winter yuki tokidoki unicorn birthday cake

For my daughter's 6th birthday this past December, I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She told me that she wanted another unicorn cake, like the Tokidoki one that I made for her last year, except she wanted to pick a different unicorn this time. So we looked up Tokidoki unicorns, and as soon as she saw Yuki, a winter unicorn with snowflakes, she was smitten! (She's still really into Frozen, and she loved Yuki's snowflakes!)

Since we were going with the winter theme (winter bithday, winter unicorn), I decided she should have a minty chocolatey cake! So I made two 8-inch chocolate cakes (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), filled with peppermint whipped cream. (I sliced each cake layer in half horizontally, giving me four cake layers and three layers of filling).

After filling and chilling the cake, I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream (recipe also in my book!), and covered the top and sides of the cake with it. Then using a piping bag fitted with a medium star tip, I piped long vertical swirls of frosting along the sides of the cake (the same technique that I used here, here, and here, inspired by a Nikole Herriott cake).

Then I was ready to pipe the unicorn. I used a toothpick to draw my outline, and then used a small round piping tip with black icing to trace over the outline.

Then I used a small star tip to fill in my unicorn! (For the snowflakes, I used a smaller round tip to pipe them over the piped stars).

To finish decorating the cake, I piped a birthday message in blue, and then I was done!

Stay tuned to see the winter cookie favors that I made, and cupcakes for her class party as well!

Happy Birthday, my sweet Melodie! We love you so much!!!