Mermaid Cake without Fondant (Easy Tutorial)

Are you ready to learn how to make a mermaid cake without fondant that is simple but looks like you have been in decorating classes?

Apart from sharing the decorating tutorial I have also covered the basic techniques like fill, stack and frost a cake, buttercream transfer and chocolate decorations in a step-by-step format so be ready to bookmark this page: to learn the basics of cake decoration.

Mermaid Buttercream Cake

This is the most perfect cake for your mermaid-loving little girl! It definitely was for my 6 yr old.

It's simple (if planned right.. don't worry I will help you with that too), homemade, and tall—and it's covered in ombre buttercream that can also go well for any ocean-themed birthday party or even under-the-sea birthday party.

The best part? There's no fondant, so you can eat it without worrying about breaking a tooth (which is always a plus).

So let's make a tall buttercream mermaid cake without fondant step by step.

Little Girl's Birthday Cake Ideas

Ever since my daughter turned 3 she has been asking for a theme cake every single year. Being a baker Mom I had no choice right!!

So here is a list of themed cake that I have made so far:

1. Little Krishna Birthday
2. Peppa Pig Birthday Cake
3. Unicorn Cake (yet to be shared on the blog)
4. Elsa Birthday Cake
5. Mermaid Birthday Cake

Quick Notes:

Techniques that we are covering in today's tutorial:

1. How to Fill and Stack a Cake
2. How do you make the icing look like the sea?
3. Buttercream Transfer Technique
4. Chocolate Decorations
5. Final Assembly

If all of this sounds intimidating to you simply click on to Shortcut Mermaid Cake Tutorial from the table below.

Things Needed:

1. Cake Base: I am using the Eggless Condensed Milk Cake as the base but to be honest I did not like it as a layered birthday cake when compared to my Eggless Hot Milk Cake which makes an excellent base for birthday cakes.
2. Sugar Syrup
3. Buttercream: Undoubtedly my Condensed Milk Buttercream is my first preference when we want to make such detailed designs. It is not too sweet and perfectly silky and smooth. You would need different colors which you can prepare in small bowls or use a muffin tray instead.
4. Strawberry Filling: This is totally optional but recommended to have an additional boost of flavour. My strawberry filling for cakes covers all the details you need to know about making a filling for a cake.
5. Print out of character: You would need a printout of the character that you would like to make for the Buttercream Transfer method which you can simply google and choose. We are obviously going to use a Mermaid design today. But the technique would work for any other characters like Dinosaur, Spider-Man, Masha etc.
6. Silicon Moulds: I got a few silicon moulds from Amazon like the shells, fishtail etc to match the theme today which I then used to make the chocolate decorations, which means you would also need melted chocolate.
7. You will also need other basics cake decorating items like a bench scraper, an off-set spatula, parchment paper, etc.

How to Fill, Stack and Frost the Cake?

First things first, when you are willing to do a tall cake I would recommend you guys to go for a butter-based cake and not oil-based cakes; oil-based cakes lack sturdiness.

I recommend using my Hot Milk Cake Base.

As for this tutorial I have used my Condensed Milk Vanilla Cake Recipe as the base. It forms an excellent base for travel cakes so I wanted to test whether the same recipe could be used for layered cakes as well.

I doubled the recipe and baked it in 4, 6-inch pans. If you do not have that many tins you can make the recipe in 2 batches which are baked in 2 tins at one time.

Allow to cool and trim the crystallized layer on top.

Place the fourth cake slice upside down so you get an even top layer and now crumb coat the entire cake and leave it in the fridge for 30 mins to 1 hour.

How do you make icing look like the sea?

Creating an ombre effect with shades of blue is the easiest way to make your icing look like the sea. The colours that I have used are turquoise and teal.

Steps to achieve the ombre wavy pattern on the sides of the cake

• Smoothen the top: Since we are giving a rustic finish to the cake we have to start with smoothening the top of the cake first. Use the lightest shade possible, add some frosting on top, spread and even it out. Spend some time here as we won't touch it once you are satisfied with the finish.
• Ombre effect: Create an ombre shading effect on the sides of the cake with the darkest shade at the bottom and the lightest to the top.
• Go up and down while smoothening the cake: Using a bench scraper smoothen the sides of the cake. Do not worry if it is uneven because that is exactly what we want. To give the wave pattern remember to do an up and down wavy motion instead of just horizontally across the surface as this will give it the oceanic wave pattern.

Do not worry if you accidentally scrape too much frosting revealing the cake beneath, you can always fix it later.

Add some frosting on top of it and repeat the wavy pattern. Since we are not aiming for sharp edges here, it becomes easy even for a beginner to fix it.

That's pretty much your blank canvas ready. You can now let it sit in the fridge overnight or for a couple of hours while you work on the decorations.

PRO TIP: You can now use this same cake base to do baby shark theme cake, sailor theme cake, under-the-sea theme cake etc by simply changing the decorations on top.

How do you make a mermaid out of icing

It is fairly easy to make your favourite character a mermaid in this case simply out of buttercream without using fondant using the buttercream transfer technique.

For this technique, you would need

1. Parchment Paper
2. Print out your favourite character from Google. I used this mermaid image for our today's tutorial
3. Coloured buttercream as per the character. I used orange, pink, dark pink, black and skin colour for our mermaid.

