Pancake Cake Decorating Without Fondant

How to Make a Pancake Cake

Today is National Pancake Day. Who knew? I didn't until I logged onto Facebook this morning and saw pancakes on every other post 😉 So, in a rare moment of being "on time" with a blog post, I'm going to share How to Make a Pancake Cake!

It's not a full-blown tutorial, but I did shoot a few pictures while I was working on this cake and I think you'll get a really good idea of how to put it together 🙂 It's not nearly as hard as you might imagine!

Oh and let me tell you this little tidbit... this cake was for Adele who was turning 2! I did her first birthday the year before and it was one of my most popular cakes... the Pink Owl Cake with Ombre Ruffles... go have a look!!

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For this particular cake, I started with three (3) 8" round cakes stacked up, filled and frosted with vanilla buttercream. I crumb coated it but I didn't cover the whole thing with fondant because of the technique I planned to use to do the pancakes.

The cake was confetti cake. I've never posted a "recipe" for confetti cake, but I usually do one of two things. I either follow the same recipe as my vanilla cake recipe - substituting Pillsbury Funfetti Cake mix for white cake mix OR I make the exact vanilla cake recipe and add in rainbow jimmies.

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To start making it look like pancakes, I made homemade marshmallow fondant and used a tiny drop of brown gel coloring to give it an off-white color. Then I rolled it into long ropes to wrap around the cake. Not what you expected, huh?

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It would've been way too long to do the whole cake with one rope of fondant, so I rolled out pieces as long as I could, usually about 4 foot at time and wrapped it, then did more. The ropes were irregular (just like pancakes) but I did try to keep the ends all on one side (the back).

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I kept going and going until all of the sides were covered (sorry - no pics).

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Then I took a ball of fondant and flattened it out. I didn't want any harsh cut sides on top, so I just smooshed down a ball until it was close to 8" in diameter and smoothed it out and laid it on top. I manipulated it until it "fit" the top of the cake.

Stack of Pancakes Cake

For the pancake coloring, I mixed some gold and yellow gel colors, a tiny bit of brown and red (or maroon) with some vodka. Then I put the cake on a turntable (I love my Ateco #613 turntable) and used a small flat paintbrush to paint the top side of each "pancake", spinning it around and around, from bottom to top.

It may sound tedious but the beauty of it is that it doesn't need to be perfect - pancakes are irregular and vary in color and shape.... so it's easy to get it "right".

Pancakes Cake Above

For the top of the pancakes, I used a larger flat brush and painted it in circles. Again - no need to be perfect! Oh how I wish I had taken pictures while doing this and I promise I will if I ever do it again!

Butter and Syrup on Pancake Cake

The butter was just yellow homemade marshmallow fondant rolled out flat and I used a small square cutter to cut it into pats. When it was all finished, I made some piping gel, used a similar combination of gel colors to get the "syrup" color, then used a squirt bottle to put it on the cake!

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I hand-cut the banner on the side, then used Tappit Block Cutters and Tappit Funky Alphabet Cutters to do the "Happy Birthday Adele". If you haven't used these cutters before or have had trouble using them, be sure to check out my tutorial here: How to Use Tappit Letter Cutters!

Oh and as you can see... I added sprinkles - because sprinkles make everything better, right? 🙂

That's it! Do you have any questions about making a pancake cake? If so, please leave me a comment - I love to hear from readers and help out when I can!

Rose Atwater is the founder and cake decorator behind Rose Bakes. She is baker, cake decorator, author, wife to Richy and homeschooling mommy to 6 wonderful kiddos! Her work has been featured in American Cake Decorating Magazine, Cakes Decor, Pretty Witty Cakes Magazine, Huffington Post and Cake Geek Magazine.