A Deceptively Easy Dinosaur Birthday Cake: DIY How-To (2024)

Last year when my son said he wanted a dinosaur birthday party, I had no idea what kind of cake to make. I knew I wanted it to be an easy dinosaur birthday cake, but I always try to make my kids’ cakes look really cool.

I hopped onto Pinterest to search for easy dinosaur birthday cake ideas, and I was not disappointed!

Most of the simple dinosaur cakes were either buttercream-frosted cakes made with a dinosaur-shaped cake pan or lightly decorated round cakes with fondant or plastic dinosaurs on top.

But I really fell in love with the dinosaur waterfall cake look.

The problem was that it didn’t actually look like an easy dinosaur cake. It looked hard.

An Easy Dinosaur Birthday Cake? Really?

Once I broke down all the steps for recreating the look, I realized it was actually really simple compared to most of the cakes I’ve made in the past.

It was definitely easier than fondant. (I was insistent on making a dinosaur cake with no fondant. It’s so expensive!)

So I made the dinosaur cake with a waterfall! And it came out amazing.

Now I want to tell you how to make a dinosaur cake like this one, step by step!

Dinosaur Cake Hack

This is the best dinosaur birthday cake because not only is it simple and easy, it looks big.

Just look at the size of the waterfall!

But technically, this is only a 2-tier dinosaur birthday cake.

I bet you can guess how I pulled off a big dino cake with minimal effort.

The secret hack to this cool dinosaur birthday cake is how the cliff is made.

I only baked two cake rounds. Then after leveling the tops, I cut one in half and stacked it on itself. Then I stacked those on one side of the remaining cake.

Voila! I suddenly had a three-tier cake with a two-tier cliff for my waterfall.

Dinosaur Buttercream Cake

With this dinosaur icing cake, you don’t have to worry one bit about having perfectly smooth frosting.

Almost all of it is covered up by something else!

When I was a kid, a dinosaur-themed birthday cake made from buttercream would’ve involved a simple buttercream sheet cake with some plastic dinosaur cake decorations on it.

Underwhelming, and the bare minimum.

But what else were you gonna do with a dinosaur theme?

Well with this 3D dinosaur cake design, using plastic dinosaurs on top is no longer a cop-out.

Instead, they totally enhance the realistic look of the scene!

Fondant dinosaurs just wouldn’t go well with how detailed this cake looks (with minimal effort, I might add).

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How to Make a Dinosaur Cake at Home

This step-by-step guide is less of a recipe and more of a dinosaur cake tutorial.

But I do tweak boxed cakes and make my own frosting using Wilton’s buttercream recipe, so I’ll include all the food supplies needed.

I would be careful about going bigger, though!

While a 12-inch round cake is probably doable, keep in mind that one side of your cake is going to be much taller and heavier than the other.

If you plan on transporting this cake, smaller is better.

While two boxes of cake mix will fit into my mixer at once, I had to run it a second time for the last box.

I use a Kitchenaid stand mixer for mixing both my cake batter and my frosting, and I would never recommend another way!

Use your wire whip attachment for the cake mix and your flat beater attachment for the frosting.

My husband and kids like to eat the “tops” while I finish the cake. But that’s okay, I eat the leftover frosting.

Once your cakes are leveled, cut one of them evenly in half.

I did this by eye, and while it’s not crucial that they are 100% the same size, you’ll want to get as close as you can.

If one does end up a little bigger, put it under the other before stacking it onto the whole round.

Put your remaining whole round onto a cake board at least 12 inches in diameter.

Stack the two halves on top of each other on one side of the cake, spreading frosting between each layer.

If you’re worried about the layers sliding around, you can insert a dowel rod or two through the whole stack to help keep it in place, but cake boards shouldn’t be necessary.

Be generous with the icing, especially on the sides. Thicker frosting will give the Pirouette cookies more space to press into the cake and act as glue to hold them in.

The good news? You don’t have to worry about making this smooth and pretty. At all!

Just spread the frosting as evenly as possible.

Crack open your Pirouette cans and start pressing the tallest ones into the tall part of the cake.

I started on one edge and worked my way around to the other side of the semicircle.

Once the tall ones are in place, check for any broken cookies that are the right size to put in either the sides of the cliff moving toward the waterfall or on the short edge around the front.

