Learn how to make this fun, easy robot cake. It’s perfect for birthdays and is made from a simple 9 x 13 cake. And isn’t it the cutest robot ever?!
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For his 7th birthday, our son wanted a robot cake. Well, actually he’s the indecisive type and that was what he finally settled on after lots and lots of deliberating.
And after getting numerous of his great ideas vetoed by me because I’m no birthday cake making expert and can’t handle anything that’s too complicated. (Am I the only mom that does that?!)
But when he finally did decide that a robot birthday cake is what I should make, I was kind of excited, because it sounded like a fun idea…and it was!
And didn’t our Mr. Robot turn out to be quite cute? We sure thought so!
Want to make your own easy robot cake? All you need is a basic 9 x 13 cake pan plus a few other simple tools and ingredients and you’ll be set to make a cake that is sure to bring a smile to any birthday child’s face!
Let me show you how!
SUPER EASY ROBOT BIRTHDAY CAKE
SUPPLIES:
-
- 9 x 13 Cake Pan (I really like this one)
- Serrated Knife (I used my favorite bread knife)
- Cake Board (optional, but handy to place the cake on)
- Pancake Turner (to move cake pieces)
- Mixing Bowl (I have the Pampered Chef version of this and use it all.the.time!)
- Food coloring (I prefer the food coloring gels because they mix in nicely)
- Small Sized Blade Ultra Spatula (makes it easy to frost the cake nicely)
INGREDIENTS:
- cake mix or homemade cake recipe of your choice
- Icing of your choice (I love this buttercream frosting recipe)
- 2 Oreo cookies
- 13 chocolate covered mini donuts
- lollipop
- M&M’s
DIRECTIONS:
1. Mix up cake and bake in a 9 x 13 cake pan, according to the recipe that you use. Once the cake has cooled, invert pan and carefully remove cake from pan.* Flipping it onto parchment paper or saran wrap will help reduce the mess.
2. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake into 5 pieces as shown.
3. Arrange cake on cake board -I covered mine with tin foil-, using piece #2 for the robot’s head and piece #4 for the body. Place a chocolate covered doughnut between the 2 pieces to create a neck.
Tip: Using a pancake turner to move pieces around works really well!
4. Cut piece #5 into feet. I trimmed off the rounded end part and then cut what was left in half. Then I simply trimmed off the one corner of each half to make a shoe shape. Place 6 chocolate covered doughnuts below body to create legs and then position the shoe pieces at the end.
(You will not need piece #1 and #3. I went ahead and frosted them and we enjoyed them for dessert.)
5. Using your mixing bowl, mix up your frosting, then add food coloring to get the desired shade and color.
If you are using dark colored M&M’s for decoration, you will want to keep the frosting color light.
6. Remove the doughnut “neck” and “legs”, then frost cake. I like to do a really thin first coat of frosting to “seal” in the crumbs and then go over it all again with a thicker second coating.
Carefully push the doughnut “neck” and “legs” back into place, touching up frosting as needed.
7. Gently push 3 M&M’s into each shoe, creating “buttons”.
8. Take 2 doughnuts and cut out a small notch to create a hand as shown in the picture above. Then arrange 10 doughnuts, 5 on either side, to create arms, placing the “hand” doughnuts at the end.
9. Decorate the robot’s head. To make the eyes, carefully pull Oreos apart, leaving all icing intact on one cookie, then add a brown M&M. The remaining Oreo cookie halves will become the ears. Shape a smile out of M&M’s. Finally, add a doughnut with a lollipop pushed through the center to the top of the head.
10. Decorate the body, using different colored M&M’s to create your design. I found it helpful to arrange my M&M’s in the pattern that I wanted, before putting them on the cake.
ADDITIONAL TIPS:
* Lining your pans with parchment paper makes the cake easier to remove. Also, I like to wrap my cakes in plastic wrap and then freeze for several hours before frosting them. This makes it easier to frost because there are fewer crumbs due to the cake being frozen.
