Anyone can make this Dog Man cake, using nothing but buttercream and parchment or wax paper, with the magic of layered piping. No fondant needed!
Of course, you can use any flavour and size for your cake. I’m using my 8 inch Very Vanilla cake with my 4 Minute Buttercream as the filling and frosting.
If you want your Dog Man cake character on top of the cake, any size is fine. To put it on the side, choose a tall cake with at least three layers.
One batch of my 4 Minute Buttercream is the perfect about to fill, frost and decorate an 8 inch cake. Set aside about half a cup of the buttercream to make Dog Man later. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out and crust. Then use the rest to fill and frost the cake. I’m tinting mine with sky blue gel since that’s the background colour of my design.
I always recommend applying a crumb coat if frosting first. In case you’re new to cake decorating, a crumb coat is a thin layer of frosting to catch any crumbs that come off the cake. They’ll get trapped in this first layer of frosting. It doesn’t need to be smooth, it just needs to cover the whole cake to trap all of the crumbs. It’s easiest to frost a cold cake so put it into the fridge for 30 minutes before you do this.
When the crumb coat is fairly smooth, put the cake back into the fridge for 15-30 minutes. When you take it out, the crumb coat should be cold and firm, not sticky. Now when you spread on your final layer of frosting it will sit on top of the crumb coat instead of the mixing into it. Any crumbs will be trapped in the crumb coat so you’ll have no visible crumbs on your frosted cake.
Put the frosted cake back in the fridge to set the frosting. Before you do this, measure how big you want your Dog Man character to be. Mine will be 5 inches tall to leave room for candles and a name.
Make Dog Man cake stencils is simple and will create an accurate replica of the character. It's a very affordable techniques that requires no special tools. Start by tracing all of the details of the character onto pieces of parchment or wax paper. Use one piece of paper for each colour. For example, the yellow parts of the hat and shirt will be on the same piece.
You’ll need a stencil for every detail except lines and dots, like the facial features. Even the backgrounds scenery needs a stencil, like the grass at the bottom. I’m not going to include the buildings on the skyline but if you do, you’ll need separate stencils for those.
When you layer the stencils over each other, you should have every detail of the character there.
Now the details need to be cut out. You’re only going to use the paper around them, not the actual details. So cut a little slit in the middle of each shape and poke a scissor blade through, cutting around the shape. This will leave the paper around the shape intact, which will be your stencil. The more neatly you cut out the shapes, the neater those shapes will be on the character on your cake.
To apply the Dog Man cake stencils, your cake needs to be cold and the frosting should be firm. It's best to leave the cake in the fridge for at least an hour. Then it’s time to layer the stencils. Start with the background, which is the grass for me or the buildings if you’re including those. After positioning the stencil on the cake, press it down while you spread buttercream over it. This is leftover blue frosting with a drop of leaf green gel and a drop of yellow.
Spread away from the stencil to seal it against the cake. If you spread towards the stencil you’ll push buttercream underneath it and cause smudges on the cake.
Smooth the frosting over the stencil, scraping a few times with an offset spatula or palette knife. You're looking for a smooth, thin layer of buttercream over the stencil. Then peel off the stencil. Scrape around the side of the cake to take off the excess green buttercream and leave a smooth edge around the cake.
Now the cake needs to go into the fridge for about 15 minutes to set the green buttercream, before positioning the next stencil.
The order of your stencils is really important. You need to start with the background details and layer them with details that get closer and closer to the foreground. I’m doing the head and hands next, since those are going to be covered with clothes.
To make this dog fur colored buttercream I used yellow and added a tiny amount of brown. I dipped a toothpick into the brown bottle and then dragged it through the yellow.
The stencils should have about an inch or 2 cm of paper around the edges of each shape. This prevents any buttercream spreading over the edge of the stencil by mistake. If you do get buttercream smudges onto the cake, it’s easy to fix since the cake is cold. Just scrape off any smudges with a toothpick and you won’t damage the cold, firm frosting underneath.
Repeat the process with the rest of your stencils. Chill the cake after each stencil to set the buttercream so you don’t damage it with the next stencil.
The thinner the layer of buttercream you spread over each stencil, the neater the edges of those shapes will be. However, to layer light colours like yellow over dark colours like blue, you'll need a thicker layer to cover up the dark colour.
Leave any tiny details for the end and pipe them on, using a piping bag with a small round piping tip piping tip like a #3. If you don't have a piping bag or the right piping tip, use a sandwich bag instead! Cut a tiny piece off one corner to pipe through just like a piping bag.
My hands are really shaky so piping if the hardest part of cake decorating for me. Luckily this is a cartoon figure so the lines don’t have to be perfectly smooth and steady.
For the white fleck in each eye use a piping bag with a piece cut off the end to make a tiny hole to pipe through.
If you’re making the book version of Dog Man, pipe outlines around all of the details. For the movie version you don’t need them, which is lucky since piping is such a challenge for me!
So, a buttercream version of Dog Man, traced onto paper and then transferred onto the cake by layering stencils. What do you think? I’d love to hear in the comments! And for more cake decorating techniques and designs visit my cake school!
You can also watch a video of this tutorial on how to make an Easy Dog Man Cake:
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