Then as needed, cut your remaining Pirouette cookies to size to fill in these areas (I used a small, well-sharpened knife from the butcher block to do so).

I also piped a line to illustrate how big I wanted the plunge pool at the bottom to be, but I didn’t pipe any extra lines over the pool itself.

I wanted it to be smoother and more like a small lake.

If I were to do it again I’d do one thing differently, though: I’d add some meringue powder to the remaining white icing I set aside to help it crust and firm up a little more (and faster) for the waterfall.

This is because once I started painting with the blue sparkle gel, some areas were mushed down quite a lot under the paintbrush.

Overall, the white mixing with the blue lent itself to a realistic look, but I’d have liked to have kept more of my raised lines and shapes.

While you could probably just squirt the gel straight onto the waterfall and spread it around with a paintbrush, I preferred squirting the gel onto a small paper plate, dipping my food-safe paintbrush in it, and carefully applying it to the waterfall.

This was the most time-consuming part of the cake for me.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I wanted it to look as realistic as possible!

My main tip is to not over-apply it to the stream and waterfall. Let some of the white shine through so it looks a bit foamy like real rapids.

I used a LOT of blue gel on the plunge pool, though.

I wanted it to be as dark as I could get it so it looked really deep, adding the most gel right in the middle and leaving it thinner around the edges.

Once the waterfall was painted, I decided to pipe just a bit of white frosting at the base of the waterfall (using Wilton tip #10) to try and mimic the massive foam and crashing water of a real one.

Use a clean hand to grab a fistful of cookie crumbs and sprinkle them over the remaining white parts of the cake.

Now you have (extremely tasty) dirt!

We used tip #233 from that same Wilton kit I mentioned before to pipe tufts of grass randomly throughout the scene.

Again, I wish I’d used a little meringue powder or some extra powdered sugar in the remaining frosting to stiffen it up a bit.

But since this was supposed to be prehistoric times anyway, I just made long flowing bunches of grass that lay down on the ground.

It’s never been mowed, after all, just eaten by herbivores!

I chose to put one on each level of the cake, with the tall brachiosaurus’ neck craning over the top of the waterfall. (Again, not true to size in real life, but it looked cool.)

His foot was also pressed into the pond – perhaps for a quick cool-down?

And that’s it! An easy dinosaur birthday cake that looks way more complicated than it really is.

Homemade Dinosaur Cake

There are a lot of DIY dinosaur cake ideas out there, and chances are you’re not a professional baker if you’re looking for one to try.

But please, do not be too intimidated to try this cake.

I’d made a dozen “fancy” cakes before trying this one, and this was by far the most impressive to our guests.

It also took the least amount of time!

I baked the cakes the night before but waited to assemble the cake until the morning of the party.

My mom came to help me work out the waterfall’s look, but we had the entire thing done in less than three hours.

Except for a simple single-tiered fondant-covered round cake, I have never finished that quickly.

And it’s because there is ZERO time spent smoothing sides or perfecting edges.

ZERO time spent rolling, cutting, or shaping fondant.

Your anxiety will thank you for this one!

Cute Dinosaur Cake

I made this dinosaur birthday cake for a 4-year-old boy, but the design is both versatile and impressive enough to be a first birthday cake, for toddlers, and even older kids.

I wouldn’t hesitate to make another dinosaur birthday cake like this one if my son was ten years older. (In fact, he’d probably appreciate it more then!)

By the way – dinosaurs aren’t just for boys. I was a huge dinosaur nerd as a kid (maybe that’s where Hugo gets it from?).

This would be an equally cool dinosaur birthday cake for a girl.

Dinosaur Kit Kat Cake Alternative

If you like how the cake looks but simply don’t want a big waterfall, you have another option for your “cliff” edges!

Instead of the long, rolled wafer cookies (which can be pricey), you could use Kit Kats!

Just break full-size Kit Kat bars into individual sticks (they’re called fingers) before pressing them around the edges of the cake.

Keep in mind that a Kit Kat is about 3.5 inches tall.

If you want them to come to the top edge of your cake, you’ll need to make each layer about 1.75 inches tall instead of the standard two inches.

Kit Kats would work on the waterfall version of this cake as well, but you’ll need to stack a couple of them on top of each other, and where they join will be noticeable.

I preferred trimming the Pirouette cookies as needed for solid lines.

