Exploding Volcano Birthday Cake

Make this exploding volcano birthday cake! It’s honestly one of the coolest cakes ever. It’s easy for an amateur baker and it will make the kids go crazy! 

exploding volcano birthday cake

Our friends invited us to celebrate their 5-year-old son’s birthday with them and I was super excited to make him an awesome exploding volcano dinosaur birthday cake!

I’m going to walk you through the things you need to do to make the same cake, and I’ll also tell you a few things I would change next time! Good luck!

First, start by ordering some small dinosaurs on Amazon a few days in advance.  That way you’re not spending days sculpting dinosaurs out of fondant.  Make my homemade fondant recipe a couple of days before the big day too!

The best part of this cake is the explosion at the end. We didn’t want to test it on the cake before we delivered it, and it was crazy at the party so I didn’t get any pictures, so

I’ll just show you our test pictures and you can imagine what it will look like when you do it at your party! The exploding lava is made by mixing jello as directed, but don’t put it in the fridge! Then combine it with dry ice and watch it do its thing!

The cake was baked in a doll dress cake pan, but you could make 3 or 4 round cakes, stack them, and then cut them into a dome shape, or you could use Rice Krispie treats to shape the volcano around your cup (which is probably what I would do next time.)

Use a 1 inch PVC pipe to hold the lava.  Use the PVC pipe as a guide to cut the cake in the middle. Then scoop out the cake and push the pipe, or whatever you have that will fit, in. 

If I were to make this cake again, I would probably use a bigger cup on the inside. the explosion was cool in the PVC pipe, but we tried it later in a bigger cup, and it was even better!

It continually exploded for almost a half an hour in the big cup, and the little PVC pipe turned into solid Jello after only a few minutes. So learn from my mistakes people!

Next, Melt white chocolate mixed with equal parts heavy whipping cream and little food coloring. Drizzle it on the top of the volcano a little at a time, so you can control it a little. 

Tint piping gel with black and blue to make a tar pit and watering hole for the dinosaurs. 

Make the trees with green fondant wrapped around a toothpick. Use scissors to make little cuts up and down the trees so they look like pine trees. 

Use sparklers in place of the candles. Just keep in mind that sparklers will ash a little, so you might have to pick a little ash off of your cake if you decide to use them too, and make sure you do the sparklers on a surface that won’t be ruined by hot ash… 

Finally, use brown sugar for the sand! Then make your rocks with fondant and black food coloring. We didn’t mix it in all the way so it would look marbled. 

Here’s exactly what you’ll need for this Exploding Volcano Birthday Cake!

• 2 boxed cake mixes, baked according to directions on the box
• Dome-shaped cake pan
• 1 PVC pipe or any vessel that will be big enough to hold the jello
• Frosting
• Fondant
• Brown, orange, red, green, blue, and black food coloring. 
• White melting chocolate
• Heavy whipping cream
• brown sugar
• plastic dinosaurs
• Red jello
• dry ice
• sparklers

I hope you like this exploding volcano dinosaur birthday cake! The kids and the adults thought it was really cool! I want to make it again just for fun! 

exploding volcano birthday cake