Here, you’ll find 18 lunch box cake ideas to celebrate your special occasion with your closest friends. Whether it’s a birthday, graduation, or any type of good news, lunch box cakes are the perfect cake design to celebrate with one or two people. If you’re looking for inspiration to place an order with your local baker, or you want to recreate one of these cakes yourself thanks to the guidance I provide, you’re in the perfect place.
How to find a lunch box cake idea 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 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 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 lunch box cake idea 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 !
Lunch Box Cake Ideas For Beginner Bakers
Here, you’ll only find two lunch box cake ideas, as this kind of cake isn’t the most suited for beginner bakers.
Black Lunch Box Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
What you will need:
- Enough black frosting to cover your cake.
- A fondant heart.
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.
- Next, chill your cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or until your buttercream cover sets.
- Finally, place your fondant heart in the middle of your cake
What you’ve learned :
As a cake decorator, the very first technique you have to master is how to frost a cake properly.
Simple Lunch Box Cake
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Difficulty Level: 1,5/5.
What you will need :
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- A piping bag with a small round piping tip (such as the #3 by Wilton).
How to recreate this cake?
- First, crumb coat, cover, chill, and cut the edges of your cake as explained in the previous cake design.
- Then, use a toothpick to trace where you’re going to pipe the writing. Don’t hesitate to smooth the top of your cake again if it’s not centered or the numbers aren’t properly spaced.
- Practice your writing on a sheet of parchment paper.
- Finally, draw over the imprint with your buttercream and your round piping tip.
What you’ve learned :
Writing with buttercream is not the most beginner-friendly technique, but starting with numbers and dates is the best way to get more and more confident.
Lunch Box Ideas Perfect For Intermediate Bakers
Here, you’ll find 11 lunch box cake ideas perfect for intermediate bakers.
Mirror Bento Cake
Difficulty Level: 2,5/5 (Low-Intermediate)
If you want a minimalist but super trendy cake design, you’ll love this selfie cake.
A little guidance
Frost your cake as usual, then place a mirror the size of your cake or slightly smaller in the middle of your cake. Next, pipe a buttercream shell border. Make sure to clean your mirror thoroughly and place a sheet of parchment paper of the shape and size of the mirror between the mirror and your cake.
Bento Birthday Cake
Funny Lunch Box Cake
Funny Bento Cake
Family Bento Cake
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
If you love simple cake designs but want a really personalized cake, you’ll be a fan of these cute and/or fun cakes.
A little guidance
When you want to recreate a cake with simple lines like these ones, all you need is a toothpick or any sharp tool. Use it as a pen to trace an imprint on your buttercream. Then, retrace over it with your piping bag.
Floral Lunch Box Cakes
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
These lunch box cakes would make perfect birthday cakes for a spring or a summer birthday.
A little guidance
Drawing flowers with buttercream is quite straightforward. You’ll get better as you practice. You can also check this buttercream flowers tutorial if you want to give a try to more elaborate buttercream flowers.
Lunch Box Cakes For Kids
Tom And Jerry Bento Cake
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
You can also represent all kinds of cute designs on your lunch box cake, like your favorite character from your favorite show, your favorite animal, or even your favorite logo.
A little guidance
And, it doesn’t even require you to be an artist. All you have to do is a buttercream transfer. Simply draw your design on a sheet of parchment paper following a guide that you put underneath it. Then, once it has set in the fridge, simply stick it on your cake. Finally, overline the drawing and add the details. Here’s a video tutorial of a buttercream transfer to make the process easier.
Lunch Box Daisy Cake
Difficulty Level: (3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
A little guidance
You can use the toothpick technique to place your writing. You can also check out this buttercream daisy tutorial.
Lunch Box Number Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
You can also create a traditional number cake but in a lunch box cake version.
A little guidance
You don’t need to own a special cake tin to create a number cake you can easily DIY them using a simple sheet cake pan.
Lunch Box Cake Ideas For Advanced Bakers
These 5 lunch box cake ideas will be perfectly suited to experienced cake decorators.
Graduation Lunch Box Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
With skilled cake decorators like @_cakeflake, you can ask for very personalized cake designs such as this beautiful graduation lunch box cake.
Couple Lunch Box Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Lunch box cakes are also perfect to celebrate important moments in a couple.
Cute Bento Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
You can also celebrate your friendships.
Harry Potter Lunch Box Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
The truth is you can also have bento cake on your own with a beautiful design just because you want to.
Artistic Bento Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
Finally, lunch box cakes are the perfect medium for experienced cake decorators to express their skills and creativity to create actual works of art.
If you’re looking for more cake ideas, check out my other cake ideas.
Did you enjoy these lunch box cake inspirations? Sharing is caring! Pin this post to come back to it.
Please let me know in the comments if you’d like some specific cake ideas and/or tag me on Instagram @theperfectcakeidea. I’d also love to see your creations.
