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    You are here: Home / Parties and Entertaining / How to make a Mermaid Cake

    How to make a Mermaid Cake

    BY: Courtney PUBLISHED: Jul 2, 2018 Leave a Comment UPDATED ON: Mar 10, 2022

    This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.
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    This Mermaid Cake and shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and I Love Ice Cream Cakes. All opinions are mine alone. #IceCreamCakeBreak #CollectiveBias

    Learn how to make a Mermaid Cake for a fun Mermaid Birthday Party. Make chocolate sea shells, chocolate mermaid tails, seafoam whipped cream, plus we use ice cream cakes!

    mermaid cake

    Did you know that July is National Ice Cream Month?! It’s also my birthday month, but most importantly, it’s also Kay’s birthday month! It’s only natural that we’d love to have ice cream on our birthday, ice cream cake that is! I have always had Carvel® Ice Cream Cakes for my birthday since I can remember.

    mermaid cake tutorial

    Kay also requests an ice cream cake for her birthday too now, so we had to get a little crafty for her birthday! She wanted a mermaid birthday cake as she LOVES mermaids!

    how to make a mermaid birthday cake

    Making a cake doesn’t have to be super complicated when you can pick up an already made cake and decorate it as you want, even better, your kids can help decorate it just the way they like! We placed the cake back in the freezer before we set it out too.

    carvel ice cream cake mermaid cake

    Now with this fun mermaid cake tutorial, you can have your favorite I Love Ice Cream Cakes by Carvel for your mermaid party too. There’s no wrong way to enjoy I Love Ice Cream Cakes and having the cake already made for you makes the task of making a mermaid cake that much easier!

    How to make a Mermaid Cake 

    I first started by making the chocolates which are super simple using a double boiler method. I melted the desired colors and used a silicone shell mold and mermaid molds.

    mermaid cake how to make chocolate sea shells

    For the shells, I liked to use a variety of colors, dark chocolate, salted caramel chocolate, and then white chocolate.

    how to make chocolate sea shells for mermaid cakemermaid cake chocolate sea shells

    Then, of course, you need to make oceany whipped cream! I made our homemade whipped cream recipe but mixed in a little meringue powder to let it firm up a bit more.

    mermaid cake whipped creammermaid cake whipped cream recipe

    Once the whipped cream was mixed and ready I put in green and blue food dye to make a beautiful seafoam green color.

    whipped cream for mermaid cake

    Once it’s done just place into a piping bag with a large 1M tip.

    mermaid cake from carvel cake tutorialeasy mermaid birthday party

    My daughter picked out all the colors and placed most of the shells onto her mermaid cake. She loved learning how to make a mermaid cake, she is ready to make another one! 🙂

    mermaid birthday cake tutorial

    It’s an under the sea cake with mermaids on top!

    easy mermaid cake

    We love the mermaid cake toppers on this cake, it allows her friends to pick out a mermaid tail, or even a shell if they prefer.

    how to make a mermaid cake

    On the bottom we crushed graham crackers to make it look like sand, but also we were able to cover the bottom of the cake and the cake board.

    under the sea mermaid cake

    Behind our cake table, we made a fun wall streamer. You guys… I spent $3 on the streamer!

    diy streamer wall for mermaid party

    The streamer ribbons were $1 each and I bought 3 colors, the “string” is dental floss, shocker! Make use of what you have so you can spend your extra moolah on the decorations you can’t make, like napkins, cups, and of course your kiddos fabulous mermaid tail tutu that she won’t take off since we bought it, ha!

    mermaid birthday party

    In addition to a mermaid cake we put some fresh fruit on our cake table, Kay picked out pineapple and grapes!

    fresh cut pineapplefresh red grapes

    Don’t have the time to decorate a cake? Try one of their seasonal cakes!
    The ice cream cakes come in many different styles and sizes, including original Carvel®, Jon Donaire® and OREO®.

    carvel cake turned mermaid cake

    For mermaid cake we purchased the Carvel Happy Birthday Ice Cream Cake – 8″ Round and the Carvel Lil’ Love Ice Cream Cake – Original. The larger one serves up 14 and the smaller one serves up to 6. That means our Mermaid Cake will serve up to 20 people!

    We love getting I Love Ice Cream Cakes for special occasions, or even on our monthly family game night. You can find their cakes in grocery stores nationwide, usually in the bakery or freezer section. I purchased our cakes at our local Wegmans.

    carvel ice cream cakes in store

    mermaid cake topper
    Finding Zest has an excellent tutorial for making chocolate mermaid tails!

    mermaid birthday cake

    Don’t be scared to cut the cake either, it’s super simple! I cut down into the top round first.

    how to cut an ice cream cake

    I stop once I feel the bottom tier and then lift the piece of cake. I hold onto the board below to make sure the cake doesn’t move away from the graham cracker sand.

    how to cut ice cream cake

    Each kiddo can take their favorite chocolate, some pearls and of course some sand! 🙂

    mermaid cake from carvel ice cream cake

    Find MORE mermaid recipes for your mermaid party to pair with our Mermaid Cake!

    • Mermaid Hot Chocolate
    • Mermaid Wands
    • Mermaid Cupcakes

    PIN our Mermaid Cake to save for later

    mermaid birthday cake party

    POSTED IN: Desserts Parties and Entertaining

    About Courtney

    Family, Food, and Photography are Courtney's passions and you'll see all of that on this blog. She is happily married to her husband Chris and together they have two amazing kiddos!

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