Somewhere in your house right now, a small person is mining cobblestone at 6am on a school day. And somewhere on your calendar, there is a birthday with their name on it and a request that goes something like: "I want a Minecraft cake, but a real one, with the blocks."

Good news. A blocky cake is genuinely one of the easiest themed cakes to pull off, because the whole aesthetic is built on straight lines and flat colour. No sculpting. No delicate piped roses. If you can cut a square, you can do this.

Here is how to make one from scratch, plus three decorating routes depending on how much time you actually have.

Pick Your Block First

There are three types of Minecraft cake out there, so it’s important to distinguish which one you want to make as it’ll change what you buy. mean when they say "Minecraft cake". Decide now, because it changes what you buy.

1. The Actual In-Game Cake

Minecraft has its very own cake players can make in game. This one has a white top with red dots, tan sides, and a white band around the upper edge. This is a fun easter egg to bring into real life which is sure to make a passionate fan of the game happy with the attention to detail. Even better, it’s one of the simpler cakes you can make here.

2. The Grass Block:

Another famous iteration of the “Minecraft Cake” is a recreation of the game’s classic Grass Block. This one is simply brown sides, green top, and a few green squares dripping down over the edge. If you’re new to cake decorating, this is a design that’s pretty forgiving yet recognisable. 

3. The Creeper:

Of course, the most recognisable cake and figure in Minecraft is the infamous Creeper. This cake design is a bit more intricate and will require a bit more time and patience. This one includes a green pixel body with the iconic frowny face. 

Thankfully, all three start from the same cake, so read on and then pick your finish.

What You’ll Need

Equipment

• Two 20cm square cake tins

• Baking paper

• Cake leveller or a long serrated knife

• Offset spatula

• Bench scraper (this is your secret weapon for sharp edges)

• Small sharp knife or a pizza cutter for fondant squares

• A ruler. Yes, really. Pixels are a grid.

• 20cm square cake board

Cake Ingredients

• 250g unsalted butter, softened

• 440g caster sugar

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 4 eggs, at room temperature

• 450g self-raising flour

• 75g plain flour

• 310ml full cream milk

Buttercream Ingredients

• 500g unsalted butter, softened

• 800g pure icing sugar, sifted

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 to 3 tbsp milk

• A pinch of salt

Decorating Ingredients

• Fondant in white, plus your chosen colours

• Gel food colouring in red, green, brown and black

• Minecraft cake toppers or an edible image

• Figurines for the top

• Sprinkles in green and brown for the grass block version

If you’re stuck on deciding between gel versus liquid colour, our recommendation is to use gel instead. Liquid colour can turn your fondant into a sad, sticky puddle, and you need a fair bit of pigment to get a proper green for your Creeper design. 

Step 1: Bake the Base

Preheat to 160°C fan-forced. Grease and line both tins.

Beat the butter, caster sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy, around 5 minutes. Do not rush this bit, it is where the texture comes from. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Sift the flours together. Add them to the butter mixture in three lots, alternating with the milk, and mix on low until just combined. Overmixing here gives you a tough cake, and a tough cake is a nightmare to carve into neat squares.

Divide between the tins and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn onto a rack to cool completely.

Start Early tip: bake this two days early, wrap the cooled layers tightly in cling film and refrigerate. Cold cake cuts cleanly. Warm cake crumbles and ruins your edges.

Step 2: Make the Buttercream

Beat the butter for a solid 5 minutes until it is very pale. Add the sifted icing sugar in batches on low speed, then the vanilla, salt and enough milk to bring it to a smooth spreadable consistency.

For coloured buttercream, colour it now and let it sit for 30 minutes. Gel colours deepen as they rest, so what looks like a weak minty green will settle into something much closer to grass.

Step 3: Stack, Crumb Coat and Chill

Level both layers so the tops are flat. Stack with a generous layer of buttercream between, then apply a thin crumb coat over the whole thing and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Now the important part. Apply your final coat, then hold your bench scraper vertically against the side of the cake and turn the board. Sharp corners are what sell a blocky cake. A slightly wobbly round cake looks rustic. A slightly wobbly square cake just looks like a mistake.

