Friday, March 29, 2024

How to make a Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake

February 13, 2010 by  
Filed under Cakes

I am so happy to share with you my Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake of Mr. Squiggles. I have had such a HUGE response to my posts on  How to make Zhu Zhu Pets Cupcakes and my Zhu Zhu Pets Birthday Party Theme that everyone has been waiting for the Birthday Cake.  There is no doubt in my mind that the kids everywhere will be asking to have a Zhu Zhu Pets Party. Cepia the toy makers behind it all have been very busy making new Zhu Zhu Pets and friends to add to the Zhu Zhu family and they are not stopping any time soon. So when it comes to the toys leave it to them, but when it comes to the party leave that to me.

Before I continue let me add that I am NOT a professional when it comes to cake making what so ever. When I do my tutorials I do them with the every day parent in mind. I am not using any fancy tools or techniques and all the items I use can be found at your local stores and in your very own kitchen.  Whether you follow my steps or just get inspired, then I have done my job.

When I decided to do a Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake I chose to do Mr. Squiggles, but you can choose any of them. I chose Mr. Squiggles for the simple fact that he just had his 1st Birthday and I thought it was appropriate to honor him. So with that this cake is my way of saying “Happy Birthday Mr. Squiggles !!”.

So now I am going to walk you through Step by Step on how you can make a Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake just like mine. It is not as hard as you think. Also keep in mind this cake was done one time and I have documented the process for you to see.  Don’t be intimidated by the length of this post, I just wanted to be sure to show each step. Are you ready? Ok good now lets go…..

Here are the Ingredients and Items I used:

  • Wilton’s 3-D Egg Cake Pan
  • 1 Box of Cake Mix of Choice – Prepared according to directions
  • 2 Tubs Vanilla Frosting & 1 Tub Chocolate Frosting
  • Cake Mate Decorating Icing – White (plus small tip)
  • 2 Brown M&M’s
  • 1 Pink Jelly Bean
  • 2 Pieces of Dried Banana Chips
  • Angel Hair Spaghetti (2 pieces)
  • 1 Rolo Candy
  • Shortening & Flour to coat pans

When thinking about what I would use to make this cake I first purchased a Football Cake Pan, but after bringing it home and looking at it I changed my mind. After doing some online research I came across Wilton’s 3-D Egg Pan and thought the shape was perfect for a Hamster Cake. I purchased my cake pan online through EBay, but it is available at Amazon HERE or you may be able to find it in your local craft stores around Easter time.

Start with the obvious mixing up your cake mix. I used Dunkan Hine’s Butter Recipe Golden as a request from my husband (aren’t I nice?), but you can use any flavor you like. It is also a good time to pre-heat your oven.

According to the pan directions they said to grease your pans using shortening and a pastry brush, but I did it the old fashioned way using a paper towel. You can use spray, but I chose this method. Then you must give the pans a good coat of flour and make sure you have good coverage to avoid sticking. No Shiny Spots !!!

Now set up the pan bases on a cookie sheet and then place your pans on the top. These hold the egg shaped pans steady.

Now carefully pour 1/2 the cake mix into each pan. I leveled it out best I could by giving the pan a shake and tap. Now stick in the oven, bake and wait…

Once out of the oven let the cakes cool in their pans for about an hour. Once they are cool then carefully take a plate or flat pan and place on top of the cake pan, then flip over. Tap the back and it should slide right out. I was lucky that mine did. I say that was to good greasing!!!

Now what you want to do it cut off a small part of one of the cakes. What this will do is allow you to have a flat area so that when the cake is sitting on your base it will not roll away. I know that Zhu Zhu’s roll around, but we want to keep our cake still – lol.

Now lets mix up our Mr. Squiggles color. Take your Vanilla Frosting and add the entire tub into a mixing bowl. Then add in some of the Chocolate Frosting – I used about 3/4 of the tub to get my desired color. For Mr. Squiggles I go for a light Tan color. Mix it really well. Lick your fingers if necessary – I happen to find it necessary.

I used my left over Chocolate Frosting to frost the Top of the bottom cake. Once that was done I placed the top on. Hey it looks like an Egg – or Hamburger.

Now take your Tan Frosting and frost the entire cake – DO NOT use all the frosting – just do a nice layer to cover.  You will need more of the Tan Frosting later.Then stick it into your refrigerator for a few so that the frosting hardens a bit. It makes the rest of the steps much easier.

Now gather all the goodies you need to bring your Zhu Zhu to life. Here is what I gathered: 2 Brown M&M’s for Eyes, 2 Nice shaped Dried Banana Chips for Ears – I know this is a weird one, but Hamsters have thin ears and after thinking about this one for a while I ended up opening my cabinet and I had some trail mix saw them and the shape was perfect, 1 Nice sized Pink Jelly Bean for Nose, Angel Hair Spaghetti for Whiskers, 1 Rolo Candy for Tail – I happened to have some on hand from another project and being Hamsters tails are kinda stubby I thought it would work.

Get your cake out of the fridge and lets start building Mr. Squiggles face. Get your other tub of Vanilla Frosting. Now add two spoonfuls of frosting to the front and then carefully smooth them together to make the shape shown in the picture. You want this to stick out so don’t be stingy with the frosting here.

Now it was time to build up some Hamster Cheeks. To do this I took some more of the Tan Frosting and added piles to the sides as shown in the  pictures.

