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This hamburger cake is such a fun dessert for summer barbecues, birthday parties, or picnics. Layers of yellow cake with bright frostings in the middle make it look just like a giant hamburger!
Do you have a cheeseburger, hamburger-loving fan in your family!? This hamburger cake is just what you need for their next birthday. Planning a grilling or summertime party, use this hamburger cake recipe for that as well as 4th of July get-togethers! We have used this cake at 4th of July parties too. It is simple to make and layered just right to make it look identical to your favorite hamburger!
Use 9-inch pans to perfectly get a round top and bottom of the burger. This is a fun and delicious masterpiece that is actually easier than it looks. Bake your favorite cake mixes, frost the toppings on, and then layer them together. It is a fun time to make and comes together quicker than you realize! This has to be on your MUST-make cake menu!
Hamburger Cake Ingredients
Cake mix to the rescue! It can be homemade, doctored up, or as is according to the directions on the box. Make homemade frosting or store-bought. Either way, this cake is made with love. Make this cake as simple as you would like!
- Yellow cake mix – With a paddle attachment, mix the cake according to the package with eggs, water and vegetable oil or unsalted butter. You can also use buttermilk or regular milk instead of water. This will be the bottom of the cake as the bun and the top to hold it together. If you use a white or vanilla cake mix, tint the mix with yellow food coloring for the bun’s appearance.
- Chocolate cake mix – Make your own homemade chocolate cake mix in a large bowl or buy a cake mix box and make it a little faster. This mixture will be used for the hamburger patty. Bake the batter in a round cake pan. Check with a toothpick to make sure it is baked through. You can use a serrated knife to make the edges look more like a ground beef patty.
- Fondant – Don’t let fondant scare you away! You can even make this out of frosting or use this simple homemade fondant recipe to make your cheese.
- Chocolate frosting – Make your chocolate buttercream frosting for the burger patty with the brown frosting color.
- Vanilla buttercream frosting – This will be colored with food coloring making it appear to be toppings for the burger.
- Food coloring – Use the gel kind of food coloring or icing sugar to help make the toppings the best colors.
How to Make a Hamburger Cake
- Start the Bottom Bun: Place one prepared yellow cake on a serving platter. This will be the bottom half of the hamburger bun.
- Prepare the Burger Patty: Frost one chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. You can use both chocolate cakes for a double-patty cake, or frost and serve the second cake separately.
- Add the Patty: Carefully place the frosted chocolate cake on top of the bottom bun.
- Make the Cheese: Knead yellow and red food coloring into about ¾ cup of fondant until it reaches an orange cheese color. Roll the fondant into a thin sheet, cut it into a large square, and drape it over the chocolate cake.
- Make the Lettuce: Knead green food coloring into about 1 cup of fondant. Roll it into a long rope, flatten it, and use a fork to create a crinkled lettuce texture. Arrange it around the cake.
- Add the Onions and Tomatoes: Color and roll out additional fondant to create onion and tomato slices. Arrange them over the lettuce.
- Prepare the Ketchup and Mustard: Divide the vanilla frosting between 2 bowls. Color one bowl bright red and the other bright yellow. Transfer each frosting to a separate plastic bag and snip off one corner for piping.
- Add the Condiments: Generously pipe the red and yellow frosting over the toppings to resemble ketchup and mustard. Let some of the frosting drip over the sides for a fun, messy look.
- Add the Top Bun: Carefully place the second yellow cake on top. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, or shape small pieces of fondant to resemble sesame seeds.
- Make the Cookie Fries and Serve (Optional): Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe to make French fry-shaped cookies. Sprinkle them with sugar before baking to resemble salt. Arrange the fries beside the cake and serve with small bowls of red frosting for dipping “ketchup.”
How to Make the Cake Look Like a Hamburger
Here are a few tips for making this cake look like a real hamburger. It’s so fun and looks so real that my eyes definitely play tricks on me! Add a side of cake fries or onion rings to make it look even better!
- Sesame seeds – Sprinkle the top of the cake with real sesame seeds. You can’t taste them and they really make the “bun” look realistic.
- Make it look real – When you frost the edges of burger cake or a layer of chocolate cake, you can sprinkle a little extra cocoa powder around the sides to mix up the color and make it look more like a grilled patty.
- Fondant recipe – Use fondant to create lettuce, onions, and cheese. For a quick and easy fondant, use our homemade fondant recipe. It’s also cheap and has only 4 ingredients!
- Mini burgers – You can even make these into mini burgers by making cupcakes in muffin tins or cut round cookie cutters. Follow the same process, but just cut the cupcakes in half and layer in the hamburger patty, lettuce, cheese, ketchup, and mustard.
“This is such a fun cake! Great for my burger loving little girl!”
-Whilhelmina
Frequently Asked Questions
You can always cover the cake with fondant instead of keeping the cakes, themselves, bare. In my opinion this makes the cake too frosting/fondant-heavy because there is so much frosting on the inside. If you still want to make it more of a fondant cake, you can use our fondant recipe and color it with food coloring to get the right color and then roll it out thin to cover the cake “bun” layers.
