Here, you’ll find 14 elegant birthday cake ideas for men perfect to celebrate any kind of occasion, including easy designs with instructions to recreate them. If you’re looking for inspiration to place an order with your local baker, or you want to recreate one of these cakes yourself, you’re in the perfect place.
How to find an elegant cake idea for men suited to your cake-decorating level?
I’ve come up with a system. The cake ideas are presented to you according to their level of difficulty. There are three categories :
What Are Beginner Cake Ideas?
These are easy cake ideas. If you’ve never decorated a cake before (or only did it once or twice), these are the cakes that you should pay attention to.
- What you’ll find: Beautiful cake ideas that only require basic cake decorating techniques. This is a great place to start your journey.
What Are Intermediate Cake Ideas?
Low Intermediate Baker: If you are confident that you’ve mastered the cake decorating basics, such as how to smooth a cake, but feel like you still have a lot of techniques to learn apart from this foundation, this category is perfect for you.
- What you’ll find: Cake ideas that require both basic decorating skills and one or two techniques that are a little bit more advanced. This is a great place to grow your cake-decorating skills.
High Intermediate Baker: If you’ve mastered both basic techniques and several more advanced cake decorating techniques, these cake ideas are made for you.
- What you’ll find: Stunning cake ideas that can be fairly challenging, but are a great place to get even better than you already are.
What Are Advanced Cake Ideas?
If you consider yourself an experienced cake decorator and have mastered most of the decorating techniques, including the use of fondant, then this is the perfect place for you.
- What you’ll find: Showstopping and challenging cake ideas, perfect to sharpen and maintain your skills.
The Grading System
Finally, I’ve also assigned a grade of difficulty to each cake inspiration: 1/5 being the easiest design and 5/5 being the hardest. The goal is to make the ranking the most accurate possible. You will find this to be particularly helpful if you happen to fall in the Beginner or the Intermediate Cake Ideas categories.
Growth Tip : This list is great a place to set goals about your cake decorating skills. Pin this post and come back later to tell us how far you’ve come in your cake decorating journey !
How to recreate these elegant cake ideas for men?
What cake recipe should you use to make your perfect cake come true?
To recreate these cake ideas, you will need a trustworthy cake recipe. You have several options.
Adapt your favorite cake recipe.
There are a lot of ways to adapt a cake recipe. You mainly have four options to tweak your favorite recipe :
- You could change the flavor of your cake recipe: with citrus zest, the essence of your choice, or turn it into a chocolate or carrot cake for example.
- You could add a filling: a caramel sauce, a homemade flavored whipped cream, ganache, or buttercream.
- You could also add some texture: oreo bits, crumble crumbs, nuts, or fresh fruit for example.
- Finally, you could personalize your frosting.
Be careful, if you’re a beginner baker, having to figure out both your cake design and creating a new cake recipe could be overwhelming. Therefore, I always recommend taking your learning journey one step at a time.
Look for a cake recipe.
Where? You can ask friends, or family or simply look on the internet. You have to keep two things in mind though :
- The recipe has to be suitable for cake decorating, especially for cakes that require stacking or carving (intermediate and advanced cake ideas).
- Once again, if you’re a beginner baker, be careful not to put too much on your plate and choose a recipe suited to your current level.
Use my cake recipe recommendation.
Finally, you could try the delicious recipe I recommend. I firmly believe everyone should have a trustworthy chocolate cake recipe, and my chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting is both beginner-friendly and perfect for cake decorating. I’m sure you’ll love it.
What you will love about this recipe :
- It has a perfect chocolate flavor.
- It’s a really easy recipe, perfect for beginners.
- It has a great texture.
How to follow the instructions of the designs.
For the cake designs in the beginner category: I’ll provide written instructions on how to recreate the cake idea presented to you. Don’t hesitate to watch video tutorials about the basic techniques such as how to smooth a cake.
For the designs in the intermediate category: I’ll provide some guidance on how to perform the more complicated techniques.
For the advanced category: you are an experienced baker, at this point, and you will find great opportunities to put this experience to use. To be completely honest, I cannot make myself several cake ideas from the advanced category, so trust your abilities and go for it.
Find the perfect elegant cake idea for men for your baking skills.
Growth Tip : If you aim to get better at cake decorating, you should choose a cake idea that feels sligthly above your current cake decorating level. Get out of your comfort zone !
Elegant Cake Ideas For Men Perfect For Beginner Bakers
Here, you’ll find 4 easy elegant cake ideas perfect for beginner bakers.
Simple And Elegant Green Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
To create an elegant birthday cake for men, simplicity is definitely the way to go. It makes this kind of cake perfect for beginner cake decorators.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Edible golden leaves + a small paintbrush.
- Golden cake toppers.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, you must crumb-coat the cake to avoid any crumbs in your final design. Apply a thin and even coat of frosting with your offset spatula all around your cake.
- Smooth it with your bench scraper, holding it at a 45-degree angle on the cake while spinning your turntable. Your bench scraper isn’t supposed to move, only turn the table.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect as it only is the first coat. Chill the cake 20 to 30 minutes in the fridge (until your frosting sets).
- Then, apply a thicker coat of frosting and repeat the smoothing operation. Fill in any gaps and smooth the cake again. Repeat this operation until the cake looks smooth enough for you. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the covering process, if needed.
- Chill your cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or until your buttercream cover sets.
- Use a knife warmed with water to get sharp edges on your cake.
