Wow! DIY Epic Tall Birthday Cake

Go all out or go home. That’s what I say every birthday. And my three-year-old’s birthday party was no exception. I decided to make him an epic 18-inch tall birthday cake and it didn’t disappoint.

So, this tall birthday cake is a bit of work. But you don’t have to do it all in one day and the smile on your child’s face will make it all worth it. Here’s my step-by-step cake-making process.

Build your tall birthday cake base

If you want to make this entire cake out of, well, cake, go for it. But I realized pretty quick, that half of this cake needed to be fake. So, you can just buy a round styrofoam cylinder cake online and skip this step completely. Or you can build it out of cardboard with a 9-inch base that is 10 inches in diameter.

After you build your base out of cardboard, all you need to do is wrap it. The wrapping paper helps disguise any spots that you might have missed with frosting. So, try to use the same color wrapping paper as the frosting that you are going to use.

Wrap your base and a square cardboard piece.

Once you are done wrapping, hot glue the write piece to the red cardboard piece. This will prevent any unsightly accidents.

Start cookin’ your cake

You can make your tall birthday cake from scratch, but my three-year-old would never be able to tell the difference. Instead, I cooked five cakes from store-bought cake mixes in a 10″ springform pan.

Once each cake is cooled, place them on top of each other with a piece of parchment paper in between each one. Cover with grocery bags and place in the freezer until you are ready to start frosting your cake.

Make your rice krispy treat cake

I could have technically made 10 cakes instead of five. But I thought that the rice krispy cake would hold together better and provide a more sturdy base. I tripled a regular batch rice krispy treats and formed it onto the springform pan. Then I put it in the freezer.

Decorate your cake

The sky is the limit on this one. Use your creative juices. Place the rice krispy treat and then the cakes on top of the base. For me, this cake took six containers of store-bought vanilla frosting.

Spread five of the containers of frosting all over the cake and smooth it out with an icing smoother or a plastic cutting board.

Next, take the last container of frosting and melt it for about 45-60 seconds in the microwave. Then dye it whatever color you would like with food coloring. Dump it directly on top of the cake and gently push the frosting off the sides to create drizzles on the side. Or just watch this video on how to makes drizzles on your cake.