Fire-Breathing Dragon Cake!!

I first saw this idea in a children's Magazine and decided to make it for my younger brother's 5th Knight-themed birthday party. With 2 ordinary 9 inch cakes, frosting, and a few other easy to find candies, you can create a very realistic dragon!

Step 1: Supplies

You will need-
2 9-inch cakes
6 cups of frosting, your choice of colour (more or less, depending on how thick you like your icing.
8 Keebler chocolate covered graham crackers
8 Sunkist fruit gems
2 Sunkist fruit slices
2 Blue Fruit Roll-Ups
1 Red Fruit Roll-Up
1 Yellow Fruit Roll-Up
1 Marshmallow
2 Chocolate Chips
2 Hershey's Kisses
2 Wooden Skewers

You will want all of your fruit gems, slices, and icing to be all colour co-ordinated-I chose orange candies and yellow icing, but you can do what ever colours will match the plates or napkins you will have at the party.

Comments

[Emmaleigh]

Just finished this tonight. Thanks for your wonderful instructable. This cake was a hit!

[Emmaleigh]

Whoops... would probably help if I remembered to upload the photo. :3

[steinikallinn]

Here is one that matched the (paper) disk plates. We didn't follow the recipe, only the cut-out diagram

[kitchenwench]

HOW CUTE!! It fits the plates perfectly, and I just love the colors you chose! Thanks so much for sharing, I really enjoyed seeing your beautiful cake!

[lolita79]

I am making a dragon cake this week for my son's 4th bday....I love yours! Did you make your own frosting or use store bought?

[lolita79]

Also...what did you use for the scales on his back...I like how they are different sizes!

[kitchenwench]

Hi lolita79, I made my own frosting using a basic decorator's buttercream, and I have attached a link to the recipe I used. The scales were imprinted into the icing using a (clean) magic marker cap! I used different pressures to make them bigger or smaller. Hey, I hope your cake turns out awesome! I would love to see a picture when it's done. :-) ~kitchenwench

[steinikallinn]

I made my own frosting using powder sugar, warmed up butter and some green food coloring drops.

For the back scales I used thin mint cookies named "Göteborgs Remi mint" (http://www.goteborgskex.se/produktinfo/sota-kex/remi) and just cut the edges in different sizes.

[lolita79]

Hey, I made the cake. It turned out pretty good. The frosting I use was a little to sticky and made frosting it more difficult. I didn't have time to make my own and used Betty Crocker Whipped cream cheese frosting. I don't recommend using that kind! Other than that the cake was a huge hit at the party! Thanks so much for the idea!

[polishangel80]

Your cake looks wonderful, I really like it.

[sandssuz]

 Just finished making this cake for my daughter's 4th birthday party. She is very pleased with it. I had to shorten the tail to fit it on top of a large sheet cake. 

[lovehandles]

I loved this cake it was my only second attempt at making  a novelty cake. I am in Australia. It meant I had to substitute and use different things. I used Tobelorone Bars for my spikes. One problem my spikes kept getting eaten on me while assembling it. Fantastic idea and your instructions were spot on. Thanks from Australia!

Dionne
Victoria Australia

[youmybubs]

I made this for my son's 6th birthday party.  It was a huge success and everyone was shocked that I actually made it myself.  I'm not much of a cook and even less a baker.  But, the instructions were dead on and the end result was amazing.  I highly recommend that after you bake the cakes and let them cool - put them in the freezer.  It made it MUCH easier to cut the pieces and didn't hardly crumble when I went to frost it.  It was awesome!

[rubberducky47]

This is my dragon cake, I made it for my 15th birthday party just because this looked so awesome. I think it turned out pretty well, even after an hour of yelling at a bowl of frosting and getting weird looks from the neighbors. Thanks for the instructable!

[rubberducky47]

Whoops, need the picture. . .

[Technologic]

Sweet. The nest and the eggs are a very nice touch.

[MedicMrs]

My Paramedic hubby & I made this together for our son's 9th birthday...OH WOW, we had a BLAST making this...The kids ate our "mistakes" and all turned out AWESOME!!! Was a GREAT hit...We used a German chocolate cake as the base to make the dragon look like he was laying on the ground...

