If you need a Thanksgiving dessert that children can help prepare, take a look at this charming and SIMPLE Thanksgiving Cake for Kids. In fact.. we made it for Granny’s birthday. At first, we had imagined a “Leaf Wreath Cake” and ordered these incredibly pretty edible leaves online. Once they arrived, we realized they were rather small.. not quite suitable for decorating a leaf wreath cake!!! However, this inspired our sweet little “Autumn Cake Idea”: marzipan hedgehogs, fondant mushrooms, a scattering of hazelnuts and our edible leaves… and it was complete. You now have the ideal Autumn Cake Decorating Idea, which was a HUGE hit for Granny’s birthday and would also make a wonderful Thanksgiving Dessert/ Thanksgiving cake that children can help create. And the best part…? It really IS SO SIMPLE!! I promise!
Autumn Cake – Ingredients
Honestly, you can prepare ANY cake you enjoy. If your family has a tried-and-tested favourite, use that. Naturally, you may also bake a round cake OR a bundt cake. I adore bundt cakes because they make any beloved recipe “instantly feel special”… you can find lovely shapes here:
There is a huge selection of bundt cake mould shapes available!! Choose whichever one appeals to you most. We own one of these very traditional moulds
We prepared a HASELNUT cake because I felt it suited the Autumn/ Thanksgiving theme perfectly.
- We used this Haselnut Bundt Cake recipe (it is written in German, so use the auto translate… if you have any trouble, please leave me feedback and I will look into adding an English recipe!). Nevertheless, it is a delicious and very simple recipe to follow.
To decorate your Thanksgiving Cake.. you will also require:
- Edible Autumn Leaves US/ UK(the US ones are SLIGHTLY larger than the ones I used)
- Hedgehogs: Marzipan, Chocolate, Chocolate Sprinkles, mini Smarties (or a piece of chocolate button/ anything else you have available)
- Mushrooms: white fondant icing and red food colouring
- You will also need a small amount of icing sugar later for “glueing”
We had some marzipan remaining from our Marzipan Easter Bunnys(I had an entire packet left) and fondant left over from our PokemonSurprise Cake. Surprisingly, I had wrapped everything carefully, and both were still soft and fresh!! I was delighted. Of course, you do not need to purchase both marzipan AND fondant… if you prefer, simply choose one or the other. Marzipan has a slight yellow colour, making it perfect for the hedgehogs, though it would also make the mushrooms darker. Fondant works wonderfully for the mushrooms and can be coloured any shade you like…
Make Your Thanksgiving Cake:
The autumn cake
As noted, we baked this Haselnut Bundt Cake!!! It truly is an excellent and easy recipe. Please visit it to follow the instructions, or use YOUR own favourite family cake recipe. A pumpkin spice cake would be a fantastic alternative.
How to make a marzipan hedgehog
Creating the marzipan hedgehogs is incredibly simple! I spotted these hedgehogs on FLICKR without any instructions and decided we should try making them. Ours are not quite as tidy.. but they are equally adorable, and my 7yrs old daughter could help. She absolutely LOVED making them.
Here we go:
- Shape the marzipan into a ball (approximately 2cm across).
- Pinch one end.
- Carefully form the pinched section into a nose and face. Make as many hedgehogs as necessary. We placed 6 on the cake, but made 12 altogether, so every guest could have one.
- Melt a small amount of chocolate (we used the microwave) and prepare a bowl of chocolate sprinkles.
- Coat the hedgehog in chocolate, then cover it with sprinkles.
- Use a toothpick to create a pair of eyes.
- Press on your mini smartie.
Your marzipan hedgehogs are complete.
How to make fondant mushrooms
For the fondant toadstools, we used the following method:
- Blend some red food coloring into a portion of the white fondant.
- Shape a small white toadstool stem.
- Form a red ball and use the end of a chopstick to create a deep indent.
- After preparing all the stems and balls, wash your hands (the red fondant tends to stain my fingers).
- Brush a little water over the top of the stem (avoid using too much) and place on the red mushroom cap.
- Now for the fiddly part. Create the tiniest white balls.. moisten the red mushroom caps with water and attach the mini balls. Flatten them where possible, but leave them rounded if you cannot.
Your fondant mushrooms are now complete!
Assembling your Autumnal Cake
Putting the cake together was wonderfully simple –
- Combine 2 table spoons of icing sugar with a little water until you have a THICK icing paste.
- Drizzle it over the cake – at this point, we added some coarsely chopped hazelnuts (to slightly imitate the forest floor and complement the flavour of our hazelnut cake).
- Coat each edible autumn leaf in the icing sugar paste and attach it to the cake. Keep 3-4 leaves aside to decorate the cake plate.
- Do the same with 2 hedgehogs and 2 mushrooms.
- Place a few more hedgehogs and mushrooms around the bottom of the cake and use some to decorate the plate. Add extra hazelnuts too, if desired.
Yes, it is untidy….. but in an “Autumn Leaves” kind of way (or at least that is what I tell myself!! Teehee).
Your wonderful yet simple Thanksgiving Cake Decorating Idea is complete, and you now have a lovely, easy Thanksgiving dessert recipe that children can prepare!
I also believe this cake would be fantastic as “Thanksgiving Cupcakes” if you decide to make individual servings…