How to Make a Frosted Unicorn Cake

A Unicorn Cake is a big hit with the younger crowd! If you want a really easy cake, buy ears and a horn at the store and only frost the mane!

unicorn cake with blue, pink, purple and yellow swirls.

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This cake is relatively simple to design but has a striking beauty. It can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. You can use as many (or as few) colors for the mane as your heart desires! You can make the ears and horn yourself or buy a kit. You can even buy kits that include “stickers” for the eyes!

Plus, this Unicorn Cake can be made with any size round cake. Just fill in the swirls to fit!

My daughter requested a Unicorn Cake for her 3rd birthday. Since that day, she’s been requesting another Unicorn Cake for her 4th birthday!

Materials Needed for Unicorn Cake

Round cake, at least 2 layers. I used a 2-layer, 8″ round cake.

Frosting, colors listed below

Frosting bags and couplers

Piping tips: round tip for eyes, star tips for the mane’s swirls

Kit for ears/horn: You can get a kit at Walmart or online. I recommend a kit like this one (Amazon link) with ears that are separate from the horn so that you can frost the mane between the ears.

Optional Homemade Horn

Sugar cone, colored sanding sugar and wax paper (optional): If you want to make your own horn (or find that the horn that came in your kit is broken, like my sugar horn was), you can make your own horn from an ice cream cone, frosting and 1-2 colors of sanding sugar.

Optional Homemade Ears

Silicone unicorn ear mold, candy melts (optional): You can easily make unicorn ears using a silicone mold by pouring melted almond bark or candy melts into the mold.

Frosting Colors Needed for Unicorn Cake

White: Cover the entire round cake with white frosting.

Mane colors: You can use any colors you like for the mane. I chose to use pastel colors in blue, pink, purple and yellow.

I thought that 4 different colors was the right amount because I didn’t end up with the same colored swirls touching too much. However, you could even use only 1 color and have a nice-looking unicorn.

Black: For the eyes and eyelashes. If you want true black, you can use my simple trick here. Or you can use gray by adding a small amount of black icing color to white buttercream frosting.

How to Make the Horn

I had decided to make my own unicorn horn because I thought it would look better than the sugar horn that came with the kit. I was glad I had planned this because when I opened the kit, the horn was broken.

(I’m sorry I don’t have pictures of this part. If my daughter asks for another unicorn cake this year, I’ll do my best to update this post with pictures.)

Prep

If you want to make your own horn, prepare the following materials. Start by cutting wax paper into about 1″ wide and 6″ long strips, 1 or 2 should be enough. Get your sanding sugar ready nearby. Have a dish with sides to catch any sanding sugar that doesn’t stick to the horn.

Frost

Grab a pointed ice cream cone and hold it by the inside as best you can. Cover the entire horn with white frosting.

Sprinkle

Wrap the horn with wax paper in a spiral going up to the tip of the horn. Press it lightly into the frosting. Holding the horn over the dish, sprinkle with sanding sugar until well covered.

Carefully remove the wax paper. Use the 2nd color of sanding sugar to cover the remaining white frosting.

Want to make it really simple? Skip the wax paper swirl and just use 1 color!

Assemble the Unicorn Cake

Horn and Ears

Place the horn and ears on top of the cake in your desired position. I placed the horn in the middle of the cake. Use toothpicks inside the horn to support it.

Align the ears at the front edge of the horn about halfway between the horn and edge of cake. Angle them in slightly. Support with toothpicks behind ears.

Here’s the view from above to see the placement:

unicorn cake as seen from above. Horn in the middle. Ears halfway between edge of cake and horn. Swirls of pastel colors to create a mane.

Here’s a view from the back so you can see the toothpicks I used as supports.

Unicorn cake from behind to show toothpicks as supports behind ears.

Eyes and Eyelashes

Using a toothpick, lightly mark the eyes in the white frosting. I positioned my eyes with the bottom of the eye at the middle of the height of the cake. Draw an upside down U for the eyes and 3 eyelashes at the edge of each eye.

When you are satisfied with your placement, use black (or gray) frosting and a round piping tip to pipe the eyes and eyelashes.

Mane

Using a star tip and various pastel colors, pipe swirls around ears and horn. Simply pipe swirls of any size very close to each other with edges touching as best you can. Fill in empty spaces with a star. Most of my space-filling was with a yellow star.

The overall shape of the mane is a triangle that comes down the front of the cake. Then, pipe a swirl to be a lock of hair that falls between the eyes.

See those space-filling stars? Most of them are yellow.

Continue the mane down the back and over to the side of the cake, kind of how a mane falls over the side of a horse’s neck.

Here’s the back, where you can see it slanting down towards the side.

Unicorn Cake from the side, with the mane coming down the side

And here you can see the side, where the mane is coming towards the front.

Ready to make a Unicorn Cake? Who’s the unicorn fan in your family? Comment below!