Step by Step Tutorial

Chocolate Decorations

One of the easiest ways to make your design pop out is by using chocolate decorations.

Consider checking our post on How to melt chocolates the right way to make sure your melted chocolate does not seize.

You can also use the Instant Pot method of melting chocolates if you wish to.

Once you have the melted chocolate ready, all you have to do is pour it into your silicon chocolate mold as per the theme, allow it to set and unmould to reveal the designs... crazy simple!!

Consider checking our Chocolate Pop it recipe for more details if you prefer.

I used this particular set of mermaid silicon moulds for today's cake.

To Assemble

I made some free-hand seaweeds next to the mermaid design for which fill a piping bag with green buttercream and make a small slit.

Draw a line and make small leaves on it.

For the other side, using a petal tip I drew a green strand on parchment paper and kept it in the freezer until the buttercream was frozen.

Once frozen, I simply took it and stuck it to the cake.

For the base, grind some golden oreo biscuits which resemble the white sand like the ones you see on a beach.

I added those to the base of the cake.

The mermaid chocolate designs were then placed on the cake where they went with the decor.

Also used some pearl sprinkles to replicate bubbles.

Placed a cake topper on top and voila our Mermaid Cake without fondant is ready. Doesn't that look pretty?

Time Sheet

Day 1:

1. Bake the Cakes
2. While the cake is baking, prepare the strawberry filling, sugar syrup and buttercream.
3. Once baked wrap the cake base in cling film and keep in the refrigerator to cool (Stays good for up to a week and can also be frozen for 3 months).
4. Stack, fill and frost the cake. Make the wavy pattern and let the cake sit in the refrigerator.
5. Cover the buttercream separately with a cling film and keep it on your countertop.

Day 2:

1. Start with the buttercream transfer technique.
2. While it is chilling in the fridge, prepare chocolate decorations.
3. Finally, assemble the cake.

Please note this is just the timeline for preparing the cake in 2 days.

However, the cake base, sugar syrup, strawberry filling, chocolate decorations and ground oreo biscuits can be made up to a week ahead and stored so you can consider making those in advance so that the amount of work you do in 2 days is reduced.

Storage Instructions

Since we have used fruit filling in this cake recipe, you will have to keep the cake in the refrigerator at all times.

This cake would last for about 5 days in the refrigerator.

Keep the cake in a cake box to avoid it from drying.

Baker's Tip

1. When you bake the cake in advance, everything is already cooled down to room temperature. This will save time when you are decorating your cake. Also, consider making the sugar syrup, strawberry filling, chocolate decorations and ground oreo biscuits in advance too.
2. Skip the strawberry filling if you are in a rush to finish it all. You can also consider using fresh strawberries instead of compote if you prefer.
3. Crumb coat as you go for this cake recipe. Since you are making a tall buttercream cake, crumb coating at each cake base layer would ensure that you are stacking the cake straight on top of the other.
4. Use gel food colouring for the best colouring effects. For colouring your chocolates prefer using powder colours.
5. While tracing the buttercream designs on top of the printouts, make sure that the previous color has chilled down before proceeding further with other colors so as to make sure that the colours do not smudge.
6. Do not bother if your design looks messy because this layer will be stuck to the cake and hence is practically invisible. Only take care to fill the designs without any air bubbles.
7. Cover the cake board with fondant of blue colour or simply some vinyl stickers of the theme to make the cake pop.

Shortcut Mermaid Cake Without Fondant

If you feel that you won't have enough time to make everything from scratch, here are a few steps you can follow to reduce your amount of work.

1. Use premix to make the cake base, or directly buy the cake base from the supermarket.
2. Skip preparing the strawberry filling. You can use fresh strawberries instead or simply skip them altogether. Vanilla Cake base with vanilla buttercream alone will also taste yummy!
3. Instead of going for the buttercream transfer technique simply decorate the cake with the chocolate moulds. There are so many options on Amazon like this fish tail, shells, sea weeds and sea horses or this cute little girl mermaid topper or these different mermaid girls set. The choice is endless just search for the ones you like.
4. You can even choose to add simple edible mermaid cake decorations like this little mermaid topper on top of the cake or simply use several cupcake toppers.
5. There is also no need to make tall buttercream cake as I did.. Two layers should also be fine. So just make one batch unlike doubling the recipe.

Variations

There are many variations to this cake, using different icing and colours.

One of the most popular is a unicorn mermaid cake, which can be done by just changing the colour of the sides of the cake to rainbow shades. You can also add hair and tail accessories like bows or ribbons.

You can also make a chocolate mermaid cake by simply switching to a chocolate cake base rather than an eggless vanilla cake base.

If you are ok with using fondant then making a fondant mermaid cake is the easiest. Simply roll the fondant using a rolling pin and cover the cake with it and make a fondant mermaid as part of the decoration.

For Mermaid Tail Cake simply place fondant mermaid tails on top. Use silicon moulds for perfection in your mermaid tail shape.

With such a detailed mermaid cake recipe, I am sure you are now ready to rock your mermaid party.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Recipes:

1. Condensed Milk Cake
2. Hot Milk Cake
3. Condensed Milk Buttercream
4. Strawberry filling for Cakes

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