Fun Sweet 16 Skull Cake Design

by Kay Wallis
(Pennsylvania, USA)

I made this cake for my friend, whose daughter was turning 16 years old. She told me that she wanted to feed at least 75 people.

I used a 10" dark chocolate layer cake with peanut butter filling for the bottom, an 8" layer party cake with butter cream frosting filling for the middle tier and a 6" french vanilla layer cake with homemade strawberry filling for the top tier. All of the black icing is chocolate.


I learned that it is easier to color chocolate frosting black and it tastes less bitter, when using a lot of coloring. The rest of the icing is creamy white icing, some tinted blue. I was requested to use the colors blue and black and the cake had to have skulls and crossbones. The rest was up to me.


I wanted to give the cake a old century, Victorian, bling kinda feel. My client is turning 16, so I wanted it to be fun, classy to a point, and since she wanted skulls, I wanted to incorporate and old world feel. I believe I did a pretty good job creating my vision. The skulls and the old century style 16 topper (homemade by the way) made the cake feel old world, the middle I decorated similar to Victorian damask wallpaper, and I hung jewels from the curly wires to add some fun bling.


I also sprinkled the cake with edible silver star confetti. The transport as always is a nail biter, but it made it to the party safe and sound and she liked it so much she didn't want us to cut it! We did and it was delicious. My favorite part?....another cake success!