{happy birthday} How to Make an Easy Cat Cake

When my son turned one, I made him a cake in the shape of the number one. But lately he’s been pretty obsessed with cats of all kinds, so for his 2nd birthday, I wanted to make a cat-shaped cake. It was pretty easy to do, and came out great! He absolutely loved it.

You can use any kind of cake and frosting for this. I used a box of chocolate cake mix and the Magnolia Bakery chocolate buttercream recipe. Make the cake in two 8-inch or 9-inch rounds. Then, when the cake has cooled, you can cut it and assemble it into the cat shape. I used an upside-down half-sheet pan covered with foil for the base of the cake.

To make the shape, leave one of the rounds whole for the body. Use a sharp paring knife to cut the other round as shown in the diagram below:

I did a little additional trimming to get the shape exactly how I wanted it. Then, I iced it all over and pulled the icing spatula up quickly off of the frosting to create the slightly furry effect. Finally, I melted some dark chocolate chips and some white chocolate chips and put the melted chocolate into 2 small ziplock bags. I cut a tiny hole in the corner and piped the chocolate onto the cake to make the fact and define the ears.

To design the face, I just looked on Google Images for cartoon cats, and roughly copied one that I liked (to the best of my abilities and keeping in mind I was using melted chocolate.)

The verdict? Delicious!

He also scored a pretty awesome hand-me-down Lite Brite. So all in all I’d say it was a fantastic 2nd birthday!