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How to Bake: Gender Reveal Cake

02 January 2018

 | 

5 mins

An extra-special cake for Mums and Dads-to-be, our showstopping Gender Reveal Cake is the perfect centrepiece for any baby shower, christening or gender reveal party.
The outside of this vanilla sponge cake is covered in silky vanilla-bean buttercream and topped with beautiful baby blue and pink duckbiscuit pops. This cake is all about the reveal, once your cake has been sliced into, the coloured sponge inside is an exciting way to share the wonderful news with family and friends.

For the 6 inch vanilla cake (makes 2)

  • - 300g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
  • - 300g caster sugar
  • - 5 eggs, beaten
  • - 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla paste/extract
  • - 300g self-raising flour
  • - ½ tsp baking powder
  • - Pink or blue food colouring (depending on the sex of the baby)

serves:12

difficulty:medium

1 hr

  • Preheat oven to 170°C fan / gas mark 5. Grease and line 2 x 15cm / 6 inch round cake tins with greaseproof paper.
  • In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, until light and fluffy.
  • Gradually add your beaten eggs and mix together.
    • Top tip:

    If it looks as though your batter is curdling, you can add 1 tsp of flour!

  • Mix the vanilla into the batter. Mix the correct food colouring into the batter - add a drop at a time until you reach your desired colour. Bare in mind that when baked the colour will decrease in intensity slightly.
  • In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder, then fold into the batter.
  • Divide the mixture equally between the prepared cake tins.
  • Bake in the middle of your hot oven for 30–35 minutes, or until golden brown. Check if your cakes are ready by inserting a skewer into the middle. If the cakes are baked, the skewer will come out clean. If it doesn’t, pop the cake back in the oven for another 5 minutes!
    • For the buttercream:
  • 400g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 800g icing sugar, sieved
  • 2 tsp vanilla paste / extract
  • Pink and blue gel or paste food colouring


  • Put the butter and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer to cream the butter and icing sugar together on a low speed, until pale and fluffy. This should take about 5 minutes.
  • Add in the vanilla, then beat on a medium speed until fully incorporated.
  • Take a couple of tablespoons of the buttercream and place into a small bowl, add a couple of drops of blue food colouring, mix well and set to one side.
  • Repeat step three with your pink food colouring.
    • Top tip:

    If your buttercream is too thick, add a little milk, 1 tsp at a time, until you reach your desired consistency!

    What you will need:
  • 1 x 8 inch cake board
  • Pallet knife or perspex cake smoother
  • Biscuit pops (you can follow our easy guide to making and decorating your own biscuit pops here).
    • How to decorate your cake:
  • Once the cake has cooled completely you can begin to stack the layers of your cake. Take a sharp knife and cut each of the cake layers in half horizontally so that you have four layers in total.
  • Take one of the layers and using a small spoonful of your vanilla buttercream, secure the bottom layer to your cake board.
  • Apply a layer of vanilla buttercream to the cake and repeat this step until the cake has all four layers stacked.
  • Take a generous amount of your vanilla buttercream and smooth it around the edge of the cake, use a pallet knife or perspex cake smoother to scrape off the excess until the cake is evenly covered in the buttercream.
  • Using a pallet knife add random patches of the pink buttercream to the sides and top of the cake.
  • Repeat with the blue buttercream. Patches of your plain buttercream may be showing through the colours - but this is fine, you want there to be a mix of pink, blue and white buttercream on the surface!
  • Using your pallet knife or perspex cake smoother - once again, smooth down the sides and top of the cake until all excess buttercream has been removed.
  • You should be left with a watercolour effect of the different coloured buttercreams.
  • Trim the ends of your biscuit pops and insert into the cake carefully, then decorate with sprinkles.
    • You can view our full collection of gifts for New Babies and Baby Showers here.
    Welcome the new arrival with our new baby collection...