- Then, with your paintbrush, transfer gold leaf bits from the sheet of paper to the cake. Don’t use your fingers, it will stick to it.
- Finally, place your cake toppers on your cake.
What you’ve learned :
As a beginner cake decorator, the first thing you have to master is how to frost a cake. From there, you can use golden edible leaves and beautiful cake toppers to take your cake designs to the next level.
Elegant Strawberry Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
One way to turn any cake design into a cake for men is to use dark shades of buttercream like navy blue, dark green, and black.
What you will need :
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Fresh strawberries.
- A cake topper.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, you’ll have to color your frosting in black. A secret tip is to use a mix of black cocoa powder and black food coloring to get the best results without using tons of food coloring as explained by The Sugar Sparrow.
- Next, crumb coat, and cover your cake as explained in the previous design.
- Then, wash and cut your strawberries into quarters.
- Finally, place them on your with your cake topper.
What you’ve learned :
Knowing how to color your buttercream properly is essential for a beginner cake decorator.
Elegant Golden Cake
Difficulty Level: 1,5/5.
Adding gold accents through cake toppers, edible golden leaves or pearls is an easy way to add a festive touch to your elegant birthday cakes for men.
What you will need :
- Enough black frosting to cover your cake.
- Edible golden leaves + a small paintbrush.
- Edible golden pearls.
- Ferrero Rochers (you could swap them with golden ball cake toppers).
How to recreate this cake?
- First, color your buttercream and crumb coat and cover your cake as explained in the previous design.
- Add texture to your cake. Once your buttercream cover has set, apply thin layers of your buttercream with your spatula where you think it will suit. Then, let your cake chill in the fridge until it sets.
- Add the golden leaves. Next, with your paintbrush, transfer gold leaf bits from the sheet of paper to the cake. Don’t use your fingers, it will stick to it.
- Finally, place your cake toppers (Ferrero Rochers) and your edible pearls.
What you’ve learned :
Adding texture to a cake, especially in the same hues, is an easy technique to elevate the look of your cake design.
Elegant Cake Ideas For Men Perfect For Intermediate Bakers
Here, you’ll find 8 elegant birthday cake ideas for men perfect for intermediate bakers.
Black And Golden Cake
Difficulty Level: 2,5/5 (Low-Intermediate)
As you probably realized by now there are a million ways to use the black and gold color palette to create an elegant cake design.
A little guidance
Drip cakes are really popular these days, so it’s an easy way to modernize a cake design. You can follow this drip cake tutorial if you’re not familiar with the process.
Elegant Gradient Cake
Difficulty Level: 2,5/5 (Low-Intermediate)
You could also opt for a more sober approach, like with this elegant grey cake design.
A little guidance
To recreate this design, once your buttercream cover has set, simply apply your first buttercream layer around the bottom half of your cake, and let it set in the fridge. Then repeat the process on the bottom half of your new buttercream layer.
Elegant Blue Cake
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
On the contrary, you could go for a bolder elegant cake, using a deep blue, red, or green shade paired with gold accents.
A little guidance
To be able to create perfect buttercream swirls, you should practice on parchment paper first. Draw the swirls by keeping the piping bag at a 90° angle. Draw circular motions, slowly going upwards. Once you’re satisfied with the height, stop piping. You can watch this buttercream swirls tutorial to get a better understanding.
Artsy Blue Cake
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
If you like more original cake designs, you can also choose a more artsy kind of cake.
A little guidance
To recreate this kind of cake you can inspire yourself from this palette knife cake tutorial, using a bigger palette knife to get a similar result as in the picture.
Elegant Watercolor Cake
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
Don’t hesitate to add golden elements to it to make it more festive.
A little guidance
You can easily recreate the watercolor and the pattern effects following this watercolor buttercream and this buttercream stencils tutorial.
Elegant Marble Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
Here’s another way to explore the black and gold palette, using fondant this time.
A little guidance
To recreate this kind of cake you can follow this marbled fondant tutorial.
Elegant Velvet Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
The grey and gold palette is also a great choice. I believe it looks even more elevated than a black and gold design because it’s a bit unexpected.
A little guidance
To recreate this beautiful velvety texture on your cake, use a velvet cake spray and cover your cake as uniformly as possible.
Elegant Shimmery Cake
Difficulty level: 4,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
Or you could go for a glittery design, which you can be assured will dazzle your guests.
A little guidance
When making tiered cakes, you have to pay extra attention to the structure of the cake. Therefore, you should always use a sturdy cake board for each tier. You should also support the bottom tier with dowel rods or bubble tea straws cut to the height of the cake. Finally, you should ensure each tier is leveled before stacking them.
Elegant Cake Ideas For Men For Advanced Bakers
These 4 elegant cake ideas will be perfectly suited to experienced cake decorators.
Tuxedo Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
A tuxedo cake would make the perfect elegant birthday cake for a gentleman.
Square Marble Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
Or you could opt for a marble square cake, that will definitely stand out from the crowd.
Elegant Square Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
A black textured square would also make a great fit for an elegant birthday cake.
If you’re looking for more cake ideas you can check out these 15 Cake ideas for men, which also include a ton of elegant cake ideas, or one of my other birthday cake ideas for children and adults.
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Please let me know in the comments and/or tag me on Instagram @theperfectcakeidea. I’d love to see your creations. And, don’t forget to pin this post so you can come back to it.
Pin this post and come back to it later.
