Decorating a Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Cake

Decide on the Look

You want a Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake featuring all of the characters in its design. Maybe you want to use the plastic action figures (that your daughter can lick the icing off of and save for playing with later). You may opt for drawing a Strawberry Shortcake face out of icing across the top of the cake. Both will make really memorable cakes. Whichever approach you take, make sure to include fresh strawberries somewhere in the design.

A Cake with 3-D Action Figures

Find as many Strawberry Shortcake action figures as possible. Choose ones that are as tiny as possible. They've been manufactures since the 1980's so you are sure to find plenty of them.

Ice a rectangular or circular cake with pink icing, using a white icing border. Decorate the top using many colors of icing flowers, using squeezable tubes of colored frosting. Use real strawberries along the border, or place them nestled in the flowers. Set the action figures up amidst the flowers and strawberries, with Strawberry Shortcake in the center.

If you're very artistic, you can create a little Strawberry Shortcake scene. Make a little house out of graham crackers. Decorate it with candy. You could create a table and chairs out of chocolate bars for a miniature tea party for the action figures on top of the cake.

When decorating a cake, try making everything edible, since kids love to eat the decorations after marveling over the scene you've created. Add candles last.

A Cake with Strawberry Shortcake's Flat Image

Make a circular cake for this approach, since the shape of a face is circular. Ice the cake with pink or white icing. Find a book or paper image with a good (and simple) likeness of Strawberry Shortcake that you can keep next to you and copy onto the cake.

Make sure you buy all the squeezable tubes of colored icing you will need to recreate her face from the picture on to the top of the cake. You will have to buy different icing tips to recreate fine lines with your icing.

Study the picture. Start by making an outline of her face and hat. Slowly add in the details of the hat, hair, eyes, nose, and mouth.

Go slowly and really try to duplicate the Strawberry Shortcake image from the picture to your cake top. You don't have to be very artistic if you just focus on getting the basic shape of her face and the colors correct. And you can always erase mistakes by re-icing certain areas and working at it until it looks right. You can use thin red licorice for her hair if you're feeling up for the challenge. Add flower decorations along the sides of the cake. Use red and pink stripes for a dramatic look. Real strawberries along the edges are a nice touch.