The base cake is 2 layers of 8” cake (this particular cake is a vanilla cake), with a buttercream layer in between cake layers. The top “volcano” cake is 2 layers of 4” cake, carved into a cone for the volcano shape. The waterfall is blue buttercream painted on using a pallet knife, and the rocks and greenery around the waterfall are kit kats and mini chocolate bars covered in more buttercream!

Step 1: Assemble your cakes.

Layer your 2 larger cake layers with buttercream and give the cake a good crumb coat. I made my crumb coat white, but it doesn’t have to be! Do the same for the smaller volcano cake. Make sure each cake is on its own cake board and let the crumb coats set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Step 2: Prepare your chocolate pieces.

While your crumb coats are setting, grab some chocolate! I use Merckens milk chocolate melts, but regular chocolate chips work just fine. If you want to really control the color of your chocolate “bark” on the side of the cake & volcano, you can melt white chocolate and add your gel food color to get the color you desire.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper and grab a spoon or a rubber spatula. Melt a cup of your chocolate in 12-15 second intervals. Stir after each iteration until completely melted. This should only take 3-4 reps in the microwave at most. Once melted, I use the back of the spoon to get a dollop of melted chocolate and spread it onto the parchment paper in swatches. **Make sure your chocolate swatches are as tall as your cake—they don’t need to be completely identical and symmetrical. So if you choose to use more than 2 layers of cake, your swatches need to be longer!** If you prefer, you can also pipe the melted chocolate onto the parchment paper and then spread the chocolate with your spoon.

Place your chocolate swatches aside or in the fridge to set faster. I make the chocolate in batches because of limited space in my kitchen, so just know that 1c of chocolate will NOT cover the whole cake.

Step 3: Make your colored buttercream.

To make dirt-colored buttercream, I add a drop of light brown and light orange until I get the color that I want. Adding a drop of black will give you a greyish tone, and green will give a mossy tone. I prefer the color to be “marbled” (not mixed perfectly), because it gives it a more realistic touch.

Step 4: Carve the Volcano Cake

Grab the mini cake out of the fridge and carve it using a serrated knife into a volcano, cone-like shape. Don’t throw away the extra pieces though! Using the colored buttercream you just made, and stick them onto the sides at the base in various spots to give the volcano a wider and varied shape! Lightly coat the volcano cake with your dirt-colored buttercream and place in the fridge for 15-30 minutes.

Step 5: Frost your base cake

Cover your larger cake with a layer of the dirt-colored buttercream. *Your layers of dirt-colored buttercream do NOT have to be perfect and smooth, because it will all get covered in chocolate or decorations! Set the cake back in the fridge for 15-30.

Step 6: Stack the cakes and cover your Volcano cake with chocolate

Grab BOTH cakes out of the fridge and remove any tape that may be under the cake board of the volcano cake. (If you want extra support or are driving this cake a longer distance, I recommend putting in a wooden dowel or a couple of plastic straws in the base cake under the volcano cake. For this Dino cake, I have never used a dowel or straws and have never had any issues with support.)

I place the volcano cake on a side of the base cake, closer to the edge vice the center of the cake because I want more room in the center and front of the cake for the dinosaur and waterfall. That is totally up to you, however. Just make sure the volcano cake is not hanging over the edge! Place some fresh buttercream on the bottom of the volcano-cake cake board and place on top of the base cake. Congrats—now you can say you have made a 2-tiered cake!

Usually, stacking cakes on top of one another is best done when the cakes and frosting are frozen, but because we are covering these cakes with all sorts of goodies, fingerprints are TOTALLY fine.

Using the chocolate pieces you made, apply any extra buttercream you have to the back and gently press the chocolate onto the side of the volcano. If the chocolate breaks, save the piece that broke off to fill gaps and cracks at the end! Overlap some of the pieces, especially at the base, but make sure the chocolate pieces cover the entire height of the volcano cake. (If you don’t have extra buttercream, just wait a few minutes for the frosting to soften after taking the cake out of the fridge…)

Step 7: Adding a waterfall and rocks to the base cake

Here are the colors I made for buttercream decorations:

White (~1 Tsp)

Light Blue (about 1/2c)

Dark Blue (~2 Tsp)

Grey (~2 Tsp)

Light Green (~3 Tsp)

Dark Green (~1 Tsp)

Dark Brown (~2 Tsp)

All of the rocks and greenery surrounding my waterfall are kit kats and mini-Hershey bars stacked and covered in buttercream, which saves you from biting into a mouthful of frosting. But if that’s what you want, then go for it…

I made the outline of my waterfall and pool up at the top by placing the chocolate bars. Using the light blue, I used a pallet knife to fill the water-colored frosting in. Then I dabbed the white and darker blue in for accents on the water. Do the same with the greenery and brown/grey for rocks!

Step 8: Cover the sides of the base cake with chocolate.

Use any left-over colored frosting to apply the chocolate. Place the cake in the fridge while you make the chocolate drip.

Step 9: Make a white chocolate drip for the “lava flow”.

When making white chocolate drips, the best ratio for me is 3 to 1! (1 cup of white chocolate chips + 1/3c of heavy cream) Melt the cream at 12-15 second intervals (usually takes 2 iterations) and then pour over the white chocolate (I use Merckens white chocolate). If the white chocolate doesn’t completely melt, put it back in the microwave for 8 second intervals and stir in between! If your chocolate and cream start to separate, whisk as fast as you possible can to bring those fats together!

Divide your white chocolate drip into 3 bowls while hot and add a drop or 2 of yellow, orange and red into the respective bowls. Let the drip cool just slightly. You don’t want to drip it on the volcano cake when it’s piping hot because it’ll be too runny and it’ll melt the milk chocolate. I like to test my chocolate drips on the side of a glass to see how runny/thick it is. If it races to the bottom of the glass, it may be too warm still, so let it set for a minute or so.

Using a spoon, I layer on the colored lava drip. Let set in the fridge for at least an hour!