Crissa's Cake Corner!: Moana Cake and Desserts

To celebrate a young lady's 5th birthday, I got to make Moana-themed desserts and a birthday cake for her. Last year she had a Sofia the First party and her mummy did an awesome job DIY-ing the deco for the dessert table. She was at it again this year, finding lots of display ware and props to go nicely with the theme!

Moana Cake

For the desserts, I got to make chocolate-covered breadsticks, marshmallow pops and brownies, and the birthday cake of course. Because giant pretzel rods are not available here, breadsticks were used instead. One can also use giant Pocky sticks too. I cut the breadsticks in half so that each stick was about 6" long.

chocolate-covered breadsticks

The sticks were dipped in melted dark chocolate, and then drizzled with more dark chocolate. For the green palm tree leaves, I printed out a template, placed that under an acetate sheet, and then piped the trees out using melted white chocolate dyed green with candy oil.

chocolate palm tree leaves

Once the chocolate palm tree leaves were set (about 10 mins in the fridge), I gently removed them from the acetate sheet, and then stuck them to the tops of the breadsticks with a little melted chocolate.

chocolate-dipped palm tree sticks

The marshmallow pops were quick to do. After threading the marshmallows onto lollipop sticks, I dipped them in melted white chocolate dyed light blue with a couple of drops of blue candy oil.

do the dip, we dip, you dip.

Before the chocolate set, I dipped the bottom in crushed digestive biscuits, stuck a vanilla cupcake-flavoured Goldfish graham cracker on the front, and added two white nonpareil sprinkles for the bubbles.

marshmallow pops

fish on boats!

The brownies are my favourite recipe of chocolatey fudge brownies. I drizzled Nutella on top, and sprinkled Moana-coloured nonpareils on top.

ooey gooey Nutella fudge brownie bites

Now, onto the cake! The cake was 3 layers of devil's food cake, filled with decadent whipped dark chocolate ganache. The cake was frosted in 3 shades of blue Swiss meringue buttercream, for that ombré effect. I revisited this cake design, but with a twist. For the front of the cake, I piped Moana's boat on in buttercream, using an offset spatula to smoothen out the sails. For the wooden frame for the sail, I added lines using a toothpick to add some texture.

buttercream Moana cake

Around the cake, I piped buttercream palm trees. The trunk and coconuts were piped on with a tipless piping bag, and the leaves were piped using nozzle no. 67, the same tip that I use to pipe seaweed. For the cake's border, I prepared a piping bag using the "saran wrap method", containing 3 shades of blue buttercream and white buttercream, and piped a shell border using a small star tip, all around the cake.

buttercream coconut trees

wave border

To finish the cake, I covered the board with a light layer of buttercream and then sprinkled on some crushed digestive biscuits for sand. I also made some quick fondant flowers by using different sized circle cutters and the back of piping tips, using a bit of water as glue, and adding sugar pearls for the centers.

Moana cake, ready for toppers

All these Moana desserts were put together on this Moana-themed dessert table, DIY'd by the birthday girl's mummy! The seashell plates she got to display the palm tree sticks on were just perfect! And the little wooden boats for the marshmallow pops were just too cute!

Moana Dessert Table

too cute seashell plate & paper boats!

There were even plastic clam shells filled with m&m's and containers of seaweed popcorn to round off the snacks! As surprise treat, I added mermaid cakesicles to the selection of goodies.