My cake is draggin'
August 17, 2020 6:13 PM Subscribe
I know, another theme cake question. This time, I need to make a dragon theme cake. I can't think of ANYTHING creative.
I do NOT want to do a literal dragon shape or fondant dragon. I don't have or want a dedicated cake pan for this. I have seen the Game of Thrones dragon egg cakes. That's not the right thing either.
Some level of conceptual fun would be fine, but the birthday kid is turning 6 so not too high art here. THANK YOU!
Best answer: I can bake the hell out of a cake, but when it comes to decorating, I am terrible. One year, there was a crumbled little hole in the birthday cake I made for my ex and I looked at it and was inspired to buy little plastic dragons (you can often get a tube of them at little boutique toy stores) and put them all over and around the cake like they'd been destroying it. I made little paper word bubbles for them so they were saying things like "RAR."
It was fun, and works for someone like me with very poor decorating skills.
posted by hought20 at 6:29 PM on August 17, 2020 [24 favorites]
It was fun, and works for someone like me with very poor decorating skills.
posted by hought20 at 6:29 PM on August 17, 2020 [24 favorites]
I would make a chocolate and vanilla marbled cake topped with a toy dragon (or lots of dragons).
posted by scrubjay at 6:30 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by scrubjay at 6:30 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Don't know if this might work...Inside : red velvet cake (box cake should give you a vivid color!), with orange/yellow frosting between the layers. Outside, green frosting patterned to look like scales? Or a neutral background frosting featuring a dragon's tail wrapping around the cake?
I don't know how hard it is to do, but there are a TON of pretty cool looking frosting patterns that come up when you google "dragon scale cake"
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 6:31 PM on August 17, 2020
I don't know how hard it is to do, but there are a TON of pretty cool looking frosting patterns that come up when you google "dragon scale cake"
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 6:31 PM on August 17, 2020
I requested this from a great baker and she did a version of a unicorn cake, but made it a dragon by not using a horn and putting a tail around the base. It was fantastic! I’m sure you could google examples. Try a “dragon cake” search.
You would need round cakes - at least 4-5 to get the height you want. Doesn’t have to be fondant.
posted by areaperson at 6:31 PM on August 17, 2020
You would need round cakes - at least 4-5 to get the height you want. Doesn’t have to be fondant.
posted by areaperson at 6:31 PM on August 17, 2020
Best answer: Dragon’s hoard? Chocolate coins and other trinkets spilling out of a treasure chest cake. You could make it part of an activity - follow the dragon footprints and “here be dragons” signs to find the hoard!
posted by Naanwhal at 6:40 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Naanwhal at 6:40 PM on August 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
A dragon scale cake seems really cool / adaptable / “easy”
These seem like pretty good instructions. You likely wouldn’t need to go so dark with the colors. Good luck!
posted by kellygrape at 7:03 PM on August 17, 2020
These seem like pretty good instructions. You likely wouldn’t need to go so dark with the colors. Good luck!
posted by kellygrape at 7:03 PM on August 17, 2020
Best answer: "Dragon''s hoard" would be wonderful. Do it like this with gold chocolate coins inside. Alternately, shiny sprinkles could be the treasure. Or a combination. This is a very easy decorating concept that kids go bonkers for IME.
Pro tip -- the directions on this one are wrong, don't frost the inside of the cavity: in fact keep the frosting away from the edge of the cavity. If you let the frosting touch the treasure it will stick, and not be as nice to pick up.
You could write something like "stay away from my treasure" on the top. You could decorate the sides with flames.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:35 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
Pro tip -- the directions on this one are wrong, don't frost the inside of the cavity: in fact keep the frosting away from the edge of the cavity. If you let the frosting touch the treasure it will stick, and not be as nice to pick up.
You could write something like "stay away from my treasure" on the top. You could decorate the sides with flames.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:35 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
Maybe a geode cake with a crevasse big enough to hold a toy dragon?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6c/9c/cf/6c9ccf4058a945646abcbd930ee157a6.jpg
And you can add little treasures and other candies and such too.
posted by Jacen at 7:49 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6c/9c/cf/6c9ccf4058a945646abcbd930ee157a6.jpg
And you can add little treasures and other candies and such too.
posted by Jacen at 7:49 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Depending on your resistance to what you may have in mind for traditional dragon shaped cake:
Carving a coiled or snakelike dragon (think of Asian depictions of dragons, less so the more western batwinged flying lizards) from a series of round cakes should be relatively simple-- you'd want a big sheet as your final surface, but cutting curved segments out of a round cake or two is, um, a piece of cake. turn them this way and that to make a wavy body, bevel the top edges to smooth things out. Make a spade-shaped or triangular head (square cake pan with some corners blocked off), I'd think, and then decorate to add the ears, flaring nostrils, etc. The cake-head is a canvas, not a dragon-head by itself.
If you want to make wings out of something food-safe but inedible, you'll have something to shelter the wealth (painted sticks glued to trashbags?) and bump up the visual drama.
The concavities of the curved body will be natural places to place that dragon booty-- maybe some cheap gold-colored beads for the guests (are we doing guests yet?) to wear, chocolate coins, and any other candy or novelty that says "riches!" to a 6-year-old.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:34 PM on August 17, 2020
Carving a coiled or snakelike dragon (think of Asian depictions of dragons, less so the more western batwinged flying lizards) from a series of round cakes should be relatively simple-- you'd want a big sheet as your final surface, but cutting curved segments out of a round cake or two is, um, a piece of cake. turn them this way and that to make a wavy body, bevel the top edges to smooth things out. Make a spade-shaped or triangular head (square cake pan with some corners blocked off), I'd think, and then decorate to add the ears, flaring nostrils, etc. The cake-head is a canvas, not a dragon-head by itself.
