Easy DIY Dinosaur Birthday Cake [No Baking Required] - Our Lively Adventures (2024)

Okay you guys, today I am sharing how I made the most amazing dinosaur birthday cake for my son’s “Three-Rex Birthday” party. I think this might be my favorite cake of all the birthday cakes my kids have had so far.It is so simple, but looks complicated (that’s the real key!).

The main reason this cake is so simple to make is that I didn’t actually make it. I decorated it, but I didn’t bake it. I hate the pressure of baking birthday cakes for birthday parties. The uncertainty of whether or not it will turn out the way it’s supposed to. Will it taste good? Will it look good? So much stress!!

Now, while I hate baking birthday cakes, I love decorating them! So, I came up with an awesome solution!! My solution is to buy a plain iced cake from the grocery store then decorate it myself at home. It’s one of my favorite “birthday party hacks“!

**Disclaimer: I love to bake, I just don’t like the added stress of baking cakes for my kid’s birthday parties. In fact, one of my favorite birthday traditions involves birthday cakes!! You can read more about that here.

When it was time to plan my son’s 3rd birthday party he was fully obsessed with dinosaurs, so the “Three-Rex” theme was an obvious choice. I swear this kid knew more about dinosaurs at 2 than most adults know. I knew I needed an awesome cake for an awesome kid!

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want the stress or the headache of baking a giant birthday cake the day before a giant birthday party. Nope, not for me. So, I ordered a half-sheet cake from our grocery store. They couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that I didn’t want anything written or designed on it. All I wanted was a big cake with chocolate frosting. That’s it. Simple.

I picked the cake up the morning of his birthday party. Placed the white chocolate dinosaur bones Grant and I had made a few days prior on top, then sprinkled crushed Oreo’s around the bones to give it that “fossil dig” look. It turned out exactly how I had pictured in my mind and all the guests raved about it!

I’m telling you, if you are thinking about throwing a dinosaur themed birthday party this easy DIIY dinosaur cake is exactly what you need!

Buy Your Mold: Before you can get started you have to have bought your dinosaur mold. You can search for a food-grade dinosaur mold, but honestly the ones I found weren’t exactly what I was looking for. So, what I ended up using was actually a sand toy (here). I wasn’t concerned about it being BPA-free or food-grade or any of that because I was using it strictly for decoration. Sure, I’d let someone gnaw on a bone if they wanted, but I wasn’t going to be serving them to anyone.

Once you have your mold, be sure to wash and dry it before use.

Grab Your Cake: Whether you are using a store-bought cake or a homemade cake, you gotta have your cake figured out before you can make your bones so you know the dimensions you are working with.

Melt The Chocolate: You can use any kind of chocolate or candy wafers you want. I went with white candy melts (here), but you could do something really cool with different colors. Maybe use light green, dark green, brown, and black and create a camouflage effect!

My preferred way to use candy melts is by melting them in the microwave. Put them in the microwave for 20-30 second increments and give them a quick stir in between until you have reached the desired consistency.

Fill The Molds: Pour melted chocolate into the molds. Tap the molds gently or lightly tap molds against the counter or table to remove air bubbles. Depending on the mold you choose to use, you may want to spray it with cooking spray prior to pouring in the chocolate.

*I highly recommend doing a “test bone” before committing to the entire skeleton. Depending on what chocolate you use, the mold you chose, etc. you could have difficulty getting the chocolate out of the mold.

Extraction: Carefully remove the bones from the mold by lightly tapping and/or wiggling the mold to loosen the chocolate. The goal is to get the chocolate out of the mold without breaking it, HOWEVER, if a crack or break does happen it’s pretty easy to fix in this particular case. Plus, a few cracks and chips are something you would expect out of a million-year-old fossil, right?

If a crack or break does happen, don’t fret. Melt a little more chocolate to use as glue. Simple fix.