Chill again for 20 minutes before you decorate.

Step 4: Decorate the Cake

Option One: The In-Game Cake Design

Cover the sides in tan buttercream or tan fondant. Roll white fondant thin and cut a band about 2cm deep to run around the top edge of the sides.

Cover the top in white. Then cut small red fondant squares, roughly 1.5cm, and space them evenly across the top in a grid. Nine dots in a three by three arrangement reads perfectly, though four in a square works on a smaller cake.

And there you have it: the perfect cake for your Minecraft gamer.

Option Two: The Grass Block Cake

Cover the sides in brown fondant or brown buttercream, and the top in green.

For the classic drip over the edge, cut green fondant squares in two or three different shades and place them just below the top edge at uneven heights, like the grass is spilling over. Uneven is correct here. Do not tidy it up.

Finish with a scatter of green sprinkles across the top for texture.

Option Three: The Creeper Face

Cover the whole cake in green fondant. Cut squares of slightly lighter and slightly darker green and press them randomly across all four sides to build up that mottled pixel texture. Aim for scattered, not patterned.

For the face, cut black fondant into two squares for the eyes and the classic frown shape for the mouth. Measure it with a ruler and lightly mark your grid with a toothpick before you commit. A creeper with wonky eyes is a different creature entirely.

Toppers, Figurines, And More

If you only have a few hours (or don’t want to risk it with decorating), this section is for you. 

We stock a number of Minecraft cake figurines and designs to help transform your cake into a love letter to any Minecraft gamer. 

Edible Images

An edible image sheet laid over a smooth white fondant top gives you a full scene with zero piping. Brush the fondant with the lightest mist of water, lay the sheet down from the centre outwards and smooth gently. If you want a custom scene, Cake Decorating Central also runs an edible image printing service.

Cake Toppers

A Minecraft topper set pushed into a plain green buttercream cake takes ninety seconds and still gets the reaction you are after.

Figurines

Group two or three figurines off centre rather than lining them up like a police lineup. Add a few brown and green sprinkles around their feet so they look like they are standing on terrain instead of hovering on icing.

Mix and Match

Combine the cake design with these extra, and you could have something extra special. Just remember: handmade fondant sides plus a bought topper isn’t cheating - it’s just time management. 

Five Tips That Can Save Your Cake

1. Chill between every stage: Cold cake is firm cake. Firm cake holds an edge.

2. Roll fondant on a lightly cornfloured surface, not a floured one: Plain flour will dry and crack it.

3. Cut your pixel squares in advance: and let them firm up for 20 minutes. They hold their shape far better when you place them.

4. Colour more fondant than you think you need: Matching a green you mixed yesterday is a genuinely miserable task.

5. Work in daylight if you can: Kitchen lighting lies about green.

Frequently Asked Questions

What size cake do I need? A 20cm square two layer cake serves around 20 people as party portions. Going to 25cm gives you closer to 30, and it also gives you more room for a face, so size up if you are doing the creeper.

Do I have to use fondant? No. Buttercream works for all three designs. You will lose a little of the crispness in the pixel edges, but a chilled, well scraped buttercream cake still reads unmistakably blocky. Pipe your pixels using a small square tip or a piping bag with the end cut flat.

How far ahead can I decorate? Fondant details can be made a week early and stored in an airtight container at room temperature. Assemble and decorate the day before, and keep the finished cake in the fridge, boxed, so it does not absorb the smell of last night's curry.

My fondant keeps tearing. What am I doing wrong? Usually it is rolled too thin or it has dried out. Aim for 3 to 4mm and knead a tiny amount of vegetable shortening through if it is cracking at the edges.

Can I do this with a boxed cake mix? Absolutely. Nobody at the party is auditing your flour. Just make sure it is a firm cake rather than a light sponge, because the sponge will not hold up under fondant.

Whichever block you build, the trick is straight edges and confident colour. Everything else is just squares.

Ready to start? Browse our Minecraft cake decorating collection for toppers, figurines, edible images and everything else you need to get building.