LEGO and Minecraft are super popular these days. I’m sure you know at least one kiddo who would love to have this LEGO Minecraft Cake for their upcoming birthday! It’s a rich chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting all wrapped up in a Minecraft grass block.
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If you don’t know what a Minecraft grass block is, it’s a very popular building block in Minecraft that looks like a block of dirt with grass on the top.
A grass block is used all the time in Minecraft to build worlds so it’s the perfect base for our LEGO Minecraft cake.
Disclosure – I may get a small commission for purchases made through affiliate links in this post.
🔑 Key to Success #1 – The Dreamy Chocolate Cake
The cake for this cute little LEGO Minecraft cake is a decadent chocolate cake at the birthday boy’s request. We use this chocolate cake recipe for a lot of birthday cakes around here and it never disappoints.
I baked the chocolate cake in a pair of 8-inch square cake pans. I always use USA Pans because they bake evenly and have a nonstick coating that allows my cakes to slide right out without tearing.
To ensure a perfect release:
- Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit into the bottom of the pan
- Spray the parchment and the inside of the pan with nonstick cooking spray
- Pour batter into the pan
- Bake as directed, do not overcook
When your cake comes out of the oven, allow it to rest in the pan for about 30 minutes. Then you’re ready to turn the cake out onto the countertop to cool completely.
Put a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper down on the cabinet then flip the pan over. The cake should slide right out.
If it doesn’t, run a knife around the edge of the cake then try again.
After the cake comes out of the pan, you can peel off the parchment paper from the bottom.
If your cake is not level, use a serrated knife or a cake leveler to even off the top.
I also used my cake leveler to split each cake layer in half so that I ended up with four thin layers instead of two thick layers.
The reason for splitting the cake? More chocolate frosting!
And as an added bonus, I made the Minecraft grass block a little taller and more square thanks to the extra frosting.
🔑 Key to Success #2 – The Decadent Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
The Chocolate Buttercream Frosting that I used on this cake is a real winner. It’s thick and rich and delicious.
We use this frosting on chocolate cakes quite often and always get rave reviews.
The chocolate buttercream frosting is applied between each layer of the cake and also around the bottom of the Minecraft grass block.
The green frosting on the top of the cake is traditional buttercream that I dyed green using Americolor Gel Color Food Dye. I made it extra thick so that the “grass” on top of the cake would stand up a bit.
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch salt optional
- gel food coloring optional
Instructions
- In a large bowl using an electric mixer beat the butter until light and fluffy.
- Gradually add in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well on medium speed after each addition.
- Add in heavy cream a little at a time until desired consistency is reached.
- Add in vanilla and salt or gel food coloring, if using, and beat until light and fluffy.
Equipment
Nutrition
The frosting consistency in this recipe is great for frosting a birthday cake. But you may need to add a little more powdered to make the frosting stiffer to pipe on the grass on top of the LEGO Minecraft Cake.
Also, you may notice that the grass is three different colors. I made all three colors using only the Americolor gel food coloring in Leaf Green. I just added more food coloring for the darker shades of grass.
Medium Green
Make half of your frosting medium green.
You’ll want to use the medium green color to cover the entire top of the cake and about 1/3 – 1/2 way down the side of the cake.
This portion can be birthday cake frosting consistency like what is printed in the recipe so that it is easier to spread over your cake.
You may want to add more powdered sugar to the leftover medium green to make it thicker for your grass.
Light Green
Dye one fourth of your frosting light green. You’ll want the light green frosting to be a stiff consistency so that you can pipe the grass on top of the cake.
Use a Wilton #233 piping tip for making the grass. You can find these decorating tips at Hobby Lobby or Michael’s Craft Store or on Amazon.
Or just search Amazon.com for “grass piping tips” and you will get a lot of options.
Dark Green
Color one fourth of your frosting the dark green color. Just add more AmeriColor dye to the frosting until it is a darker shade.
You could literally color half of your frosting the light green then put half of the light green in a piping bag. Then add more food dye to make the rest of the frosting dark green.
How to Pipe Grass
Piping grass is considered an easy piping technique.
Here are the steps for piping grass on your cake:
- Hold your piping bag straight up and down over the top of the cake
- Gently squeeze the bag
- STOP squeezing (this is important)
- Lift the tip up
- Repeat all over the top of the cake
How long you squeeze the bag is directly responsible for how long your grass is. Try to be consistent with how long you are squeezing so that your grass will be the same length.
The grass on a Minecraft grass block has different shades of green in small squares so try to pipe your different shades of green in a random square pattern.
It sounds complicated but it’s really not. The squares do not have to be perfectly aligned. I put random squares of light green all over the cake then went back and repeated the process with the dark green.
I filled in the medium green last. I should mention that I only used one Wilton #233 piping tip. I put piping tip couplers inside my piping bags so that I could switch out the tip to the different colors.
If you have any questions about the couplers or the piping process, let me know in the comments and I will try to get back to you quickly.
It’s important to remember that your cake does not have to look perfect. With the Minecraft grass block, the brown and green are muddled on the side so I tried to mimic that look on my cake.
But the sides of my cake were not pretty and clean and here’s proof.
I used a cake smoother to even out the sides and smoosh the green and brown together. My green frosting was a little too thick to spread easily but I eventually got it together.
🔑 Key to Success #3 – Make the LEGOs for the Cake Topper
The toppers for the LEGO Minecraft Cake are real LEGO figures that Emily put together for me the day of the party.
They are LEGO BigFig people. We used the Minecraft Steve BigFig and the Minecraft Pig BigFig (say that three times fast!) But they have other BigFigs that would be great.
They stood up on the cake perfectly. I never felt like the LEGO figures were going to fall over. That’s always a concern when you’re putting figures on a cake but it worked out perfectly.
Overall, I think this cake was a great success. Noah, my 10-year-old, absolutely loved it.
Since this was a COVID drive-by birthday party, I got some plastic to-go containers from Amazon and put the cake slices into them before our guests came by.
The downside was that they never got to see the whole cake but I thought this was the best solution for a drive-thru birthday party.
📌 Get the Printable Recipe for LEGO Minecraft Cake
Save this LEGO Minecraft Cake to your favorite Minecraft Party Ideas board or your Boys Birthday Party board.