FAQ & How to Customize

Q: Do I have to make my own frosting, or will stuff from a can work?
A: You’ll need many, many cans of frosting to have enough for a cake this size.

Plus, the shelf-stable canned stuff tends to be too thick to spread easily over a large surface area.

That being said, there are options!

It’s pretty easy (and cheaper) to make from scratch, but Wilton does offer a prepackaged powder mix to eliminate the measuring.

Be sure to get three boxes to triple the recipe.

If you really don’t like making your own icing, Wilton also sells tubs of ready-to-use white icing (link goes to Walmart)!

While I think it tastes different from homemade (likely due to preservatives), it is not bad. Just different.

Click below to buy it on Amazon.

Wilton Creamy White Decorator Icing,Medium Consistency,4 lb. Tub, Cake Decorating Supplies

• This tub of buttercream frosting is enough to cover two 8-inch 2-layer…
• White vanilla flavored icing Can be refrigerated and stored for up to…
• 4 lbs. (1. 81 kg)
• Made in a facility that also processes peanuts, tree nuts, egg, milk…
• Made in the USA

$29.94

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Q: Can I just use blue buttercream frosting for the waterfall?
A: Can you? Yes, absolutely. It will look okay.

But I strongly recommend the blue sparkle gel instead.

It has that iridescent, reflective quality that tricks your mind into thinking the light is bouncing off of real water.

Q: Can I use a cookie other than Biscoff?
A: Any cookie that crumbles well would be fine.

Chewy cookies or really hard/crunchy cookies won’t turn into a very fine crumb.

(Also, Biscoff just tastes amazeballs and I love having the excuse to eat it.)

Q: Can this cake be assembled ahead of time?
A: It should be okay to assemble this cake the day before and have it still look the same (and be safe to eat) the next day.

However, the Pirouette wafer cookies will definitely become chewy instead of crunchy by the time you eat them.

My cake sat after completion for about four hours until being eaten, and the wafers were already soft and chewy instead of having their usual crunchiness.

Dinosaur Cake Recipe

Yield: 28 servings

Easy Dinosaur Birthday Cake with Waterfall

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Additional Time: 3 hours

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Believe it or not, this is a very easy dinosaur birthday cake recipe! A few simple steps beyond the usual cake-and-frosting ritual will give you a really cool, realistic dinosaur scene your party guests will be awed by.

Ingredients

For Cakes

• 3 boxes Pillsbury Moise Supreme Devil’s Food Premium Cake Mix
• 1.5 cups vegetable oil
• 3 cups milk (not skim)
• 9 eggs
• Baker's Joy

For Buttercream Frosting

• 1.5 cups shortening (1.5 Crisco sticks), divided
• 1.5 cups of butter (three sticks), divided
• 12 cups sifted powdered/Confectioners sugar (about 3 pounds), divided
• 3 tsp vanilla extract, divided
• 3-6 Tbsp milk, divided

For Decorating

• (3) 13.5oz cans Pirouette wafer cookies (any flavor)
• 6oz Biscoff cookies (about 24), crushed
• Blue Wilton Sparkle Gel
• Green food coloring
• Plastic trees
• Dinosaur figures