[karen7410]

wow thats great me and my mum made a green one for a assement :) excellant

[fergusonj]

The first picture is of my first try making the dragon birthday cake for my grandson's 3rd birthday. However, I had to transport it 2 1/2 hours away. So I decided to use the lid a Rubbermaid storage tote to put under the bottom of the cake and snapped the bottom of the tote over the top of the cake as the lid. Thought is was pretty ingenious. Problem was that my son-in-law didn't know that the cake was in the tote and turned it right side up when my daughter and I were out. Came home to a broken dragon. But got a new base already frosted from the grocery store and reassembled the newly reconstructed dragon on it. Put the wings on right before the party. Enjoyed making BOTH cakes and got may compliments!

[Larandalee]

My son wanted a Dragon cake for his 5 birthday this summer and I was worried because I couldn't find a dragon cake pan anywhere but than I found this and WOW it was easier than a cake pan! Those stinking cake pan you have to make 20 different colored frostings what a pain! This was so much easier than I thought it'd be and everyone thought it was amazing. My son was thrilled! Thank you sooooo much for sharing this!!!!! Now I'm hoping he wants a dragon cake every year! ;)

[BeckyMeyers]

Did you pipe the frosting on? What tip did you use if so? If not what was the technique you used? This cake looks great. I am planning to make it for my son's party this Saturday. Any pointers or tips would be helpful!! Thanks

[Larandalee]

Yes I piped it on with tip #16, which is a star shaped tip. I didn't do anything special I just covered it and wasn't even very graceful about it which I think may have helped make it look a little rougher like a dragon might be. I couldn't find orange gems so I just used orange slices for the claws and eyebrows. I think I used chocolate chips for the center of the eyes. I throw foil over a cookie sheet and it fit in there a little snug but worked out great. My tail ended up being a bi thin but I just made bigger with lots of frosting. Let me know if you have anymore questions and good luck! It was easier than I thought it was gonna be. =)

[BeckyMeyers]

Thank you for the help and encouragement!!

[BeckyMeyers]

Well, here is my rendition of the fire breathing dragon! Thank you for all your help. It was a hit!!

[Larandalee]

Looks awesome!! Like the green eyes and curvy tail, nice touch. =) I bet your son was thrilled. Glad to help but really we all have kitchenwench to thank!!!! Thank goodness she shared because I would've never thought something this awesome up on my own!

[sbjewel32]

Love this cake! The instructions were clear and it was pretty easy to make! I Needed more cake so I used a 12 in cake pan. I Iced it with reg frosting first but it looked kind of sloppy so I decided to pipe Decorator icing on the entire cake using the star decorator tip. Everyone loved it and more importantly the birthday boy loved it! He kept sneaking over and eating all the keebler grahams off of the spine! LOL

[pouchdesigns]

I love this, I made this cake for my daughter's 3rd birthday party...I couldn't follow it exactly because I live in the UK and we don't have all the products in our supermarkets, but the basic shape is the same. Clear instructions and was a great hit with the children!
I blogged about it here:
http://pouchbags.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/dragon-themed-birthday-party.html

[sgcsam]

Dragon cake for my best chinese friend!

[sgcsam]

Dragon cake for my best chinese friend!

[lkunecke]

Thank you for the template! I enjoyed making this cake the birthday boy was turning 29 and it just proved you are never to old for a dragon cake.

[softenersreviews]

Very nice! Cute!

[dwyerlisa]

This cake was super easy and everyone was impressed. Crumbs did tend to get everywhere unless I was strategic about putting all of the "cut" sides facing inwards. Recommend arranging everything first before frosting

[dwyerlisa]

I also found chocolate "orange slices" to put by the ears as fins. Living in Sweden, I couldn't find all necessary candy as described above -- Toblerone as fins, sliced watermelon candies for toes/claws, chocolate orange fins, red gummy eyebrows, marshmallows (cut in half) for whites of eyes, red dots for eyeballs, caramel circles for nostrils and fruit roll-ups (imported from US) for flames and wings. I didn't have skewers so I used bendy straws that worked out well to give it a nice winged shape

[purplelarch]

This was a great instructable! I used a buttercream frosting and a marker top as you suggested. Thanks so much!

[Vunique]

Thank you for the tutorial .I made it for my sons 8th birhtday party. The cake stole the show.

[Greeneyes364]

Here is my version of the Dragon cake. I baked it for my nephews 2nd birthday and it was very well received. Everyone loved it! :-D

[tsunami-lightwave]

This is a great design an relatively easy to make. I love it (and so will my daughter, who seems to have gone crazy for dragons for her 8th birthday)!