Bake the cake according to the package in the box. Most cake mixes need large eggs, oil, and water. Add a dash of vanilla extract will add flavoring too. Mix together using an electric mixer. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Once baked, let cool to room temperature. Place on wire racks to let cool or let them chill in the fridge for a few minutes.
This is called a bowl cake! Use a glass bowl that is an ovenproof bowl. The diameter needs to be similar to the bottom layer as well as the hamburger beef cake layer. Bake the cake batter in the bowl until baked.
More Sweet Cakes to Try
If you like this recipe, you’ll have to try our April Fools Day Mini Burgers made with ‘nilla wafers, mini peppermint patties, and frosting. They’re so fun to make with the kids too! For birthday parties, try our pirate ship cake, princess cake or barbie cake! Or try some of these favorite cake recipes:
Hamburger Cake
Ingredients
- 1 box yellow cake mix, prepared in 2 x 8" round pans
- 1 box chocolate cake mix, prepared in 2 x 8" round pans
- 1 1/2 pounds fondant, try our homemade fondant recipe or purchase at the store
- 1 can chocolate frosting
- 1 can vanilla or buttercream frosting
- red, yellow and green food coloring, the gel kind
Instructions
- First, start with one of your prepared yellow cakes. This will be the bottom part of your bun.
- Next, frost one of the chocolate cakes with chocolate frosting. You can use both of the chocolate cakes on the burger-cake if you want or you can frost the other chocolate cake and serve it separately. I did it separately because I thought a double-burger-cake would be a little too huge.
- Place the chocolate cake on the "bottom bun".
- Mix in some yellow/red food coloring into some of the fondant (about ¾ c. worth) to make a nice orange cheesy color. Roll out the fondant really flat, cut into a large square, and place over the chocolate cake.
- Mix some green food coloring into some of the fondant (maybe a cups worth) and roll it into a long roll (like a snake), flatten out and crinkle using a salad fork or anything you can think of to get that crinkle-y look. Circle it around the cake.
- Color and roll out fondant to make the onions and tomatoes and place over the lettuce.
- Separate the vanilla frosting into 2 bowls. Color one bright red and the other bright yellow (ketchup and mustard), put in separate plastic bags and snip off a corner so you can frost the cake.
- Be generous with the "ketchup and mustard" and make it look nice and messy.
- Carefully place the second yellow cake over the top and top with sesame seeds. (Don't worry, you won't taste them). Another option is to roll out some fondant and it like sesame seeds for the top.
- Optional: Use our sugar cookie recipe (see link in notes below) to make some French fry shaped cookies to serve on the side. Sprinkle sugar on top before you bake them for the "salt" look.
- Display the cake with the fries on the side and small bowls of red frosting for "ketchup" to dip your cookies.
Equipment
- 2 8-inch round cake pans
Notes
- Serve “Sugar Cookie Fries” on the side by using our easy sugar cookie recipe or our sugar cookie bar recipe.
- The recipe times do not include the time for baking the cakes, just the assembly time.
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- Sesame seeds – Sprinkle the top of the cake with real sesame seeds. You can’t taste them and they really make the “bun” look realistic.
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- Make it look real – When you frost the edges of burger cake or a layer of chocolate cake, you can sprinkle a little extra cocoa powder around the sides to mix up the color and make it look more like a grilled patty.
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- Fondant recipe – Use fondant to create lettuce, onions, and cheese. For a quick and easy fondant, use our homemade fondant recipe. It’s also cheap and has only 4 ingredients!
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- Mini burgers – You can even make these into mini burgers by making cupcakes in muffin tins or cut round cookie cutters. Follow the same process, but just cut the cupcakes in half and layer in the hamburger patty, lettuce, cheese, ketchup, and mustard.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Looks good but only an American recipe for a ”homemade cake” uses cake mixes and canned icing.
Such a fun cake idea! This looks so professional; I will have to attempt this over the weekend!
Oh my gosh! What a fun cute cake. Totally a hit because who doesn’t love hamburgers and cake?!?
I just love this!! What a fun & colorful idea!! It looks so real!
Now this is my kind of burger!!! I love how it uses cake mixes too, to make it easier. Thank you!
This is such a fun cake! Great for my burger loving little girl!
haha great question. Any way you cut it, it doesn't look pretty!
just wondering how you cut this to serve it??
whoa! ambitious. Very fun.
I'm scared of fondant but I think I will try this for my husband someday!
I've seen hamburger cupcakes but I love this cake version! Looks perfect, the only kind of burger I'd want to eat for dessert :)!
That is sooo incredible!
Very impressive, you got the sponge cake cooked just right so it looks just like bread! I don't think you can make a cake look anymore like a cheese burger than this!
You cease to amaze me. You have a wonderful talent, don't ever stop!
Pretty easy – I don't know – but pretty amazing for sure!
That is so cool. Great job.