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare the cake mixes as directed on the box, but substitute 1 cup of milk for each 1 cup of water called for. Divide batter evenly into two 10-inch round cake pans prepared with Baker’s Joy. Bake in the preheated oven for 60-80 minutes, checking at 60 minutes and every 5 minutes after to see if it’s done. (To check for doneness, insert a clean toothpick near the center of the tallest cake. If it comes out without wet batter on it, the cakes can be removed.)
2. Allow cakes to cool in the pans on cooling racks for 30 minutes. Then, place a rack over one cake pan at a time, inverting the two so the cakes release from the pans onto the cooling racks. Allow cakes to cool completely before assembling the cake or wrapping to store overnight.
3. Set out your 3 sticks of butter to soften for at least 30 minutes.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cut up TWO sticks of your softened butter as well as one WHOLE stick (one cup) of shortening. Cream on medium speed until fluffy. Add TWO tsp vanilla extract and beat in, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
5. Gradually add EIGHT cups of powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing on low speed to combine each cup before adding more. Work your way up to medium speed, scraping the sides as needed and mixing until all sugar is combined and the frosting is dry and somewhat stiff.
6. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, to the frosting, beating in between until it just reaches a spreadable consistency. You don’t want it to be runny or have it slide off the sides of your cake.
7. Cut the rounded tops off the cakes and level them. Cut one of the rounds in half, stacking the halves on top of each other with a layer of frosting spread in between. Frost the top of the remaining round, and place this stack onto one side to form a “cliff.” Finish frosting the entire cake. If more frosting is needed, repeat steps 4-6 with your remaining frosting ingredients (half of what was used the first time).
8. Open your Pirouette cookies. Starting with the unbroken/tallest ones, place them around the tallest side of the cake from one side to the other. If there are broken pieces, place them around the shortest side and toward where your waterfall will be. Trim Pirouette cookies to size as needed. Leave a gap in the middle of the two-tiered portion for your waterfall.
9. Using a piping bag and a #7 Wilton frosting tip, use leftover white frosting to outline your river, waterfall, and plunge pool below. Then pipe long, imperfect lines starting from the back of your river down to the base of your waterfall, restarting lines as needed. There should be plenty of bumps and waves to mimic rushing water. No extra frosting is needed over the plunge pool area.
10. Squeeze a generous amount of your blue sparkle gel onto a plate, Using a food-safe paintbrush, start at the back of the river and work your way down the waterfall, painting it with the gel. It’s okay for the white frosting to show through because it will mimic foam and bouncing sunlight. When you get to the plunge pool, squeeze more sparkle gel from the tube directly onto the cake and spread it out with your paintbrush. The gel should be thicker (with almost no white showing through) in the center of the plunge pool and gradually get thinner near the edges.
11. Using Wilton frosting tip #10, pipe bits of white frosting at the base of your waterfall to mimic where the waves crash into the pool and create foam.
12. Place your Biscoff cookies into a resealable bag, pressing out any air. Using your hands or a rolling pin, crush the cookies into fine crumbs (some larger crumbs are okay). Using a hand, sprinkle fistfuls of cookie “dirt” over the remaining exposed areas of white frosting. When finished, every part of the cake should be covered with either Pirouette cookies, blue sparkle gel, or Biscoff crumbs.
13. Insert your plastic trees throughout the dirt, leaving room for your desired dinosaur figures. 8-12 trees should be plenty. Larger trees may need to be inserted deeper into the cake, leaving gaps; simply scoot some cookie dirt in to fill them.
14. Mix green food coloring into remaining frosting to the desired color. Using a #233 Wilton tip, pipe “grass” as desired over your dirt and around your trees. It’s okay for some of it to lay around the edges of the plunge pool as well.
15. Add your dinosaur figures to the cake, slightly pressing them into the dirt and frosting to secure them as needed. If possible, have one put its foot into the plunge pool and add some extra blue sparkle gel over his foot to give the illusion he’s about to walk in!

Notes

You can use any flavor of cake you prefer, but I always recommend using Pillsbury Moist Supreme cake mixes for birthday cakes.

Recommended Products

• 

  Pirouline Rolled Wafers – Chocolate Hazelnut – Rolled Wafer Sticks, Crème Filled Wafers, Rolled Cookies for Coffee, Tea, Ice Cream, Snacks, Parties, Gifts, and More – 3.25oz Tin 2pk

• 

  Wilton Gel Icing, Sparkle Blue, 3.5 oz

• 

  HUIANER Palm Tree Model Trees, Miniature Palm Trees Mixed 5 Size Fake Plastic Trees with No Stands for DIY Scenery Landscape Cake Decoration（18PCS 3.1" - 6.3"）

Nutrition Information

Yield

28

Serving Size

1 slice
Amount Per ServingCalories 650Total Fat 27gSaturated Fat 8gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 10gCholesterol 24mgSodium 364mgCarbohydrates 98gNet Carbohydrates 97gFiber 1gSugar 75gProtein 4g

Nutrition information is based on the manufacturer labels for each ingredient, and may not always be accurate.

Rate & Review

If you’re brave enough to try this recipe (I promise, it really is an easy dinosaur birthday cake!), please feel free to comment or write a review below! I’d love to know how yours turned out and any changes you made.

I want to SEE your cakes, too, so please tag @brightcolormom on social media so I can see those photos!

I hope you have fun making this cake and that you feel very proud of what you achieve!

And just in case you’re still in the early stages of planning your dinosaur party, please check out my collection of dinosaur birthday invitations. There’s a free download available!