Super juicy unicorn cake for the 4th birthday

"For My 4th Birthday, I Want a Unicorn Cake!" My little one wished for a unicorn cake for her 4th birthday – and her wish is my command 😉 Today we’re baking a super-moist unicorn cake with zucchini and lemon!

“Mom, I want a unicorn cake for my birthday!” A request like that can definitely make some parents break into a sweat... But I promise you, themed cakes are no magic trick! With just a simple, delicious pound cake and a bit of icing, colorful sprinkles & candy, you can create a special birthday cake for your next kids’ party.

For this unicorn cake, I used a moist zucchini cake (No, it does NOT taste like zucchini! 😉 ). You can also use your favorite pound cake recipe or, for example, a vanilla bundt or the chocolaty pumpkin cake and decorate it as a unicorn cake afterward.

Recipe for the Super-Moist Unicorn Cake

This is a fun recipe to bake together with your children. Be cautious when grating the zucchini – your child might hurt themselves on the grater. You know best whether they can help under supervision or if it's safer for you to do it.

Juicing lemons also requires strength that little kids may not yet have. You can prepare this step in advance or use bottled lemon juice and pre-packaged lemon zest.

Ingredients for One Unicorn Cake

(Enough for a 26 cm springform pan)

Dough

• 250 g grated zucchini  
• 1 pinch of salt  
• 1 organic lemon
• 250 g spelt flour  
• 65 g cornstarch  
• 1/2 packet of baking powder (7 g)
• 180 g soft butter  
• 220 g sugar  
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar (15g) 
• 2–3 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 eggs (size M) 
• 100 g cream cheese  

Decoration

• approx. 180 g powdered sugar
• Lemon juice
• “lots of colorful Smarties”
• pink glitter*
• pink drip*p*
• approx. 100 g fondant*
• 1 wooden skewer
• 1 toothpick

Baking accessories

Kitchen scale, hand mixer, paring knife, grater, fine sieve, 2 small mixing bowls, 1 large mixing bowl, citrus juicer, rubber spatula, 26 cm springform pan, cooling rack, knife, kitchen brush or small spoon, heart-shaped cookie cutter

Preparation

Before we decorate a magical unicorn cake, we’ll first bake a moist zucchini cake.

We’re baking a moist zucchini cake.

• Bake the Moist Zucchini Cake Wash the zucchini and cut off the ends. Coarsely grate and place in a sieve with a pinch of salt to drain for about 10 minutes.
• Wash and dry the lemon. Finely zest the peel, then juice the lemon.
• Mix flour, cornstarch, and baking powder in a small bowl.
• Preheat oven to 175°C (top/bottom heat).
• Beat butter, sugar, and vanilla sugar with a mixer, then add eggs one at a time (mix each for 20 seconds).
• Add lemon juice and zest and mix.
• Alternate adding cream cheese and the flour mixture until a smooth batter forms.
• Gently fold in the drained zucchini.
• Pour the batter into a greased springform pan and bake for 50–60 minutes. Use the toothpick test to check if done. Bleibt kein Teig mehr am Zahnstocher kleben, ist der Zucchinikuchen fertig!
• Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 30 minutes, then remove from the pan and allow to cool completely.

Decorate the Unicorn Cake

Decorating is always very personal… I made the unicorn's mane from Smarties, but you can also use sprinkles or mini marshmallows. Here's how I decorated the cake for my little one:

• First, use a knife to cut the shape of the unicorn’s head out of the round cake. To do this, cut out a “regular slice of cake” (about 1/12 of the whole cake). Then, cut a second slice from the cake, but only half the size of the first one. See the cutting guide below: The simple themed cake is cut from a round sponge cake. This is how the unicorn slowly takes shape.

• From the large cake slice, you can create the unicorn’s horn, and from the small slice, the unicorn’s ear. I turned the cake from both slices into cakesicles (these cone cakes are also perfect for using cake leftovers), and shaped both the horn and the ear from white fondant.
• To do this, I used a heart-shaped cutter to cut out a heart from the fondant and shaped it into the ear. The tip of the heart becomes the tip of the ear. To make the ear three-dimensional, I pinched together the two curved sides of the heart at the edges and inserted a toothpick into the fondant to hold it in place.
• For the unicorn’s horn, I rolled a piece of fondant into a rope approximately 20 cm long and 1 cm thick. I then folded it in half so that two 10 cm ropes lay side by side and twisted them together. I stabilized the horn by inserting a wooden skewer into it. I then dusted both the horn and the ear with glitter powder to make them sparkle.

• Mix powdered sugar and lemon juice into a thick icing. Start with just a little lemon juice; otherwise, the icing becomes too thin too quickly and won’t stay white but turn translucent.
• Spread the icing over the entire zucchini cake, including the sides.
• While the icing is still wet, arrange the Smarties to form the unicorn’s mane.

• Next, warm up the pink drip according to the instructions and use it to paint the contours of the unicorn, including the eyes and mouth, onto the cake.
• Finally, insert the fondant horn and ear into the zucchini cake, and the transformation into a unicorn cake is complete.
• A bit of glitter on the unicorn cake perfectly finishes off the magical unicorn-glitter effect! 😉

From my little ones and me, we wish you and your little ones lots of fun baking and decorating your charming unicorn!

Yours, Lia

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