Troubleshooting: UNICORN CAKES - How To Make A Unicorn Cake

Unicorn cakes are trending and with a few troubleshooting tips, they're simple to make with beautiful results

First, you'll need to make the horn and ears. Ideally, these should have at least one day to dry and harden before putting on your cake

Cut the ears out of fondant mixed with a bit of Tylos powder so that they dry hard and keep their shape

If you're making the inner part of the ear gold, paint it at least a few hours before attaching it to the outer part of the ear

so the gold gel dries and doesn't stay in the outer ear

Insert a toothpick very carefully into each ear. If your ears are very thin, angle your toothpick so that it's a little bit closer to the front of the ear rather than the back of the ear

because you're going to put the inner ear over the top, so that will disguise the toothpick

Then when you see the cake from the back, you'll see a nice, plain, white ear instead of seeing the toothpick

Use an object to prop them up so that they're naturally curved instead of completely flat

The horn is made with fondant as well. Roll out a long log with one end thinner than the other

Brush the log with water so it will stick to itself. Roll the thin end along itself a few times to make the tip of the horn, and then gently insert

a wooden skewer into it. Continue rolling the fondant around itself along the length of the skewer

If it starts to come apart, brush it with a bit of water. Don't worry too much about how the base of the horn looks, because you're going to stick it into the frosting of your cake and put flowers around it

If your fondant cracks it needs to be kneaded for longer before shaping it Needing warms it up and makes it more pliable so it won crack when you wrap it around the skewer

You can let your horn set horizontally or vertically. If you choose vertically, stick the skewer into a styrofoam block

It's easiest to use another skewer to make the hole so that you can gently guide the horn skewer in

That way, you don't have to apply any pressure to the horn as you insert it

so it will keep its shape perfectly. Make sure the base of the horn is resting on the styrofoam

because if it's above it, it will sink as it dries and the skewer will poke through the top of the horn

To dry it horizontally, don't place it on a flat surface because one side of the horn will dry flat

Instead, cut a paper towel roll down the middle and place some parchment paper over it

Lay the horn in the paper roll so it dries on a curved surface. The parchment paper is essential

so it doesn't stick to the cardboard of the roll. If you want your horn to be gold

wait for it to dry and then brush it with gold gel or gold bluster dust mixed with a bit of clear alcohol or clear vanilla essence

You'll probably need two or three coats to cut a strong gold colour. But wait for it to dry between each coat

because if you paint over wet gold, it pulls the colour off the fondant. For the eyes, roll little logs of fondant

and curve them into semicircles. Then either stick two smaller logs onto one

one end or cut the end into two strips to make eyelashes. I prefer the first technique

because the eyelashes are thinner and pointed at the ends and if you try and cut the eyelashes

instead they likely to pull off the eyelid if they stick to your knife If you going to paint the eyes gold use a light color like white or yellow or something closer to gold like orange Build your cake and give it a crumb coat and a final coat of frosting

If you're new to cakes, check out my tutorial on how to build a cake. Immediately after frosting your cake, while the frosting is still sticky, press the eyes gently into the frosting

Choose the prettiest side of your cake for the eyes, because the other side is going to be covered with the main

Usually there's a crease in the frosting where you lifted the frosting. scraper, so it's a good idea to leave that at the back where the main will go

You can either insert the horn and ears and then pipe the main, or pipe the main and then

insert the horn and ears. If you pipe the main first, you risk smudging it when you insert

the horn and ears. But if you stick the horn and ears in first, it can be a bit tricky

piping around them, especially the ears. Both ways work. Try both and see what you prefer

For this cake, I'm going to do the horn and ears first. Use a wooden skewer to poke a hole where your horn is going to go

You could stick the horn straight in, but if it's not completely dry, you might indent it with your fingers as you press it into the cake

or the skewer might poke through the top of the horn. Then insert the ears, which are easier than the horn

because they're on toothpicks, which are thinner, so they go into the cake with very little pressure

Okay, now we're going to cover about half of the cake with a frosting rosette main

These rosettes will conceal the base of the horn and the ears, so that's why it doesn't matter if the base of the horn isn't perfect, or if the ears smudge the frosting a bit when you insert them

Fill your piping bags with frosting of different colours You can cover the cake with just roses using the 1M or 2D star tips or use a combination of styles My favorites are the star tips for roses and the open star tips for rosettes

If you pipe roses and there are gaps in between them, squeeze a bit of frosting out of the star tip to make a tiny star in the gap

or try an open star rosette. It's easiest to transfer your cake from its small cakeboard

onto a bigger cakeboard before piping on the main, because if you move it afterwards, you might damage the main

But if you forget, like I did here, just carefully lift it with a spatula and lower it onto a bigger cakeboard

and if you damage any roses or rosettes, you can touch them up or pipe some rosettes over them

For this cake, I frosted the main first and then inserted the horn and ears

I like to wrap all of my cakeboards with ribbon, and this is especially fun for unicorn cakes because it adds even more colour to the cake

Squeeze liquid glue all around the side of the cakeboard, and then pick out one of the colours in the main and use a ribbon that colour to wrap around the cake

Fabric ribbon works best because it's flexible, it sticks well, and it's nice and shiny

Start at the back of the cake, so the join will be there. When you get to the end, cut the ribbon so that there's a little bit of an overlap, and use a dab of glue

and use a dab of glue on the beginning of the ribbon to attach the end of the ribbon

I hope I've answered all of your unicorn cake questions and troubleshooted any problems you've had

If you have any unanswered questions, please ask them in the comments below

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