When a birthday comes around, it’s time for something special–a birthday cake that takes all day to make! Somehow our son Larson just turned 2 (ahh!), and we wanted to bake him up a special treat. His nursery is fox themed, so we decided on a fox themed cake. After scouring the internet for fox cake ideas, we found this tutorial that we used as our inspiration. So many of you have been asking for this fox cake recipe and instructions, so here it is! This fox cake is perfect for kids birthday cake ideas or as a baby shower cake. And it’s not just for kids: it could work as a birthday cake for adults too!
Fox cake base: carrot cake!
The moment we decided to do a fox cake for Larson’s birthday, I decided it should be a carrot cake! For some reason, it seemed totally apropos: maybe because of the orange color of carrots and foxes? Plus, carrot cake is the one cake flavor that I love. He seems to as well, so I think we’ll do carrot cake for all of Larson’s birthday cakes! For the cake, we used this Vegan Carrot Cake recipe from our friends Jeanine and Jack at Love and Lemons. It was perfectly moist and spiced! We used a deep 9″ round pan instead of the 9 x 13″ pan the recipe called for, so we had to bake the cake much longer than specified in the recipe (see the notes below). Confession: we had a bit of a mishap with the fox cake base! We underbaked our first version of the carrot cake and the center caved in! So we had to make a second version of the fox cake and bake it longer, about 55 minutes. That did the trick! Because we baked the second version on the day of, we refrigerated the cake wrapped in plastic wrap for 3 hours before icing it. This helped it to firm up. If possible, make the cake the night before so that it can dry out enough before icing it. Of course, you can use any cake recipe that you love for the base. Just make sure to adjust the recipe accordingly if it calls for a different shape of pan.
Fox cake icing: buttercream!
For the fox cake icing, we decided on this Vanilla Buttercream Recipe from our friend Annie of Everyday Annie. We don’t eat strictly vegan, so we were okay with using a buttercream recipe with butter. If you eat vegan, we’d love to know in the comments below if you have a buttercream icing recipe you love! Before we made our fox cake, we purchased this food coloring for the icing online. We also picked up some icing bags and tips at our local grocery store.
How to make a fox cake
As you know, fancy cake recipes take quite a bit of effort. So you’ll have to make sure you have all the necessary tools in advance, and do a few things the night before! Here’s what we made sure to order a few days in advance: Then of course get all your cake and icing ingredients, and you’re good to go! As noted above, if you can it’s helpful to bake your cake the night before so that icing it is easy. If not, you can bake it in the morning and then refrigerate it with plastic wrap for 3 hours. When you get to icing the cake, don’t worry about having all of your skills too neat and tidy! Since the cake is textured and made up of so many little dabs of frosting, no one will notice a minor whiff on your rosettes! Ready to get baking? Head down to the recipe below!
Looking for showstopper dessert recipes?
Outside of this fox cake recipe, here are a few of our favorite dessert recipes for celebrations:
Triple Cherry Cheesecake Chewy Cookie Cake Recipe Blackberry Vegan Cheesecake Bites Bananas Foster with a Perfect Flambé Award Winning Peach Pie Orange & Fennel Upside Down Cornmeal Cake All-Natural Strawberry Yogurt Pie Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites Fudgy Flourless Brownie Pie
This recipe is…
This fox cake recipe is vegetarian. The base cake is vegan, plant-based and dairy-free. No reviews
1 recipe Vegan Carrot Cake (cake only) 1 round pan 9″ spring form or cake pan
For the icing
1 recipe Whipped Vanilla Buttercream Icing
For the fox cake
Black fondant — here’s what we ordered Food coloring — here’s what we ordered A small square of poster board Pastry bags and tips
