Festive Pink Flamingo Cake

Decked out with a fun birthday hat, this pink flamingo cake is a great addition to a tropical or animal-themed party. Use a simple 9 x 13 in. cake pan to bake your cake, then follow our free printable template to cut out your flamingo cake. Partying doesn't get much easier than that!

Prep3 hr 15 min
Total Time7 hr
Skill LevelIntermediate

Ingredients & Tools
Instructions

Instructions

Flamingo Pattern

Click to mark complete

Bake the cake. Prepare the cake mix following the recipe instructions. Bake and cool a one-layer cake. Set it aside.
Make the hat. Using a craft knife, trim a sugar cone to 3 in. tall. Place on cooling grid placed over parchment paper.
Melt the Bright White Candy Melts candy according to the package instructions. Pour small amount of melted white candy over the sugar cone. Chill until set, about 10 to 15 minutes. Reserve remaining melted candy.
Using candy colors, tint 1/4 cup each melted white candy yellow, green, and orange. Tint 1/4 cup melted white candy teal by combining Blue and Green candy colors. Reserve remaining candy white.
Prepare piping bags, separately, with yellow, green, orange, and teal candy. Cut 1/4 in. tip in each bag. Alternating colors, pipe small dots on the hat. Chill until set, about 10 minutes. Reserve remaining melted yellow candy for a later step.
Using a craft knife, make a small hole in the large yellow gumball. Using remaining melted yellow candy, attach a gumball to the tip of the hat. Chill until set, about 10 minutes.
Make the feet and wing. Tint 3 oz. melted white candy coral by combining Pink and Orange candy colors.
Prepare a piping bags with coral candy. Cut 1/2 in. tip in bag. Place parchment paper over the printed Flamingo Pattern. Following the pattern, pipe legs onto the parchment paper.
Use remaining coral candy to form the wing, using a spatula to swipe candy on parchment paper. Chill legs and wing until set, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Shape the cake. Using the Flamingo Pattern, cut out the flamingo shape from the cake. Position the cake on a cake board or plate.
Tint the icing. Tint 3 1/2 cups frosting light pink and 1/4 cup frosting dark pink by combining Rose and Orange icing colors to get light and dark pink colors shown. Using Black icing color, tint 1/4 cup frosting black. Reserve remaining frosting white.
Frost the cake. Using a spatula and light pink frosting, frost cake, leaving beak unfrosted . Using white and black frosting, frost beak, first in white frosting, then in black, leaving about 1/2 in. of white frosting exposed. Reserve remaining white and black frosting.
Prepare two piping bags with tip 2. Fill separately with white and black frosting. Using white frosting, pipe a line on the beak. Using black frosting, pipe a line on the head (for the strap of the hat), and eye.
Prepare a piping bag with tip 4 and dark pink frosting. Pipe the cheek. Use the tip of the spatula to smooth.