Now we move on to build up the legs. Take your Tan Frosting and add a nice amount to the back to build up the Back Legs and do the same for the Front Legs.  While doing this check from the top  view to be sure you are all even on both sides. Then let cake sit for a few while that sets.

Next what I did was I took my frosting knife and gently moved it over the cake to create a texture that looked like fur. Being the frosting was setting when I ran the knife over it just made the perfect texture with hardly any effort.

Lets give Mr. Squiggles his face.  As you can see I added lines to the face just like on the real Zhu Zhu Hamster. I did this using my knife and moving gently in the frosting. This also helped me with the placement of his eyes and ears.  They I stuck on his Jelly Bean Nose, added his M&M Eyes and stuck in his Dried Banana Chip Ears which I frosted. For the ears I ended up frosting a darker brown just by mixing a small amount of the Tan Frosting to some Chocolate Frosting and that is what I used to frost the Banana Chips. He is really coming to life now.

Now I went back with some Vanilla Frosting to create the Feet on the sides as seen in the pictures.

Next I added the Whiskers. I took my Angel Hair Spaghetti and broke it into 6 pieces and I stuck 3 on each side. I chose to use Spaghetti because it was thin enough and licorice would have been to thick. Of course you want to remove these before serving, unless you have guest who likes raw pasta – you never know.

For our last step we need to add Mr. Squiggles symbol which is very important. Mr. Squiggles has a fun swirl and for this I used the Cake Mate Decorating Icing White with an add on small tip. TIP: Sometimes this icing is hard to get out – so what I do is take a large cup of hot water and stick the tube in for a few minutes to get it smoother.

There you have it a Mr. Squiggles Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake!!! Is that cute or what? I am so happy I went with the 3-D Egg Pan it was perfect – it even gives the illusion the cake has wheels just like the real thing, just this Zhu Zhu will be not be going anywhere.  Have fun with your display and as you can see in my opening photo above I took some green Easter Grass and added it around him, but you can use colored coconut, chocolate shavings to look like hamster bedding etc… you get the idea. Just have fun with it.

In conclusion I must say that the hardest part about making this Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake of Mr. Squiggles was eating it, only because it was so darn cute!!! Ok we ate it and it was Yummy!!

We WANT to see your Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cakes – Send us a photo via our Contact Info and be entered in to win a Fun Prize !!! More info coming soon…

Be sure to stop by my other Zhu Zhu Pets Party Posts:

Zhu Zhu Pets Birthday Party

How to make Zhu Zhu Pets Cupcakes

NOTE: All pictures in this post above are property of The Party Animal if you would like to use them you must Contact Us for permission.

We are also not affiliated with Cepia in anyway, besides loving their products!!!

Take a Look at some of my Readers Creations using this Tutorial:

Keep those Photos Coming….

Comments

40 Responses to “How to make a Zhu Zhu Pet Birthday Cake”
  1. Dan says:

    This is the best cake I’ve ever seen !!! very Hampsterific !!!!!

  2. Dan says:

    Just had to say how much this cake looks just like my zhu zhu pet ! Amazing !!!!!!!!!

  3. Tony says:

    Holy macaroni! That is the best cake I ever did see! Are you some sort of magician or cake scientist?

  4. Linette says:

    Wow! He turned out wonderful. Very cute!

  5. Thanks Linette – I think I impressed myself with this one – he really was hard to cut and eat though – lol

  6. Pinatas says:

    When I first saw it. I thought it’s too complicated to make one of it, but thanks to you. You let your readers know the secret on how to do that one…

  7. Rosie says:

    Hi
    I love your zhu zhu hamster cake. can you tell me about how many 6 year old kids it would serve? thanks.

  8. Thank You so much. I am not sure the exact amount it would serve – it is just one box of Cake Mix. I would be safe and have some Cupcakes on the side – maybe even some Zhu Zhu Cupcakes like I have made just to be sure you have enough if you have a nice amount of kids at the party. You can even just make the extra cupcakes with some simple sprinkles with fun colors to compliment the cake – always better to be safe. Oh and if you make a Zhu Zhu Cake – Please send some photos to share.

  9. Jammie says:

    I do not know how the heck you did this. I am on my 3 attempt, and the cake keeps coming out unflat. So the cakes are not sitting right on each other… Any hints???

  10. Yes I believe in my tutorial I cut the bottoms so that when placed together with some frosting they would lay flat against each other.

  11. Angela says:

    You are my hero! My *gulp* almost five yr. old *sniffle* has been collecting and consistently playing with her Zhu Zhus for over a year now and she decided she wants a…Garfield, Zhu Zhu, Scooby or Ninja Turtle birthday. My husband has made and decorated her cake every year and this one is just beautiful. Thank you for your blog.

  12. Awww thanks – you will have to send me a picture after you create it – Have fun !!!

  13. Girls Party says:

    Thanks for the tutorial. I think my Daughter will love one of these Hamster cakes for her Birthday.

  14. Zhu Zhu Kid says:

    Your my hero! I’m making one with my mom!

  15. You are welcome – share a picture if you make it so I can share with my readers.

  16. NW Girl says:

    awesome site! I’ll be bookmarking this one for my boy’s birthday in june.

  17. Thanks for making it so easy for us to copy and create your cake. I made this cake with my neice and she had so much fun and it looked brilliant! Thank you!

  18. YW – would love to see a picture !!

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