides of cake with the blue frosting and make smooth.
To complete the decoration:
- Trim ¼ inch from one edge of each chocolate non-pareil. Set aside.
- Unwrap the Tootsie Roll and microwave for no more than 3 seconds to soften. Press together and roll out to a 3-inch circle. Use a 3-inch round cookie cutter or the rim of a juice glass to cut a circular piece out. Set aside.
- Arrange the blue jelly beans, end to end, around the bottom half of the cake as pictured.
- Place the Tootsie Roll circle near the bottom half of cake.
- Insert the bread stick as pictured for the bird’s perch.
- Arrange yellow jellybeans in the shape of flowers all over the cake. Add an orange M&M Mini in the center of each flower.
- Press the chocolate non-pareils along the roof line, cut side against the edge.
- Top the cake with the Lorna Doone shortbread cookies, overlapping slightly to create the birdhouse’s roof tiles.
- Snip a small corner from the bag with the vanilla frosting. Pipe a decorative edge just underneath the cookie roof tiles.
- Trim the yellow marshmallow chick and press atop perch against the chocolate taffy