I used a strawberry filled marshmallow cut in half (from a bag of Hello Kitty marshmallow snacks I got at a Japanese supermarket) and brown m&m's for the nostrils. I think the tail was the hardest part to frost because it was so thin that the slightest pressure on the side to spread the frosting would tend to knock it over. I think it worked out well though...Here is the the result:

[pumpkinfee]

This cake was brilliant to make, really pleased with the result, and am equally sure that my son will be delighted. Thank you for the fabulous ideas and the concise instructions

[Ryan60]

This was a very easy design to follow. Thank you for positing! Everyone loved this cake, including our 3 year old birthday boy! For a fun touch, we made the dragon out of red velvet cake, to make it more like the dragon's insides. We constructed the dragon on top of a sheet cake we ordered from a grocery store bakery, and just had them frost it to look like green grass.

As some others have stated, it is wise to freeze the cake rounds overnight before cutting. If you have time, I would re-freeze for a few hours after cutting the shapes, but before frosting, as the cake can/will crumble while frosting it.

[quiet_ame]

I absolutely fell in love when I saw this design! I decided to make a cake for my autistic brother-in-law's birthday, and this was perfect! He couldn't have been more excited for it when I brought it out!

**I used Girl Scout Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies for the claws and eyebrows instead of the orange candies

This was incredibly easy, and I highly recommend it to any beginner who wants to be a little extra creative!

[JLS130]

we had such a great time making this cake!! my son loved it for his 5th Birthday Dragon-knight party!

[Torimum]

Wow what a fabulous instructable this was! My first ever novelty cake and it was easy but looked really impressive. My 3 year old son is obsessed with playing knights and dragons and loved it. Am in the UK so used jelly snakes for the fire and broke up thin slab of chocolate for spikes. Chocolate buttons for eyes and nostrils, of course. Thanks everyone for giving me the confidence to do this - it rocks!

[schnaars]

This cake looks so yummy! Can't wait to make it for my son's birthday next week! Thanks for the great Instructable!

[Ryu_Vampiress]

Thanks, I kinda went without the guidelines but thanks for the idea! :)
Great Instructable!

[grupi22]

I loved making this cake! Best of all it actually LOOKED good! Made two and both were huge hits.

Thank you!

[grupi22]

I loved making this cake! Best of all it actually LOOKED good! I ended up making two for my son's 7th birthday and for school. Both were huge hits!

[jafawa]

Here is my Golden dragon cake - requested by my nephew for his 5th birthday... thank-you so much for the concept it really helped to get me started :)

[Ryu_Vampiress]

Wow this looks great! I realize this is a year later but I love it!

[skle1978]

Wow! I love the extra dimension you added for the head and rear legs. Any tips?

[jbartlett007]

Happy Chinese New Year from Ms. Tao :)

[jenpez]

i love this cake.. my daughters face just lit up when she seen it for her 5th bday (mythical theme).. guys your cakes look great!!! heres mine =)

[MMarianna]

Just finished our Ice Blue dragon. Love the idea.We used melted chocolate to make wings, spikes and other parts of decorations. Will post photos soon.

[Sasssysweeet]

I made this tonight for my son's 5th birthday tomorrow. I had to put my wings in the freezer because they kept flopping down and you couldn't see them at all. I used black paper for his back scales and frosting for all the other little details. My son says it's the best cake ever. Thank you for a great recipe. This was a very easy cake to make. :-)

[vvan loo]

I love the cake I am going to try and make it for my sons birthday.

[katerman62]

This worked great! I used a marker cap to make the scales, and sprinkled on some large crystal sugar to make them shiny. I also used a chocolate bundt cake to sculpt mountains in the background. Not only did it provide more cake for our guests, but with the addition of cookie crumbs and pieces and sifted powder sugar, it made an awesome dragon's keep. I used a paper wrapped cutting board for the base, and my kids made the lego knight. It was a huge success! Three hours of work, but well worth it.

[vraklis]

I was wondering how big the board needs to be?

[kitchenwench]

Hi vraklis,
The board that I used in the pictures was a 13x19 cake board made by wilton. It fit perfectly! Would love to see pictures of your finished product. :)

~kitchenwench

[skle1978]

Wow. Easiest thing ever! I've NEVER shaped a cake before and this was super easy. This was thrown together within minutes for a test run for my son's 5th b-day. Now I know it'll be a cinch.

[spaunovic]

it's not bad, for first time...:)

[Shmrck95]

What a fabulous idea! Thank you so much for posting and sharing, especially the step by step instructions!

