Ninjago Cake and Cupcakes - Quick and Easy

I've included instructions for making this cake. The cake we made was actually a small cake using a cake pan from a kids baking set. You can scale it up to a full size birthday cake or down to Ninjago cupcake size. 

I've also included other ideas for making a Ninjago cake or Ninjago cupcakes. 

And don't miss my Chocolate Ninjago Ninjas!

 First you'll need to find a round cake pan. Since we only needed a small cake, we used the small springform cake pan that my son got as a birthday present from his Nan. 

If you're making a birthday cake then you'll need a larger cake pan. 

Or you could make multiple smaller Ninja cakes in different Ninjago Ninja colors: red (Kai), blue (jay), black (Cole), white (Zane) and green (who is that green Ninja?)

Make a normal sponge cake. You can choose a chocolate cake or other flavored cake, whatever you prefer - the cake itself will be hidden. 

 The cake needs to be fairly flat on top so just slice a little off the top if your cake isn't completely flat. 

We could have got away without taking the top off the cake. But my helper wanted to try some of the cake at this point so this seemed like a good solution!

The cake is shown on my pastry mat. I use this all the time! It's brilliant not just for making pastry and cookies, but also for rolling out fondant and marzipan. 

Now we can start decorating the cake. 

You're going to need to put a yellow layer on the cake as the Ninjago Ninjas are yellow like most Lego minifigures. 

We chose yellow marzipan as my son loves almond paste. But yellow fondant works just as well. 

And it's definitely worth having a fondant rolling pin for this step. Recently we lost ours for a while (it mysteriously turned up in the draw where we keep all our baking stuff, very odd!) and I really missed it! I use it for rolling any kind of dough, not just fondant and it really does stop things sticking. 

A baking mat or fondant mat with circles on makes it easier to roll out a circle, but we don't need this layer to be perfect. Just roll out a circle of yellow fondant or marzipan about the same size as the cake. 

Now it's time for the red layer. 

You need to roll out an oval shape. It needs to be:

- wider than the cake so it can cover the sides, and
- about twice as long. 

Shape the bottom of the fondant into a rough point, like on Kai and the other Ninja's headwear. 

Now cut out a rectangle shape for Kai's eyes. 

And ruche the fondant above and below the eye slit to create the pleated look of Kai's headscarf. 

Do this on your pastry mat, not on the cake! If you get it wrong you can just gather the fondant back up and have another go. 

OK, now we can transfer the red fondant to the cake. 

If you have a large cake then a helper might be useful at this point. But you should be just fine with a small to medium cake. 

Now shape the eyebrows from black fondant. 

Create small black fondant circles for the eyes. If you have a small round cutter this will come out neater. I just created balls of fondant and squished them. 

Add small white dots in the eyes as a finishing touch. You can probably get closer to Kai's actual expression that this, but preschoolers aren't that patient!

This design can easily be used on cupcakes. Decorate a batch of cupcakes in the red, blue, white, black and green colors of Ninjago.

Or you can look for Ninjago cupcake toppers for a quick and easy approach for Ninjago cupcakes.