My Really Easy Owl Cake is so easy to make and so super cute too! A great cake to make no matter what your age. Video included too.
I made a video on how to do a really easy owl cake a few weeks ago and I thought I would do a blog post to match!
Really easy owl cake recipe at the bottom of the post
A lot of people have asked for help making an owl cake like the one I made for my birthday which you can read about here-
https://www.sewwhite.com/baking/owl-birthday-cake-part-1/
Since it wasn’t really a time friendly cake I decided to have a go making a really quick and easy one. This is great for children to help make and is good to make for children’s birthday parties.
This is twit-whoo I made. Pardon my pun. Sadly I didn’t give a name before he was eaten by friends and given away to neighbours.
A really simple cut out and decorate cake – I’ve made this cake again and I’ve used the orange buttons for the belly again but used normal chocolate buttons for the rest of the body. It looked cute 🙂
Okay so here is where I started – I made this template which you are welcome to use – if you click on it, it will open it up large. I used this template for this owl and the birthday owl. All I did differently was to make the belly on this owl a big wider.
I started making off a square chocolate sponge and placed the template on top and cut it out. Then covered it with chocolate ganache.
This is all I needed to decorate the cake – orange buttons for the belly and bashed up chocolate chips for the rest of the body plus 2 sugar paste eyes and a little triangle for the beak. I took a rolling pin to the chocolate chips as I didn’t want them to be so shiny. Chocolate buttons also work really well for the feathers.
How to make the Really Easy Owl Cake
Here is my little video on making this cute cake
Really Easy Owl Cake Recipe
Ingredients
The Cake
- 200 g caster sugar
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 140 g self-raising flour
- 0.5 teaspoon baking powder
- 60 g cocoa powder
- 4 medium medium eggs
The Ganache/Decorating
- 200 g dark chocolate
- 200 ml double cream / heavy cream
- 15 g unsalted butter
- *1 teaspoon of brandy or liquor if you like
- sugar paste for the eyes
- orange candy melts
- chocolate chips or buttons
Instructions
The Cake
- Line a cake tin with greaseproof paper
- Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and a bit of the flour to stop it curdling.
- Sieve in the flour and baking powder in (and cocoa powder if you are making a chocolate cake)
- Make sure you don’t fill the cake tin more than three quarters of the way up. Otherwise when it rises it might over flow. If you some cake mixture left over you can make some cupcakes.
- Bake at 180 degrees for 20-25mins or until a skewer/cake tester comes out clean.
Ganache
- Melt the chocolate and double cream in a bowl over hot water.
- When it’s melted and well combined, add the butter (and brandy if you want to use it).
- When it’s all melted together take off the heat and leave to cool.
- Leave to thicken up to the thick consistency you want.
- Decorate the owl with the sugar paste eyes, chocolate chips to make up the owl.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Please note that the nutrition information provided above is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
Happy Baking x
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If you love animal character cakes I think you’ll love my Unicorn Christmas Cake
Other bakes you might enjoy
Secret Design Chess Cake
Strawberry Prosecco Cake
Easy Black Forest Bundt Cake
Easy Black Forest Cake
Hello. Would you be able to tell me what recipe you used for the flat owl cake and what size tin? Thanks
Hi Lynne, it was a simple Victoria sponge with roughly one third of flour removed and replaced with cocoa powder.
I used 200g butter, 200g caster sugar, 4 medium eggs, 140g self raising flour and 60g of coca powder. Mixed altogether and baked at 180 for 20-25 mins. The tin I used was an 8 inch I think.
Happy baking! x
Hi There,
I made your Owl Cake the other day for a friend’s birthday! Everyone loved it 🙂 Your instructions were very clear and it was super easy to make.
Thank you for the template and for the excellent idea.
Emily 🙂
Hi Emily,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a lovely message. I’m glad the instructions were helpful. If you have some photos I’d love to see the owl you created! my email is [email protected]
Happy Baking
Sisley
I completely forgot to let you know that I made this in Jan. I upsized it considerably to a rectangular tin and my 2 yr old loved it! Will email pics. Thanks for the Inspiration!
It’s my pleasure and it’s so nice to hear that it was helpful. You picture is amazing – I shall post it up soon x
Hi, I plan on making this cake for my daughter’s birthday in a couple weeks. A friend of mine has a stash of fondant and is going to make the eyes for me. Can you tell me the diameter of the circles? Thanks, and thanks for sharing this tutorial!
Hi Jaime,
It is great you are making the cake please let me know how it goes! The eyes I think were about 5cm diameter in white, 3cm in colour and about 1(ish) cm in black. Have fun baking 🙂
i’ve just finished the cake for the party tomorrow…it looks awesome! thanks for sharing the tutorial. i’m sure it will be a big hit!
