Hamburger Cake

4.78 from 9 votes

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!

Prep Time1

Total Time1

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Birthday Cake, Cake

Servings:

Calories: 512kcal

Author: Erica Walker

Equipment

2 8-inch round cake pans

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 3/4 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.

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.

How to make cake look more realistic:

- 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.

Nutrition