I made this for a friend's son's 12th birthday and it was more than he hoped for! He asked for a dragon cake so I immediately did a Google search and came across this cake. Being a tinkerer in homemade cakes I figured I could give it a shot and see what happened. It was SUPER easy to assemble. My only issue was getting my icing to stay on the cut pieces - but I figured out a way and eventually got it accomplished.

Mine did not turn out as nice as the one here but it went over really well at the party. I forgot to bring the fruit roll ups with me to add the "wings" at the party but no one noticed the dragon didn't have wings. :)

[Grahamwithimps]

We turned the dragon into a dinosaur for our son's third birthday. We used our own sponge cake recipe but the instructions for cutting, assembly and decorating were brilliant!

Thanks!

[junebug6681]

Another pic :)

[junebug6681]

We had so much fun making this cake for my son's How to Train Your Dragon Birthday Party! It was a big hit!!

[junebug6681]

I made this cake last weekend for my son's How to Train Your Dragon Birthday Party, and it was a big hit!!! Everyone was so impressed, and My son looooved it!! Thanks for the great, easy to follow instructions!

[oriane89]

I love this idea but I only have one size cake box so does anyone know what the dimensions for the finished cake are ??

[goldielocks92]

I made it too for my little sister birthday party.It was great,everybody loved it.

[sect]

Great stuff I would like a cake like this for my birthday, which is soon. Although I'm slightly older than the intended market I loved the design. I have sent a hint link...

[butcherswife]

We used fast-light candles, which are joined by a piece of fuse paper. We put these in his mouth then when we lit them they flamed up so it looked like our dragon really did breathe fire! It was a great cake for our 'How to train your dragon' themed party... thanks!

[butcherswife]

trying to add pics...

[Musicman41]

lol.  The blue wings in the very first picture I saw looked like a fishing hook.  I was wondering why in the world you would use a dragon as fishing bait.  Needless to say, through reading your instructions, all makes sense now!!

[porcupinemamma]

Wowzers!  Very flame- buyont (tee hee hee)-Thought you might be interested in this link-it's not something I'm familiar with, but it does make me ponder http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/dragon.html

[stupidstickanimations]

zomg theres a tire track on his wing before its rolled onto the skewer D:

[CARLEEN1]

[nollie]

Me and my son had so much fun making this cake for 8th his birthday party tomorrow. thank you we love it.

[Goodhart]

A friend of mine made this recently for her youngin's birthday party. It was a hit :-)

[Goodhart]

This does look like it would be a fun cake for the youngin's doesn't it? :-)

[Goodhart]

I just had a thought.....if instead of cutting the chocolate covered grahams twice, you just split them from corner to corner, diagonally, & to make uniform protrusions from his back, simply bury a bit more of the one corner then the other.

[crispychipmunk]

Just got done making it for my sons bday tomorrow very easy and I was able to follow directions from across the room

[denning3107]

This cake is awesome.....Thanks for the break down!

[trksh22]

I forgot to post a pic of what I made for my sons birthday. Not as easy as I thought but SO well worth it!! Thanks for this.... now I need something for next year!!

[trksh22]

Whoops! Let's try that again!

[wolfybrie]

I made one too for one of my dungeon master's at D&D for his birthday. He likes German chocolate cake, but the frosting to hold it all together is chocolate. I made the wings brown by sprinkling water on the fruit roll ups and coating them in cinnamon. This was the easiest fun cake I've ever made.

[kitchenwench]

drascombe- Hey, your cake looks fabulous! I always love to see pictures. I love how you did the two tone wings and the blue icing. Very creative!!

rarcke-I am going to experiment with that idea for smoke with dry ice! Thanks so much for the link.

Grey_Wolfe-Thanks so much for the link! I have it bookmarked-I love the great ideas it has! That laptop cake with the iPod is sooo cool!
Oh, and their dragon-well, let's just say that mine is 'cute' and theirs is...um....AMAZING!! ;-)

[Grey_Wolfe]

I love the cake sculpture, KW. I actually came upon this specific Ible by way of another site I Stumbled.

http://www.larissameek.com/2009/01/12/26-cakes-perfect-for-geeks/

I think you'll enjoy the page, while not all the cakes are as cute as yours, there's some pretty amazing ideas to try out on it.

[rarcke]

I'll be it would be easy to modify these directions:

http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Green%20dragon's%20breath%20cake

to get smoke coming our of his nose. not quite flames but still awesome!