The template looks very small when printed out. Should it be only about 6 inches long in the center? Seems like a very small cake.Loved making it.
Hi Erin, it doesn’t print that small for me. You should be able to print the owl template to any size you want. In the printer settings it should change size but you could also put it on a word document and and drag it to the exact size you require.
Hello! Could you please let me how you added the choc bits to the edge of the cake?
Hi Melissa, The chocolate ganache is sticky so the chocolate chips should stick to it pretty easily. I hope that helps x
Thanks. How far in advance can you spread the ganache? Will it be okay overnight in the fridge?
Hi Melissa, over night should be fine. I hope you enjoy making it x
Thank you so much for sharing this really easy owl cake. I made it this morning with my nephews and nieces. Here’s the link if you are interested to see how it turned out.
Thank you so much for saying such lovely things 🙂 I’m glad you and your nephews had fun!
Thank you so much for posting this! My daughter is having an owl party next month and this will be perfect!
An owl party! That sounds fantastic. Have fun making the owl cake x
The cake is baking as we speak. While it cools there will be a trip to the bulk food store to find decorations 🙂 I predict one VERY excited 3 year old at supper time!
Ah how exciting! I’m 24 and still get far too excited about cake decorations and owl shaped cakes 🙂
Thanks for the recipe and design! I made the cake for my Daughter’s 2nd Birthday. I used Oreos for the eyes and choc buttons for the pupils. White choc buttons for the chest and crumbled Flake for the wings. I also used your recipe to make 12 owl cupcakes!
Your owl looks incredible! I like the idea of oreos for eyes. Thank you so much for sharing the image it’s lovely to see that my little tutorial was helpful x
hello making planing to make this cake tomoz and was wondering how long the ganache will take to set
Hi Abby, the ganache doesn’t take long to set, about an hour in a cool room should do. It doesn’t set fully but will thicken. Have fun. Tweet me or Facebook me a photo of what you make x
Made the cake for my daughters birthday, everyone loved it.
That is fantastic. Thank you so much for letting me know 🙂
just made this cake for my 7 year old she is so excited to share it with her friends and my 10 year old is eager to make it for her leaving party at brownies thank you so much for your inspiration one happy mother with two very happy girls
Thank you so much for letting me know. It is so lovely to hear and I am so glad of the owl cakes popularity. I hope your 10 year old has fun making it for her brownie pack. I used to make a lot of cakes when I was in the brownies.
Silly question, but how do you make the ‘bashed ‘ chocolate chips? I used a hammer and it worked haha
Not a silly question at all. I used a rolling pin to bash them a bit to take their shine off and change their shape. They don’t need to bashed though depends on what look you want 🙂
What size pan did you use
It was an 8 inch round cake tin. x
What an amazing cake! I think this is one I am going to have a go at and let my daughter help.
Thank you so much that is so sweet 🙂 Have fun making it x
Hey Sisley! I could possibly mess everything up at baking what you can imagine. BUT: My best friend loves Owls and I tried your easy owl cake in brown and pink. Thanks so much for the tutorial and the template. It worked out perfectly great and even I got compliments on my baking. Cheers from Austria, Brigitte
Hi Brigitte Thank you so much for letting me know. You have made my day!
I’m so glad you and your friends liked the cake and I’m sure it was spectacular x
I made this cake for my daughter’s 8th birthday. Not only was it simple to make, it also tasted delicious and looked pretty good too! Thank you very much
Thank you so much for telling me! It is so lovely to hear.
I’m making this owl cake for my daughters birthday this weekend as she requested an Owl cake 🙂 Really looking forward to seeing how it turns out!
Oh do let me know how it goes!
How big were the eyes? Loved making this cake.
I think they were about 2 inches in diameter.
For a quickie version can this cake be made with box cake mix and pre-made frosting or is the ganache necessary for the decorations to stick?
Hi Lisa, You can use everything premade if you just want to decorate it. I hope you enjoy it. Happy owl cake making.
I made this cake for my son’s 2nd birthday- I used coco pops cereal for the feathers which gave it an amazing crunch! Thanks for the ideas!
I used this cake recipe to make a “Superb Owl” for the Super Bowl. It came out beautifully and was a big success. Thank you so much!!
That sounds absolutely brilliant! I wish I could see a photograph
Awesome design! My 8 year old son loved it! I didn’t have the sugar paste, so I used ring cookies with M&Ms for eyes. I used a piece of orange peel cut precisely for the beak. The feathers were cocoa pebbles and the orange dots became white chocolate circles (that’s what they had in the store) – it looked great!
Thank you so much!