We’re celebrating all things rainbow with this easy unicorn cake made from a classic strawberry cake recipe and all of the colorful sprinkles and decorations you can think of!

You may be asking yourself, “how in the world is this a unicorn cake, and why would someone make that?”.

Well, that’s a great question. And technically, there’s no real reason other than the fact that it looks like unicorn food.

Pretty much anything edible that is rainbow colored gets categorized as unicorn food. Think colorful unicorn toast.

We were also slightly inspired by the Little Debbie’s Unicorn Snack Cakes. The strawberry unicorn cake is basically the classic strawberry cake recipe with coconut buttercream icing.

If you made one of these bad boys and sat it in front of your kid for their next birthday, we guarantee that they will actually pass out from excitement.

Plus, macarons on top of anything is always a good idea.

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Table of Contents

Ingredients Needed to Make a Strawberry Unicorn Cake

Softened butter

Sugar

Strawberry preserves — Preserves are not the same as jam. Preserves have whole fruit or large pieces of fruit whereas jam is made of mashed fruit. Preserves contain more fruit and less additives. Thus, preserves contain more fresh fruit flavors.

Large eggs

Strawberry extract

Cake flour— Cake flour is not the same as all-purpose flour. However, you can substitute the cake flour for all-purpose flour. But it won’t be as fluffy and light.

Baking powder

Salt

Baking soda

Whole buttermilk

Liquid red food coloring

How to Make a Strawberry Cake

1 — Preheat oven to 350°F.

2 — Spray 4 (6-inch) cake pans with nonstick spray.

3 — In a large bowl, beat butter, preserves, and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy, then add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Once the eggs are mixed, beat in strawberry extract.

4 — In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with the buttermilk. Beat in the food coloring until well mixed, and divide batter equally among prepared pans.

5 — Bake for 20 to 25 minutes (or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean). Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove cake from pans, and let cool completely on wire racks.

The Coconut Buttercream Icing

Ingredients needed:

Butter

Powdered sugar

Cream of coconut — Not to be confused with coconut cream

Coconut extract

Green food coloring — Optional for a super light mint green cake like ours.

How to make the coconut buttercream icing:

1 — Beat butter until smooth. Then, add in powdered sugar and cream of coconut. (Make sure cream of coconut is well mixed first!)

2 — Next, beat the mixture at medium speed for 1-2 minutes until smooth. Add in coconut extract and green food coloring, and continue to blend until the color is even.

Unicorn Cake Decorating Ideas and Tips

Once your buttercream icing is fully mixed, lightly frost in between each of the four cake layers. Then, covering the rest of the cake with the icing.

If you prefer a more classic icing, opt for a Italian buttercream recipe.

For the additional pink icing topping, we poured pink ganache made with hot pink melting chocolates and heavy cream on top of of the cake. You can use this tutorial for that rainbow dripped icing look.

For topping ideas, add:

— Multicolored meringues

— Macarons

— Star sprinkles

— Chocolate shards

— Lemon drops

— Pink chocolate nonpareils

— Edible confetti

More Strawberry Flavored Recipes

We created this strawberry unicorn cake color concoction with Monica from Paper Flour Ink. If you’re in Houston, be sure to call her up to snag one of these beauties!

Check out some more strawberry flavored recipes below that would complement this delicious unicorn cake —