For my grandmother’s recent 86th birthday I was assigned the important task of cake maker for her flamingo themed bash. This was of course totally cool with me though because:

1. I love my Grandma.
2. I knew if I made it, it would have completely legit vegan ingredients.
3. I’m always down to prove to my non vegan family members that plant-based cakes are delicious.
4. I love a good challenge.

After getting some inspo from flamingo images, I came up with the idea to create a two tier cake that resembled grass with underground dirt and of course flamingos roaming the lawn.

Now, for the sake of my amazing secret cake recipe I will not be including it here BUT I will show you step by step how I decorated it and what I used to do so.  Fair enough? You’re awesome for understanding.

Any whoo here’s what you’ll need and I promise it’s beyond simple to do.

 

Ingredients:

Two cakes in your choice of flavors baked in two varying size round pans.

Dollop Gourmet Vegan Frosting in Hot Chocolate and Madagascar Vanilla (my code CHOOSELOVE15 saves you 15% off on their site! Shop Frosting here)

1 bag of organic coconut flakes (I purchased mine from Trader Joes}

Chocolate cream cookies (Also used the Trader Joe’s brand for this)

Vegan friendly green food dye 

1 pack of flamingo candles (5) (purchased on amazon here: candles )

Round cake board *optional (I used 14 inch 5 pack from hobby lobby)

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

**DAY BEFORE**

Before you even begin making your cakes, the absolute first thing you need to work on the day before is your “grass” for the lawn. I recommend doing this the day before because the flakes are wet after dying and work better when dry. The way to do this is incredibly simple.

In a large zip lock bag, pour your organic coconut flakes inside. The amount of flakes you need will depend on the size of the cake you’re making but for my two tier cake I pretty much used the entire bag. In a separate small glass bowl, fill it with roughly a tablespoon and a half of water and add in 2-4 drops of your green food coloring. Mix well. I used a Popsicle stick to mix it so it didn’t stain any of my silverware.

Next pour in about half of the colored water into your coconut zip lock bag and give it a really good shake. It’s important you don’t skip the water step and just add the drops directly because you’ll be left with tons of flakes that aren’t colored and others that are blotchy. Once you’ve shaken the bag, add in more color water to reach your desired green color.

Once you’re satisfied with the coconut color, line a baking pan with parchment paper and spread them out to dry over night.

 

**NEXT DAY**

1. Bake your two cakes as desired. Pull your cakes from the oven and let them completely cool before working on any of the decorations. If you’re wondering why there are three cakes in the picture – lets just say I have some impatient little dessert monsters in my house who wanted some before the birthday hahaha.

2. After your cakes have cooled for over an hour or so, begin by frosting your larger one with your chocolate Dollop Gourmet frosting and a butter knife. Do this on top of your cake board so you don’t have to transfer it later. It’ll be covered later with cookies/grass so no worries if it isn’t perfect.

3. Repeat this step with your smaller cake and place it on the top of the center of your larger cake.

4. Once your cakes are covered with frosting, take your coconut “grass” and coat the top cake with it. This can get a little messy so work on a surface that isn’t near the edge of a counter to avoid a messy floor. I speak from expereince.

5. Once this is done, take about 12-15 of your chocolate cookies and place them in a large zip lock bag. Use your hands to crunch and squish them by pounding on the bag and pressing with your fingers. Do this until it resembles chunks of dirt.

6. After your “dirt” is done, cover the larger bottom cake with it. This can also get pretty messy. Top with your flamingo candles and for extra cuteness pipe small dots using your vanilla Dollop frosting around the bottom of the smaller cake. I used a wilton piping bag but you could also do this with a zip lock bag by cutting a tiny hole in the corner.

 

And that’s seriously it! A super easy and adorable way to bring your flamingo themed birthday to life. Everyone loved the cake and my grandma was especially happy which is really all that matters to me <3

If you give this a try please do tag me!

Til next time,

~ Chantel