Kids' Birthday Cake Pictures From Cute to Elegant

Kids' birthday cakes can run the gamut from simple to sensational. A traditional cake with "Happy Birthday," written on it might be enough to make a child happy, but how about making a cake that really knocks her socks off? If you're looking for ideas that will help you create a truly special birthday cake, take a look at the following designs.

Here's a cake design any young train enthusiast would be excited about. Circular cakes are stacked and covered with blue-tinted fondant. All the other design elements are made from colored fondant, but you could make the job a little easier if you can find a toy train that's small enough to suit your needs.

Ladybug cakes are very popular with children. This cake's base was made by stacking circular layers of cake and covering them with fondant.

The ladybug's body could be carved from several stacked layers of smaller circular cakes, or you could mold the body using rice cereal treats. Cover the body with red fondant, and make the legs and polka dots out of black fondant.

Roll a ball of black fondant for the head and make the rest of the facial features and antennae from fondant as well. Use toothpicks inserted into the head to hold the antennae.

You can cut the grass borders from green fondant or pipe them using a grass decorating tip.

If your child loves racing, this might be just the design you're looking for. The base is a single-layer square cake with the corners rounded off. It's covered in fondant, and the track can be made from thin strips of black fondant. The infield is made from an over-turned cupcake covered in green fondant.

Brush up on your clay sculpting skills to shape the cars from colored fondant, or purchase small toy race cars to place on the track. You can create a checkered flag with a little white paper, a black marker and a toothpick.

This stack of gifts is always fun to receive. All you need are three square cakes of graduating sizes covered in the fondant color of your choice. Each cake will need to be on a cake board, and you'll need to insert dowel rods into each of the two bottom cakes to help support the cakes in the upper layers. The ribbons are made from colored fondant, and the buttercream polka dots are piped with a round open decorating tip.

This sugary sweet replica of a toy giraffe is perfect for a younger child's birthday cake. The giraffe's body and head are carved from layers of pound cake, and the mouth and nose are carved from cake and then laid on top of the head. All the pieces are covered in fondant, with the giraffe's coat pattern also cut out from thin, colored pieces of fondant.

The legs are made from rolled fondant, and the ears are cut from fondant and folded. Complete the design by making the eyes and mouth by either scuplting them from fondant or piping them on in tinted buttercream using a round open tip.

Do you have a little stargazer in your family? Give this solar system cake a try. It's constructed the same way as the stacked gifts cake, using cakeboards supported by dowel rods. Each cake is covered in dark blue fondant. The stars are cut from yellow fondant using a small star-shaped cutter.

If you want the planets to be edible, you can roll balls of rice cereal treats and cover them in tinted fondant. It's easiest to create planetary rings by cutting them from poster board. Insert long, thin dowel rods into each planet, and then insert the other end of each dowel all the way into each layer of cake until you hit the cake board beneath. The bead borders are created from small balls of fondant and placed on one by one.

Creating this candy land design is time consuming, but the results are well worth it. Three circular cakes of graduating sizes are placed on cake boards and covered in yellow fondant. Each layer then gets an additional top layer of pink fondant cut to look like dripping icing. You'll need to insert dowel rods in each of the two bottom layers so you can stack the cakes.

Set the cake on a larger board that you'll fill with all your various candy land elements made from fondant. You can use the image for ideas, but don't hesitate to play around and create your own candies. You can also opt to use real candy if you like. Either way, this will be a birthday cake your child will never forget.

Create this volcano cake by covering multiple layers of pound cake in buttercream, stacking them, and doing a little creative carving to give the volcano its shape. Drape gray-colored fondant over the entire cake, and create the lava flows using red fondant. Add various rocks and greenery around the bottom of the volcano as a border.

If you want to make this the most exciting birthday cake your child will ever have, insert a sparkler in the top of the cake and light it to simulate the volcano's explosion. This cake is a real show stopper.

Improvising is the name of the game in cake decorating. You can attempt to duplicate a busy design like this jungle-themed cake, or you can simplify the design to match your skill level and the amount of time you have to put the cake together. It's all up to you. Just choose a design that you know will mean something to your child, and you can't go wrong.

If you haven't found quite the right design just yet, take a look at more creative birthday cake designs kids will love.