Elmo Cake With a Rainbow Cake Surprise Inside

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An Elmo Cake is the perfect birthday cake for a preschooler or child who loves this fuzzy red character from Sesame Street. I made this cake for my daughter’s second birthday and it was a huge hit! So colorful and the perfect Elmo head. This simple Elmo cake made the perfect surprise.This is a six layer Elmo cake that is super high, but it left plenty of room for decoration. What 2-year-old doesn’t love Elmo? This guy is so cute.

I rolled out some pre-made red fondant to ensure I got an official Elmo red coloring. Then, I placed a jack-o-lantern-like template on top and used a toothpick to poke holes around the lines to serve as a guide when cutting out Elmo.

Get the Elmo stencil below

Excuse the mess here, but cake making is a process and it gets pretty messy. Here’s where I used the orange to get Elmo’s nose just right. I did the same technique with the toothpick. Then, I placed Elmo’s orange nose on top of the red face I had just cut out. Just use a little water on the fondant and gently press them together. They’ll stay put when dry.

You can see Elmo’s eyes and nose on the side. I traced the outline of his mouth out from the template and used food color markers to color it in. At first I tried black fondant, but the sides of Elmo’s mouth were too thin. It turns out that the markers worked so much better. His mouth is the perfect shape.

Finished Elmo Cake

Here’s the Elmo cake put together. Truth be told. Elmo doesn’t have that much red above his eyes, but I wanted a border so that the eyes would pop since the icing was white. No one ever said anything about the authenticity of Elmo 😉 I call it artistic license.

Once I got Elmo on the cake I started putting colored circles on the cake. From the same box of fondant that I bought I got red, blue, yellow and green. I rolled them out and used different sized circle cutters to get perfect circles. I stuck with primary colors since they go best with red … and the rainbow surprise that is inside the cake (I’ll get to that in a sec.)

I continued all around the cake, just laying the circles where they fit best.

Here’s the surprise inside: A Rainbow Cake! We told the guests to expect something inside the Elmo cake and there was a definite WOW! moment when we sliced into this one. I love all the colors. They are so bright and cheerful. This is a simple cake to make, just takes a little time to separate the batter and dye the layers. Here’s the rainbow cake recipe from I Am Baker.

Here’s another view once we cut out a few slices. Man, these are big slices!

Since these were for two year olds, we cut each main slice in two or three pieces. This Elmo cake can feed an army!

Elmo Birthday Cake

Let’s take a look at this cute Elmo cake again. I am so happy with it. It’s not perfect, but it made my daughter smile. It’s been six months since her birthday and she keeps talking about this cake. It’s what makes me smile. Making cakes is a lot of work, but the satisfaction is worth all the effort.

Other Fun Birthday Cakes I’ve Made:

• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake (with photos)
• Cake Pop Space Alien cake. (gotta see this one. It’s one of my best.)
• Butterfly birthday cake … this is a looker with beautiful turquoise butterflies on a white cake. Simple and elegant. I made it for my daughter’s first birthday.
• Race car cake (with photos)
• Rocket ship cake (with photos)
• The original duck cake for my son’s first birthday. The first birthday cake I made.
• All my cake links