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Monster Cake
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A fun, colourful and completely silly Monster Cake with layers of soft vanilla cake, strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream. This not-so-spooky cake is covered in smooth and fluffy vanilla American buttercream, finished with bright colours and edible eyes for decoration. It’s perfect for birthdays, parties, but especially for Halloween.
Notes from The Patisserie
I absolutely love baking a fun cake design, and I really do not do it enough. I always find it hard during Halloween to do an actually ‘scary’ bake as I find almost everything ends up looking a little cute, especially this Monster Cake.
This cake is definitely more silly than spooky, but it makes it perfect for children’s parties, halloween celebrations or even if you just fancy making something a little different. It’s an accessible flavour with a delicious and easy to bake vanilla sponge, a sweet jam filling and of course the vanilla buttercream. A classic combination that works perfectly to suit any design.
Ingredient Notes and tips for the best sponge
This cake base is a simply 6″ vanilla sponge cake, that uses the egg weighing method. The full recipe can be found in the recipe card below:
- Eggs – I start talking about the eggs first as you must weigh them in their shells, before anything else. I use 5-6 medium eggs as I want about 300g of egg. I ended up using 6 medium eggs, which was 318g in total – I then used the same weight of butter, sugar and flour so everything matches. You could use 5 large eggs, that weigh 312g (and then the B/S/F would also be 312g)
- Butter – you can use unsalted block butter that is at room temperature, or you can use a baking spread
- Sugar – I use caster sugar or light brown soft sugar – either works fine. You can also use golden caster sugar.
- Flour – I use self raising flour because we have it readily available in the UK. if you do not have access to self raising flour, you can use plain flour – whisk in 2.5 tsps of baking powder before using in the recipe
- Vanilla – I would recommend vanilla extract or vanilla bean extract, I never recommend vanilla essence as it’s cheaper and doesn’t taste good
Creating a Monster in cake form
I decided to use an easy American buttercream frosting as it is straight forward to make, and stays sturdy once you have piped the frosting on. It also works well to fill and crumb coat the cake before you decorate with the colours
- Butter – I would always recommend room temperature block unsalted butter (or salted if you prefer it less sweet) but I would avoid baking spread as it’s too soft
- Sugar – The best sugar to use is icing sugar (or powdered sugar) – the typical ratio is 1:2 butter to sugar for American buttercream
- Vanilla – again, I would recommend vanilla extract or bean paste for flavouring (but of course you could swap to any other flavouring you would prefer!)
- Food colouring – It’s important to use BRIGHT and good quality food colourings. I use this orange food colouring, this purple colouring and this green colouring. Supermarket own and cheap colours do not work the same and should be avoided.
I use a small amount of the buttercream to fill the sponges (and add jam) and then do a thin crumb coat to seal in the crumbs before decorating with the brightly coloured hair. After you have done the crumb coat it’s best to split the frosting into three and then colour.
I would recommend a good hair/grass/233 piping tip for the look I have done – and I find a large disposable piping bag the best for this. I then add some edible eyes for a weird/spooky look but again, all of this is optional.
FAQs
Can I use different cake flavours?
Of course!! Any flavour sponge works well.
Can I use different flavoured buttercream?
You can, but I would recommend changing it by simply changing a strong flavour extract to replace the vanilla – you don’t want to colour the base frosting as it may make it harder to colour brightly later on
My frosting is too runny, whats happened?
You have likely used the incorrect type of butter – or added too much liquid.
My frosting is too hard, whats happened?
In the colder months especially it can be too cold for buttercream – add 1-3tbsp of boiling water to soften slightly, but mix in well.
How long do you mix buttercream for?
All of the details are in the recipe card below, but I would recommend starting by beating the room temperature butter on it’s own for 10 minutes to really soften and lighten it before adding the sugar and colours.
Can I use different colours?
Of course – you could use all blue to make a cookie monster themed cake, you could use brown (and flavour chocolate) to make a highland cow cake – or you can use any colour you want for no reason at all.
Monster Cake Recipe!
A delicious six inch vanilla cake sandwiched with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream, decorated to look like a fun and non spooky monster for Halloween
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Servings: 12 slices
Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
- 5-6 medium eggs (weighed in shells)
- 318* g unsalted butter/baking spread (room temperature)
- 318* g caster sugar
- 318* g self raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Filling/Buttercream
- 150 g strawberry jam (or other flavour)
- 400 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 800 g icing sugar
- 1-2 tsp vanilla extract
Decoration
- orange food colouring
- purple food colouring
- green food colouring
- edible eyes
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 170ºc/150ºc fan and line two deep 6" cake tins with parchment paper
- Weigh your eggs in their shells. You are aiming for 300g – a little over and a little under is fine. I used six medium eggs that weighed 318g total, so I then matched my butter, sugar and flour to match
- Beat the unsalted butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy
- Add the flour, eggs and vanilla and mix until combined
- Split between the two lined tins
- Bake for 40-45+ minutes until baked through – you can check with a skewer
- Once baked, leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, and then leave to cool fully on a wire rack.
Buttercream
- Beat the unsalted butter on it's own for 10 minutes – you want it to lighten in colour and soften
- Add the icing sugar and vanilla extract and beat together
- (Add 1-3tbsp of boiling water ONLY if the frosting is very firm and stiff)
Assembly
- Split each cake into two so you have four layers in total
- Pipe a small amount of buttercream onto a board and secure the first sponge
- Pipe a couple of tablespoons of frosting onto the cake and create a slight dam of buttercream around the edge – fill the middle with some jam
- Repeat with all of the layers, stacking them upwards as you go.
- Use a little more buttercream to create a crumb coat. I find a metal scraper and/or angled spatula to achieve this.
- Chill the cake in the fridge for 10-15 minutes for now
- Split the rest of the buttercream into three bowls, and colour each one. One orange, one purple, one green
- Pipe the colour onto the cake using a hair/grass/233 piping tip. As I only have one tip, I did all of my orange first, in random blobs. Then my green, then purple
- Secure some edible eyes on randomly – feel free to decorate more or less. Add a mouth/ears if you wish.
Notes
- Find everything I recommend to use for this recipe here
- This cake will last for 4-5 days at room temperature
- The cake can freeze for 3+ months
- See blog post for more info on the egg weighing method and tips and tricks
Storage and Freezing
This delicious cake is safe to store at room temperature on a cool day – I would store it for 4-5 days maximum. You can store it in the fridge until it is served (bring it back to room temperature for an hour first). Once it’s been cut, storing it in the fridge will dry out the sponge.
This cake can freeze for 3+ months – you can freeze the cake whole in a cake box (that you wrap twice in clingfilm) or you can freeze slices.