Here, you’ll find 19 unique Moana birthday cake ideas to celebrate a perfect Moana-themed birthday and impress all your guests. 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 Moana 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 Moana birthday 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 !
Moana Cake Ideas For Beginner Bakers
Here, you’ll find 2 easy Moana birthday cake decorating ideas perfect for beginner bakers.
Simple Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Sprinkles.
- Moana-themed cake decorations and 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.
- Next, chill your cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or until your buttercream cover sets.
- Use a knife warmed with water if you want sharp edges on your cake.
- Finally, add your sprinkles, cake toppers, and cake decorations.
What you’ve learned :
As a cake decorator, the very first technique you have to master is how to frost a cake properly.
Pink Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 1,5/5.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Sprinkles.
- Moana-themed cake decorations and cake toppers.
- Edible pearls.
- DIY edible sand.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, crumb coat, cover, chill, and cut the edges of your cake as explained in the previous cake design.
- Finally, add your cake toppers, cake decorations, edible sand, and pearls.
What you’ve learned :
Adding edible sand is always a nice touch for summer cake designs.
Moana Cake Ideas Perfect For Intermediate Bakers
Here, you’ll find 12 Moana cake ideas perfect for intermediate bakers.
Blue Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 2,5/5 (Low-Intermediate)
Using small toys as cake toppers is a great alternative to fondant and paper cake toppers.
A little guidance
To recreate this textured fault line buttercream, apply a new buttercream layer around the two bottom thirds of your cake once your frosting cover has set. Let your new color set in the fridge and repeat the operation for the last color on the bottom third of the cake.
Striped Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
Don’t hesitate to play with your favorite color combinations.
A little guidance
To create this kind of simple stripes, apply your buttercream colors one on top of the other then smooth your cake as usual. Keep your cake scrapper extra straight and clean it often to avoid mixing colors.
Textured Moana Cakes
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
A little guidance
The easiest way to get beautiful buttercream waves is to use a cake scrapper and move it from the top to the bottom of your cake in a wave motion while spinning your turntable as shown in this quick wave cake tutorial.
Moana Drip Cake
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
Adding a chocolate drip to a cake design is another easy way to add a little bit more character to your cake design. They’re really popular these days.
A little guidance
You can follow this drip cake tutorial if you’re not familiar with the process.
Glittery Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
If you like more subtle and a little more elegant cake designs, you might like this glittery Moana cake.
A little guidance
To DIY cake design, use green fondant to recreate the iconic Moana sign, using buttercream as glue. Then, use a glitter airbrush to cover your cake in sparkles in the most uniform way possible. If necessary, make several passages to get this beautiful opaque finish.
Single Tier Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate).
Using rice paper is an easy way to add height and width to your cake design for a showstopping look.
A little guidance
Check out this rice paper cake decoration tutorial to make your own.
Baby Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
A little guidance
Cover your cake as usual and use a cake comb to create texture as shown in this cake comb tutorial. Then, let your cake set in the fridge before decorating it.
Tiered Moana Cakes
Difficulty Level: 4,5/5 (High-Intermediate).
Tiered cakes are the perfect option when hosting a lot of guests. Keep in mind that all the single-tier moana cake designs can also be turned into tiered cakes using a little bit of creativity.
A little guidance
When making tiered cakes, pay extra attention to the structure of the cake. You should always use a sturdy cake board for each tier. Supporting the bottom tier with dowel rods is also a must. Finally, make sure each tier is leveled before stacking them. Don’t hesitate to check out this tiered cake tutorial.
Moana Cake Ideas For Advanced Bakers
These 4 Moana birthday cake ideas will be perfectly suited to experienced cake decorators.
Beach Moana Cakes
Difficulty level: 5/5
These are the perfect cakes to feel really transported into Moana’s world for a perfect Moana-themed birthday party.
Fondant Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
If you’re more of a fondant fan, keep in mind that most of the buttercream cakes can be adapted as fondant cakes with some imagination.
3D Moana Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
If you want your Moana cake to be the star of the show, you’ll love this kind of cake. That’s basically a work of art.
If you’re looking for more cake ideas, check out my other cake ideas for children or my cake ideas for adults.
Did you enjoy these Moana 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.