[drascombe]

r u serious? that would be some heck of a lot of money! how much 4 all ingredients?

[rarcke]

Most of the items on the list are things your have lying around the house (the cardboard box, deli containers, and straw) The only "expensive" thing on the list is dry ice, which a surprising number of grocery store carry now. You can also find it at welding supply places like AirGas. I've never paid more than a couple of dollars a pound and you only need 1/4 pound for the project.

[LaxLovaLV]

You could put the birthday candle in the mouth (stuck into the head horizontally where the fake flames are sticking out) so it looks like the dragon is blowing a small little flame of fire.Just an idea.

[drascombe]

LaxLovaLV you had a good idea. So it will look like he is really breathing fire. Except i think it should go in the mouth.

[wocket]

Or where his nostrils are....

[drascombe]

thats what i said!!

[drascombe]

The cake was really cool.My mom and I daughter made it and it tasted wonderful. I liked all of it. Here is a pic. I named him Fenuil because in the book I'm reading(Dragon Flight) Their was a dragon named Fenuil the Green Clawed.

[izou]

Your cake looks great, but if you want to give it a more realistic look and more curves to it, try using some rolled fondant to cover it, you can work it like play dough, and it comes in all kinds of neat colours.

[milach]

Excellent! I made this cake for my son's annual cake auction for Cub Scouts (we made him red though). Super easy to make- everyone was impressed. It sold for $40.00 (the max price limit). The only thing we did different was use candy corn for the toes.

[ChaosJile119]

I have a book that has the same thing. Its a little different and uses dry ice as smoke.very neat.

[pepitosbazzeguti]

A good starting point for beginners.......cool instructable !

[Lord Of Mystra]

thats cool but i dont find it terribly realistic

[longtimegeek]

Exactly how many real dragons have you seen? hmmmm..... :)

[Lord Of Mystra]

precisely one...

[Lord Of Mystra]

you could make it breathe real fire by running a hose to his/her mouth and attach a balloon with a vegstable oil soaked sponge inside to the other end. stick a candle just above the hose light it and squeez the sponge... WHOOOOOOOSH!

[nanor11395]

ok.... odd

[kitchenwench]

Thank you, everyone, for your kind words and input. I have got my brother working on making the cake to be a real fire-breathing one. :-)

Can't wait to see pictures of your cake, Weissensteinburg! I would love to see pictures from anyone else that made it as well.

[James (pseudo-geek)]

cute!

[Weissensteinburg]

I'm soooo making my mom make me one of these for my birthday =D

[Weissensteinburg]

I made one..will post pictures when I can..everyone loved it.

[rarcke]

I'll be it would be easy to modify these directions:

http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Green%20dragon's%20breath%20cake

to get smoke coming our of his nose. not quite flames but still awesome!

[teh darkcloud]

I just love how everyone came here in hopes that the cake would breathe -real- fire. >.< (Don't worry, so did I.) It's a nice cake, though. I might make it... or a small version. I was planning on taking my never-used easy bake oven out from the storage and playing around with it this summer. Dude, someone seriously needs to make some instructables involving the easy bake oven...

[Garth Knight]

Nice cake, needs real flames. real. flames. fire fire fire fire fiirrrre -Ok, better now. Excellent instructable

[WPee]

OK!
EXTINGUISH your EXCITEMENT

POOF!!!

[Sb]

Oh that is *so* possible, lemme muck around in the back for a few minutes. . . <br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.suicidebots.com/2007/03/09/suicidebots-at-ted/">http://www.suicidebots.com/2007/03/09/suicidebots-at-ted/</a><br/>

[Taotaoba]

This fire dragon is so cute! Thanks.

[punkrunner204]

that is the most bad ass cake ever!!!!

[T3h_Muffinator]

Awww... I thought it really spat flames! Although, I must say, that's a really cake! Good Work, keep the tasty mythical beings coming.

[rocketbat]

mmmmmm, edible reptiles! YAY! perhaps you could use some cornflour in a baloon with a tube and make it a real FIRE BREATHING dragon with birthday candles as the pilot light! muhahaha great instructable!

[HamO]

Great gobbling goodness, what an outstanding cake. I'm sure kids would love it. Thanks for sharing.

[canida]

Cool! I'll admit that the title got me very excited in hopes that you'd rigged it with some sort of torch, but this is quite edibly cute.