How to Make a Fire Breathing Dragon Cake

Reviewed by Maria Short

Last Updated: August 19, 2024 Approved

Want to make a fun, themed birthday cake yourself? With two ordinary 9-inch round cakes , frosting, and a few other easy-to-find sweets, you can create an intricate dragon cake with or without smoking nostrils. Follow these steps to learn how.

Ingredients

2 9-inch (23cm) Round cakes, baked and cooled
6 Cups of frosting, your choice of color (more or less, to taste)
8 Chocolate-covered graham cracker cookies
8 Fruit Gem gummies (or similar)
2 Sunkist fruit slices
2 Blue fruit roll-ups (flat, square kind)
1 Red fruit roll-up (flat, square kind)
1 Yellow fruit roll-up (flat, square kind)
1 Large marshmallow
2 Chocolate chips
2 Hershey's Kisses (optional)
2 Wooden skewers
Dry ice, straws and chamber for smoking nostrils (optional)
You will want all of your fruit gems, slices, and icing to be all color coordinated -— the example shows orange candies and yellow icing, but you can do whatever colors will match the plates or napkins you will have at the party.

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Making the Cake

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Cut the rectangular crackers diagonally with a serrated bread knife , as shown, so that you have two triangular pieces out of each one. You may have to trim the crackers to make them symmetrical.
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Make sure you've allowed the cakes sufficient time to cool.
Spread frosting on one half of the cake and place the other half on top.
When you are done, it should look like the picture at right. Click images to enlarge.
If you make a mistake, don't worry - you can cover it with frosting in the next step. (Scroll down to see instructions for smoking nostrils; if you want to add them, preparations must be made before you frost the cake.)
Use a flat icing tip in your full icing bag on those difficult, moist and crumbly parts. Once the crumbs have been covered up, use your spatula to smooth things over. This method keeps those crumbs from showing up in your icing.
Make the dragon look scaly by using a child's marker cap to imprint the design onto the creamy frosting. Arrange the cookies along his back and tail; place fruit gems and slices on his toes and head. Press the Hershey's Kisses (pointy side in) onto the end of his snout, and cut the marshmallow in half and place the chocolate chips on top.
Trim off a corner of the roll-up to keep them from looking too bulky, and after rolling it up the skewer, trim off the edges bat-wing style.
Make sure not to stick the wings into the cake until right before serving, because they are heavy and will sag over time.
Cut them into curvy, twisty pieces, and position near mouth.

Part 2

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Adding Smoking Nostrils

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In order to ad smoking nostrils to your dragon, you'll first need a base that raises the cake board an inch or two. Cut out the bottom of a cardboard box, or use the bottom of a deep pizza box. Whatever you use, make sure it will accommodate your dry ice chamber, which could be a small, washed-out aspirin container, a small dish with plastic wrap over it, or whatever else you have on-hand. Cover the base in aluminum foil or other thick paper.
Before you start assembling the dragon on the cake board, guess as closely as you can about where the dragon's head will be. Using a serrated knife, cut a circle abut the size of a nickel under where you plan to have the dragon's nostrils. Then, put the cake board over the base and, using your first hole as a guide, cut a circle in the base.
After you've cut up the cake and have a head piece, use a straw to poke holes for the nostril. If you've allowed your cake to cool sufficiently, punching it with the straw should remove small amounts of cake without damaging the surrounding area. Be careful that you don't punch too close to the edges, and make holes two to three straws wide.
You'll be using straws to carry vapor from the dry ice chamber up to the dragon nostrils, but you probably won't need them to be full length. Depending on how deep your base is, trim your straws so that they're an appropriate length.
Your straws should go through the cake separately, then meet up at the hole in the cake board and the base before going into the dry ice chamber. You don't need the chamber beneath the straws for now.
Put a few walnut-sized pieces of dry ice in your container, as well as some warm water. Seal the opening as much as you can. For instance, if you're using a washed-out pill bottle, stuff the opening with a few ratted-out cotton balls after you put the straws in. If you're using a small dish cover it in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and slice out two small holes for the straws. Remember, you want the majority of the vapor escaping through the straws.
Lift the cake, cake board and base up to slide the dry ice chamber underneath and direct the straws in (get a second person to help you do this). You might find as your lifting that you need to trim the straws a bit to fit them in the chamber, so keep a pair of scissors on hand. Once you've settled the cake over the chamber, your fire-breathing dragon should have smoking nostrils.

Community Q&A

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Question

How long does it take to assemble the dragon cake?

Qamar

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It depends on how fast you work. It'll usually take about an hour or less if you're quick.

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What size cake board is needed?

Community Answer

You usually use a cake board that is one inch bigger that the actual cake so there is room for putting frosting on and nothing will fall off.

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Tips

If a child is not fond of fruit roll-ups, red, yellow and orange gummy worms can be used instead.

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The cake will crumble less if you freeze it after it's cooled but before you cut it.

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If you use a very thin layer of icing, and then put it in the refrigerator to cool it, you can apply a final layer of icing that will never have any cake crumbs in it.

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