Easy Teddy Bear Birthday Cake

A teddy bear cake is the perfect idea for a child’s birthday. We’re going with a ‘Bear-y First Birthday’ theme for my child this year and this delicious cake is sweet and simple to make. A bear cake design is also perfect for a baby shower cake, in particular for the ‘we can bear-ly wait’ baby shower theme.

I used this cake as part of a Bear-y First Birthday party I had this year. You can check out the whole article with all the party details here!

As an added bonus to how cute this bear cake is, it’s also full of veggies! That’s right, it’s a carrot cake. There’s something fun about a super sugary smash cake for babies and toddlers, but if that’s not your style and you’re looking for something a tiny bit healthier you’re in luck. 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup melted coconut oil
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp baking soda
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp powdered ginger
• Zest of one orange
• 3 large carrots 
• White icing, store bought or homemade

Materials

To make your Bear-y First Birthday Cake you’ll need a few items. You can use an electric hand mixer, an immersion blender, or a stand mixer to stir your batter. If your brown sugar is super fresh and smooth, you can even hand-whisk it with the oil and skip the electric gadgets completely if you’d prefer.

• Two large mixing bowls
• Dry measuring cups
• Wet measuring cup
• Measuring spoons
• Two round cake pans (20 cm or 8 inches)
• Cupcake pan
• Electric mixer 
• Wire rack
• Serrated knife
• Grater
• Parchment paper
• Rubber spatula

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit or 180 Celsius. Grease two 20 cm round cake pans with coconut oil and line them with parchment paper.

Working your way up to a high speed, mix ¾ cup of coconut oil and 1 ½ cups of brown sugar together until smooth. Then add 1 ½ tsp of vanilla extract and 1 cup of coconut milk.

Combine the dry ingredients: 3 ¼ cup flour, 1 ½ tsp baking powder, 1 ½ tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, and the zest of one orange. Mix the dry ingredients together on a low speed with an electric mixer. Add in the wet  ingredients slowly. Add in three grated carrots until batter is thoroughly mixed.

Use a cupcake tin and place in it two paper liners and fill each of them ¾ full with cake batter. (This mixture won’t rise too much.) The cupcakes will be the ears on top of your teddy bear’s head.

Divide the rest of your cake batter evenly between your two lined cake pans. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit or until you can poke the finished cake with a toothpick and it comes out dry. Don’t over bake this cake or it will come out crumbly and dry. 

Let the cake cool in its pan for about 5 minutes then transfer the cake to cool on a wire rack until it’s at room temperature. You may want to consider putting your cake layers in the fridge for 20 minutes before adding icing.

Decorating

You can use a serrated knife to trim the middle of your cake to make it flat enough to stack the two pieces together. Place your bottom cake on a cake board or the serving platter you’d like to display your cake on. Then, add a layer of icing to the bottom round cake and stack the second round cake on top. This carrot cake is a nice rich deep brown color when it’s fully cooked. The grated carrot even gives it a bit of texture. 

Use a piping bag, or if you don’t have one you can put your frosting in a ziploc bag and cut a small hole in the tip. By simply adding a few lines of frosting, you will create your birthday teddy bear cake’s face with the piping bag. 

Spread icing on the two cupcakes that will be ‘bear ears’ with a rubber spatula then place them near the top of your round cake on your cake board or serving platter. 

Substitutions

Instead of a carrot cake, you could use one of your favorite cake mixes like a chocolate cake. Chocolate frosting will give you a nice brown color teddy bear, or you could cover your bear with white fondant for a polar bear cake look. You can use black icing colors to accent your birthday bear cake if it’s a light color. A dark carrot cake bear like this may show your details better with white frosting like I’ve used. For a larger birthday crowd, you could make two batches of this recipe and make extra cupcakes for guests to enjoy.

Wrap Up

Making a special cake for your birthday child is such a nice way to show them that you care about them. Your party guests are just going to love the way this cute teddy bear cake looks… and it tastes great too.

For more fun birthday ideas, check out these articles!

Beary 1st Birthday Party Ideas

3rd Birthday Construction Cake (For A DIY Construction Birthday Party)

Mickey Mouse Party Foods, Games and Decor (30+ Ideas)

DIY Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Cake

10 Free Printable Birthday Countdown Calendars

Free First Birthday Party Checklist (For An Easy, Fun 1st Birthday)