How to Make a Unicorn Cake?

I imagine that like me you have seen tons of pictures of these famous unicorn cakes! I love unicorns so I really wanted to try it and I'm happy with the result.

I'm not a fan of layer cakes because they are too sweet and heavy for my taste but here I tried to lighten things up haha

I started with a chocolate molly cake base (a killer cake!!) which is soft and not dry so no need to soak it. I then topped and decorated with Italian meringue buttercream which is lighter than the classic buttercream. You can of course garnish with ganache, other creams, curds, fruits etc. to have a lighter cake. However, the advantage of buttercream is that it is less hygienic, so you can leave it at room temperature for a few hours without problems.

1. List of ingredients :

• Chocolate Molly Cake :

- 200g eggs

- 333g sugar

- 333g of liquid cream 30% MG minimum

- 266g flour

- 67g unsweetened cocoa

- 12g baking powder

• Italian meringue buttercream: ( Ingredients for 1 cream / For this cake I make two: 1 for the filling, 1 to cover and decorate )
- 176g egg whites

- 292g sugar

- 91g water

- 332g POMMADE butter!!!

2. For the decoration :

- Gel dyes of your choice (I use pink and purple)

- White, gold, pink and black sugar paste

3. Steps to follow :

A. Preparation of the Molly Cake Chocolate

You can do this step the day before and keep it filmed in the fridge

1- Preheat the oven to 150°C

2- Whip the cream. It must be firm. ( To help you, you can put your whisk and bowl in the freezer and the cream in the fridge ). Set the whipped cream aside.

3- Whisk together the eggs and sugar until the mixture doubles in volume and thickens.

4- At the same time, mix the flour, cocoa and yeast in a bowl. Sift the mixture together.

5- At the same time, line your mould. I am using a 17 cm diameter and 10 cm high mould. (You can find this mould here)

6- With the help of the sheet, add little by little the powder mixture to the egg + sugar mixture. You will obtain a thick mixture

7- Add a small amount of whipped cream to the mixture to loosen it. Then add the rest of the cream little by little and delicately.

8- Put the mixture in the mould and bake for 1h30 at 150°C. Be careful not to open the oven while it is baking! Your molly cake could become flat. (It may take several tries to know the ideal cooking time for your oven)

9- Once the molly cake is cooked, leave it in the oven for 10 minutes. When you take it out of the oven, turn it over and remove it from the mould, leaving it like that so that it has a flat bottom.

10- Put the cake in the fridge to cool down and make it easier to cut.

B. Preparation of the Italian meringue buttercream

As I said, I first make a cream to garnish and then I make another one to cover the cake and decorate.

1- Prepare your egg whites but don't whip them right away

2- In a saucepan, put the sugar and water to make a syrup over low heat.

3- Once the syrup reaches 110°C, start whipping the egg whites at medium speed.

4- Once the syrup has reached 121°C, pour it gently over the frothy whites at medium speed. When the syrup is completely poured in, increase the speed to maximum to obtain a beautiful, smooth and shiny Italian meringue.

5- Once the meringue bowl is at room temperature, add the butter little by little, which is POMMADE! Mix to obtain an airy cream.

It is possible that your cream will go through a grainy stage, continue to whisk until it becomes normal again.

4. Assembly:

1- Cut off the top of the molly cake to make a flat surface. Then cut out 4 discs of identical sizes. We keep the disc that was underneath (bottom of the mould so => flat) We will put it on top in the last position of our layer cake to have a straight top.

2- Place a first disc on a support with a little cream to prevent the cake from slipping, place a layer of cream and then a disc on top. Continue as before.

3- Once all the layers are done, cover your cake with the rest of the cream (side and top). Put the cake in a cool place.

5. Decorating with sugar paste

Make the horn, ears and eyes in sugar paste. I let you watch the video for the explanations.

If you often make unicorn cakes or if you don't have the time to make the decorations yourself, there are now many plastic decorations that you can buy directly. There are different models in different colours, with flowers, more or less fantasy like for example these models I found on Amazon. Click here to see them.

6. Finishing and decoration

1- Make your second Italian meringue buttercream

2- Cover the entire cake to obtain a smooth white surface. Don't bother with the top as it will be completely covered so it doesn't matter if it's not completely smooth.

3- Divide the rest of the cream into 3 parts and colour each part as you wish. For my part pastel colours: light pink, darker pink and purple.

4- Place the horn in the centre of the cake and then the two ears on the sides.

5- For the mane, with the help of three fluted tips of different sizes, place the buttercream in the form of roses for example. Play with the shapes and colours.

6- Finally, add the eyes