* If you are planning to feed a lot of people, you probably will want to make an additional non-decorated cake since this easy robot cake ends up actually not using a whole 9 x 13 cake.
ENJOY!
Jo
Very cute! looks fairly easy too, though I’ve never really tried decorating cakes.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Thanks, Jo! It really was super easy and fun to decorate too. I only wish that I would have used red M&M’s for the 7 on the body to make it stand out more. But my son loved it and didn’t mind, so I suppose it didn’t really matter. 🙂
Nicole
This cake is adorable! Just wondering if you used regular size m&m or the large ones?
ThriftyFrugalMom
Thanks, Nicole! Yes, I used the regular sized M&M’s. Of course you can always use your own creativity and use any candy that you have on hand to do similar decorating too!
shirley
Hi, I wonder if you could please tell me what size the pieces are that you cut. Thanks
ThriftyFrugalMom
I don’t know for sure, but if you look at the cake picture above instruction #2, it should help. The cake was a 9 in. by 13 in. cake. So piece #4 was probably about 7 in. square. #2 and #3 bout 5 in. square and piece #1 about 2 in. wide. That will leave you with piece #5 the size it should be. Hope that helps!
Sally
I just made this cake for my son’s 4th bday, and it really was easy! I followed all instructions to a T and it came out amazing. I made it the morning of his party and I was quite sure I was going to have to make a last minute run to the store for a generic bday cake when this one didn’t turn out. BUT IT WORKED!!!! I even made the frosting you suggested. Thank you for creating something even someone like me could do.
ThriftyFrugalMom
You are SO welcome, Sally! I’m glad that it could help make your son’s birthday memorable and fun…and am so happy you didn’t need to bother making a last minute run to the store. 🙂
Debbie
My son turns six in April and he requested a robot cake. He is so excited to have this one ? He saw the picture and said it is exactly what he wants ? Looks pretty easy so I am going to try!
ThriftyFrugalMom
I hope it helps make his birthday memorable and special, Debbie! This cake was one of my favorite cakes ever to make because it was super cute but so incredibly easy. I think you’ll have fun making it!
Stacy Wilder
What size cake board did you use?
ThriftyFrugalMom
Good question! It’s been 3 1/2 years since I did this and I think I actually just cut a cardboard box down to fit what I needed. But I did a little figuring and I think a 13×19 cake board would work. I don’t think you’d have a lot of extra space with it, but I think it would work. If you try that size I’d love to know if it worked well!
Brenda F
Thanks for sharing this awesome idea, Lydia! My family and I had a lot of fun with this cake!
ThriftyFrugalMom
I love hearing that, Brenda! It’s just such a fun cake, isn’t it? Glad you all could enjoy it.
Pam
I just made it for my Grandsons 4th Birthday. Getting ready to take it to him now. So easy and so cute!!!
Lydia Beiler
Happy birthday to your grandson! And I hope he loved the cake as much as my son did. So fun that you could make it for him!
Annabelle
Cake looks awesome & fun. Will give it a try for son’s 6th birthday: it will be a surprise cake!
Lydia Beiler
I hope he loves it! It’s so fun to make.
Barbara
Thank you for sharing this. My five year old twin grandsons loved it!! Your directions were clear and easy to follow. Appreciated the measurements in your reply to earlier comments. We used graph paper to map out the M&M’s on the front.
Lydia Beiler
You are very welcome, Barbara! So happy to hear that it helped make your grandsons’ birthday extra special. And the graph paper idea is brilliant. Thanks for sharing that!
Brenda
Love this cake! Going to try and make it for my son. What color gel food coloring did you use? Sky blue?
Lydia Beiler
It’s so easy and fun! I’m sure he’ll love it. For the blue color, I made white icing and then just added blue food coloring (the shade that comes in the multipack of basic primary colors) until it looked like the shade I wanted. Happy baking!