Make this adorable and easy jungle theme cake with just buttercream and parchment paper!
I’m using my Very Vanilla cake to make four 6 inch layers for this jungle theme cake. I prefer a tall cake for this design so there’s lots of room on the sides for decorations. You could do the decorations on the top instead if you make a larger, shorter cake.
Make one batch of my 4 Minute Buttercream for a four-layer 6 inch cake or a two-layer 8 inch cake. Scoop out about 2 cups to use for the jungle animals later, covering that bowl so it doesn't crust. To the rest of the buttercream add green gel to tint the filling and frosting. You can use any buttercream recipe as long as it crusts when it sets, which is necessary for the jungle theme cake design.
Layer your cake and filling to assemble your cake. Then chill it before giving it a crumb coat and then a final coat of frosting. If you need step by step instructions for this part, read my tutorial on 10 Steps to Make a Cake. Put the cake in the fridge for at least an hour before you decorate it to set the frosting.
For the jungle decorations, make your own cake stencils with just parchment paper or wax paper, a pencil, and scissors.
Draw jungle leaves and jungle animals or print ones you like or use my free template. Choose line drawings rather than more detailed designs.
Cut out several pieces of of parchment paper or wax paper. If the paper comes from a roll it will curve, which makes it easer to use for stencils. You’ll need a separate piece for each leaf and animal with at least an inch of paper around the outline. Trace the outline of each leaf and animal onto its own piece of paper. Use a pencil, which works better than a pen on the surface of parchment or wax paper.
You'll need multiple stencils for each leaf you've drawn or printed so that you can cover your cake with leaves. For the animals, you’ll need a separate stencil for each colour of every animal. For example, for this rhino I’m making one stencil for the grey head and then another for the white tusk. You’ll see why in a minute!
Cut out the leaves and animals, leaving the paper around them intact, to make your own stencils.
To make buttercream leaves on your jungle theme cake, start by tinting some green buttercream. Since I used light green for the frosting of the cake, I started with that. Add different amounts of green to make some darker than others and play around with other colours, too. Adding yellow will make the green brighter whereas adding pink or orange or brown will make the green duller.
You only need a small amount of buttercream for each of your shades of green. This is plenty for my tall, 6 inch cake. I’d say 1/4 of a cup of each colour would be fine.
To use your stencils, let the curve of the parchment or wax paper stencil wrap around the cake. Then spread buttercream over the leaf shape. You’ll need to press the stencil against the cake on both sides to hold it in place as you spread. Try not to pull your spatula straight away from the cake because that will pull up the buttercream and stencil. Instead, swipe it away diagonally and that way you won’t move the stencil.
Scrape over the buttercream a few times to take off the excess to leave a thin, smooth layer behind. The thinner the buttercream, the neater the edges of the leaf will be. Peel the stencil off carefully, from one side to the other. If the stencil has moved during the process it will smudge the outline of your shape. That’s easy to fix by scraping off the smudge with a toothpick or other small, sharp edged object. It works because the stencil buttercream is still soft so easily removed. In contrast, the frosting on the cake is cold and hard so you won’t damage that.
Switch between colours for your leaves as you work your way around the cake. Be careful that each stencil doesn't touch any the leaves already on the cake because the paper will damage the buttercream of those leaves.
When you run out of space for leaves, put the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 5 minutes. This will set the leaves and meanwhile, you can scrape the buttercream off your stencils to re-use those stencils.
When the first round of leaves have set in the fridge or freezer, add more leaves in the spaces between them. Now that the first leaves have set, it’s fine to layer the stencils on top of them because the paper won’t damage the cold, firm buttercream of the first leaves.
Then put the cake back in the fridge or freezer while you prepare to make your jungle theme cake animals!
Tint the colours you’ll need for your animals. For small amounts of colours I like to use a cupcake pan to mix them so that I only have one pan to wash at the end instead of lots of little bowls!
When the leaves on the cake have chilled and set, use the animal stencils on the cake. Start with the largest stencil for each animal. For my cake, that's the mane for the lion, the neck and head for the giraffe, and so on.
Just like with the leaves, make sure each stencil doesn’t touch any animal already on the cake. Since all of the animals are still soft, the paper of a stencil will damage them. Keep your toothpick handy to scrape off any smudges straight away. It's best to do these touch-ups as soon as you peeled off a stencil, while the buttercream of the animal is still soft and easy to scrape off.
Put the cake back into the freezer for 5 minutes or the fridge for 20 minutes. The first part of each animal needs to chill and set, so it's firm and not sticky. Then add the next detail to each animal. These are the stencils you made for the different colours of each animal: the top part of the face for the lion, the tusk for the rhino, the teeth for the crocodile etc.
Start with the largest section of each animal and then add the details one colour at a time. Chill the cake after each round of details, so after adding one detail to each animal. By doing this in stages, your stencils won’t damage any of the details that are already on the cake.
I mentioned that a thin layer of buttercream is best for stencils so that the edges will be neat when you pull the stencil off. But if there’s a dark colour underneath your stencil, like the dark brown mane of this lion underneath the light brown muzzle, you’ll need a thicker layer to cover up the dark colour underneath.
For the eyes, I’m using my dark brown buttercream in a piping bag. I've chosen a #3 piping tip, which has a small round shape. I'm piping little lines or dots for each eye.
Then I’m using a toothpick to draw facial expressions like the crocodile's smile.
To add some texture to the cake, use a leaf tip like a # 352. Mix together your remaining green buttercream from the leaves and spoon it into the piping bag. To make the buttercream ruffle, wiggle your wrist up and down slightly as you squeeze the piping bag to push the buttercream out.
A grass tip is the quickest way to fill in the gaps around the bottom edge, instead of piping each blade of grass individually with a small round tip. Rest the tip on the cake board and squeeze the bag to push the buttercream out. Then pull upwards as you keep squeezing, to pipe long blades of grass.
Isn’t this cute? And so easy and affordable to make by using homemade stencils.
You can keep this in the fridge for three days after you make it. Take it out two hours before you serve it, to let the cake and buttercream warm up to room temperature. That’s when it will taste the best!
You can watch a video of my tutorial on this jungle theme cake below. Ask me any questions in the comments section below and visit my cake school to learn hundreds more cake decorating techniques and designs!