If you want to make wings out of something food-safe but inedible, you'll have something to shelter the wealth (painted sticks glued to trashbags?) and bump up the visual drama.
The concavities of the curved body will be natural places to place that dragon booty-- maybe some cheap gold-colored beads for the guests (are we doing guests yet?) to wear, chocolate coins, and any other candy or novelty that says "riches!" to a 6-year-old.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:34 PM on August 17, 2020
Best answer: Can you get a bunch of gelt and Hershey kisses (or any other gold/silver candy) and make the dragon’s treasure pile on top of a regular-ass old layer cake? For added something, spray with gold-colored, uh, cake spray. You can get it at Michael’s.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:39 PM on August 17, 2020
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:39 PM on August 17, 2020
How about 6 small dragon shaped birthday cake candles with the wicks coming out of their mouths to symbolize fire breathing? (surely such must exist?).
Each dragon could be sitting on one or more gold coin chocolates to stand for their hoards, and when the birthday person vanquishes the dragons by blowing out the candles, they could loot the hoards and pass them out to the guests as the cake is cut and served.
I guess you'd need one of those little platforms on stilts for every dragon+coins or you'd rip out a hunk of frosting with each of the bottom coins and have a giant mess onyour their hands.
posted by jamjam at 9:09 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Each dragon could be sitting on one or more gold coin chocolates to stand for their hoards, and when the birthday person vanquishes the dragons by blowing out the candles, they could loot the hoards and pass them out to the guests as the cake is cut and served.
I guess you'd need one of those little platforms on stilts for every dragon+coins or you'd rip out a hunk of frosting with each of the bottom coins and have a giant mess on
posted by jamjam at 9:09 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Best answer: hought20's recommendation has worked great for me with kids. Make a regular cake, destroy it a little, blame the dragons and/or construction equipment. Kids get to keep the toys afterwards, which is even cooler.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 9:12 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 9:12 PM on August 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
A plastic dragon figurine on top of a stack foil-wrapped chocolate coins all the way, maybe with some plastic gems amongst the treasure if the kids are old enough to not try and eat them!
Plain round cakes look amazing with generous amount of any sort of candy strewn randomly on top.
posted by slightlybewildered at 9:27 PM on August 17, 2020
Plain round cakes look amazing with generous amount of any sort of candy strewn randomly on top.
posted by slightlybewildered at 9:27 PM on August 17, 2020
My kid had a dragon party for her 6th too! I bought her a regular old cake from the store and put an extremely rad toy dragon on it, with a toy phoenix and unicorn (OK, technically it was a "dragon-centric magical creatures party" so I could also take advantage of the truly copious amount of unicorn merch I was able to find). Specifically I went with this one because her favorite color at the time was gold. But there are tons of extremely rad dragon toys out there in every color. A year+ later she still plays with that dragon.
posted by potrzebie at 9:57 PM on August 17, 2020
posted by potrzebie at 9:57 PM on August 17, 2020
Best answer: Cake with toy dragon on top guarding its eggs (Easter eggs or Cadbury creme eggs would work for this.) If you don’t want eggs, have it guarding coins. If you want to amp up the dragon drama, you can light up some eggs shells on the cake with brandy ala bombe Alaska style. (Introducing too much fire might be a bit too dangerous for six year old’s party though).
posted by Jubey at 11:12 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Jubey at 11:12 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Dry ice can turn a regular dragon into a fire breathing one.
posted by oceano at 11:19 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by oceano at 11:19 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Do you have a bundt tin? Could cut a bundt cake in half to make a dragon body?
posted by freethefeet at 11:59 PM on August 17, 2020
posted by freethefeet at 11:59 PM on August 17, 2020
There is technology to print pictures on cake, maybe even at home. So, Google "cartoon dragon", look at images and pick one. Get it printed on a sheet cake.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:33 AM on August 18, 2020
posted by SemiSalt at 4:33 AM on August 18, 2020
Make a normal is cake (though if it comes out messed up that’s fine) and then heat up some yellow/orange/red frosting so it “flows” and pour it over the cake. Then place a large dragon figure next to the cake with little paper flames coming out of it to show how it’s melting the cake.
posted by raccoon409 at 5:14 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by raccoon409 at 5:14 AM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
can we see a picture of what you ended up with? Enquiring cakers want to know
posted by fingersandtoes at 12:39 PM on August 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by fingersandtoes at 12:39 PM on August 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you so much for the help! Went with the "dragon guarding a cave full of gold and jewels" theme. I couldn't find a good plastic dragon so ended up with a stuffed dragon that became part of the gift.
posted by papergirl at 12:23 PM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by papergirl at 12:23 PM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
You make it by tying a regular bowline in a piece of rope long enough for the looped bit to drag on the ground while you hold the other end and pull the knot behind you. Thus, the draggin'/dragon bowline. To make it cake-themed, what about baking whatever kind of cake you like, putting it on a little wheeled contraption, and dragging it behind you as you enter the party room?
(I do not know really any six-year-olds and I definitely do not know the six-year-old in question, so I'm sincerely sorry if this would read as mean or a little too conceptual for that age.)
posted by kalimac at 6:29 PM on August 17, 2020