It’s time to banish boring birthday cakes and have a little fun.

Recently I had the opportunity to make a cake for an 11-year-old’s birthday party. He’s a great kid and I wanted him to have something fun. So I searched Pinterest for ideas and found the answer – a Kit Kat cake. He loves Kit Kat’s and the photos I found were super cute so I decided to go for it.

Given that I knew the decorating would be the tricky part, I decided to make my life easier and use a boxed cake mix and store-bought icing. No shame!

Next up, deciding how to decorate the top. I’ve seen some pretty complicated designs, but I didn’t want to get too overwhelmed so I decided on a simple but colorful design using M&Ms. I didn’t know what I would need so I bought a whole bunch from a bulk food store and then experimented using the bottom of the cake pan. His name starts with F so that was a no-brainer, but any other letters or words started to get complicated. In the end, I stuck with a simple F and then did rainbow colors around it. It was super easy and the impact was phenomenal.

When you’re placing the M&M’s on top, remember that first you need a layer of icing. Not too much mind you, but just enough to hold the candies in place. If the icing is too thick it will squeeze out between them and look messy. And remember not to put any candies on the side of the cake as that’s where the Kit Kats will go.

Now the tricky part. Placing the Kit Kat’s around the perimeter. I would love to show you some pictures but I was trying to do it quickly so they wouldn’t fall down, and never stopped to take a photo. It was a tense process! But again, the key here is icing. Dab some on the bottom of each Kit Kat stick so that it will adhere to the cake. Some will definitely slide off during the process but that’s ok. Just do it as quickly as you can and then tie a ribbon around to keep them in place.

A few pointers if I may:

Make sure you have enough candy. I used a total of 16 Kit Kat bars consisting of 4 sticks each. At first I wasn’t going to purchase that many but I’m glad I did, because some of them broke during the process. In the end I had just enough.

Also, consider freezing them so that you don’t melt any chocolate with your fingers while putting them in place. But, and here’s the important part, break them into sticks before freezing. It was when I tried to break apart the frozen sticks that they broke.

In the end, I’m pleased to say that it was a huge success. It was the sweetest, most decadent cake I’ve ever tasted, but as far as looks go, it was a hit!

If you’re interested in more easy recipes, check out my new recipes category 🙂