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!
How to Make a Robot Cake
Supplies Needed:
- 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
Recipe Ingredients:
- cake mix or homemade cake recipe of your choice
- Icing of your choice- I love this buttercream frosting recipe
- 2 Oreo cookies
- 18 chocolate-covered mini donuts
- lollipop
- M&M’s
Recipe Directions:
1. Mix up the cake and bake in a 9 x 13 cake pan, according to the recipe that you use. Once the cake has cooled, invert the pan and carefully remove the cake from the 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 a 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 one corner of each half to make a shoe shape. Place 6 chocolate-covered doughnuts below the body to create legs and then position the shoe pieces at the end.
(You will not need pieces #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 the 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 the 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 Helpful Tips:
- Lining your pans with parchment paper makes the cake easier to remove.
- 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.
You’ll also enjoy:
Ana
How many do you think this cake would feed? I have about 25 kids coming to my sons 5th, would that feed them all if they had a small piece each?
Lydia Beiler
I think you will want to have another small cake or some cupcakes available to eat as well, Ana. This is less than a 9×13 cake in total, so it will feed maybe 18 people? That would be with fairly small pieces.
MK
Thank you so much for this recipe! I made it for my kids birthday and it was so easy to follow and turned out perfectly!
I used your buttercream frosting recipie as well. Thanks again 🙂
Lydia Beiler
Yay! So glad that it helped make your kid’s birthday special!
Suzette Dellar
We made this cake for my son who loves Robots, it was a big hit! Everyone who saw it thought is was such a great idea and so easy to do! Thank you so much for sharing!
Lydia Beiler
So delighted that it was such a hit, Suzette! And a belated happy birthday to your son!
Sylvia
Thanks, my grandson has requested a “Robot Cake” for his 6th birthday. This looks easy enough to make. I’ll be the best YaYa ever!!!
Lydia Beiler
I hope it’s an absolute hit, Sylvia!
Kimberly Burke
Love this! Will attempt this week for my 4 yr old! One question…I don’t have a cake board, but will cut one from plywood and cover. What size should I cut the wood to? Yours fits perfectly!
Lydia Beiler
I’m not entirely sure, Kimberly! I made this cake several years ago and just covered a piece of heavy duty cardboard for my cake board. I think that I kind of made a rough diagram of how I thought the cake would be and then cut the cardboard accordingly. Sorry I can’t offer more specific dimensions!
Bea
SO cute– I like how you used a 9×13 pan rather than baking two different cakes and that you just stuck with the M&M’s instead of using various candies like the My Cookie Clutter version did. Saves time and energy!
Lydia Beiler
Thanks, Bea! Yes, I’m 100% about keeping things easy and simple.
Prachi
Hello there,
Thank you for sharing the wonderful cake recipe I made it for my son’s birthday and it turned out pretty well . I did a small change that I used Oreos instead of chocolate donuts for hands and legs . My son was very excited to see the robot cake 👍😊
Thanks again!
Prachi
Lydia Beiler
You are very welcome, Prachi! So happy to hear that it was a hit with your son. And your tip for switching out the donuts for Oreos is a good one- especially as they may be easier for some people to find. Thanks for sharing that!
Anna
I didn’t see it mentioned in your instructions, but would you cut the cake pieces and put a layer of filling between them? What type of cake do you recommend I use?
Lydia Beiler
I actually just did a single-layer cake to keep things simple. If you want to do a double layer cake, you’ll need to come up with an alternative for the chocolate donuts as the size will be wrong. Any kind of cake should work. I often use my homemade chocolate cake when I make birthday cakes. But you can use a cake mix or your favorite recipe and it should work fine- as long as you can bake it in a 9×13 cake pan!
Kay
How do you cover and transport this? Making for a party next week and have to bring it somewhere!!
Lydia Beiler
I’ve never transported it, but if you use a cake board or a very stiff piece of cardboard to put the cake on, that would help make it a bit easier to transport. However, it would still be tricky. Could you possibly put the cake board on a piece of wood? As for covering it…maybe wrap cling wrap around the whole thing very carefully? That will be easier to do if you have a wooden board to put the cake board onto. It’s definitely a trickier cake to transport though!
You could also use a cake box…I think this size might work? Possibly a local bakery might be willing to sell you just one?