Last week, I shared my son’s book themed first birthday party! As I promised, I’m going to share how I made these awesome book cakes!

Let’s be honest, these cakes came out way better than I thought they would. This was my first time attempting to make any kind of “shaped cake” and since a book is already in the shape of a rectangle, half of the work was already done. This was also my first time making and decorating with fondant. Making and working with fondant was also a lot easier than I imagined, I would definitely do it again.

I started out by making my marshmallow fondant the day before I decorated the cakes. It is best when it has time to set. I used this recipe from Rose Bakes and followed her directions closely.

I made two cakes, the larger one was Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake with peanut butter frosting (a favorite around here) and the smaller cake was a banana cake made with a box mix and some ripe bananas thrown in.

I baked the cakes in a 9 x 13″ pan. 2 layers for the chocolate cake, and 1 for the banana cake.

For the small book cake, you will only need 1/2 of your 9 x 13″ cake. Here I had taken the half cake I was going to use and cut it in half again, so I would have two layers for my mini book cake.

I cut a thin layer off of the cake so I had a flat surface for the bottom of the cake.

Then I frosted the top, and placed another layer of cake on top.

Now the fun part, CARVING! I used a bread knife for all of the shaping.

I made a small cut in the center of the cake, and cut down towards the center from each side making a V shaped valley in the center of the cake.

Then I cut the sides of the cake also at an angle sloping downwards.

Using the previous cuts as a guide, I then rounded each side as smoothly as I could using a knife.

The next step is to cover your cake with a crumb coat of icing. I used peanut butter icing here.

I completed the same steps with my larger cake too!

I took the fondant I made the night before and kneaded it really well. This part is crucial to getting your fondant to be flexible and smooth.

Using a rolling pin, I rolled out a large section of fondant to cover my cake. I used corn starch to keep the fondant from sticking to the counter and rolling pin. It worked great!

I got the fondant on the cake by rolling the fondant onto the rolling pin, and then rolled the fondant off of the rolling pin gently over the cake.

Starting in the center crease of the cake I used my hands to gently press the fondant to the sides of the cake.

I used a pizza cutter to cut off the extra fondant.

Here you can see the large cake.

Next, I went around all of the sides and using some wooden clay tools, I drew lines to look like book pages.

Then I cut a small semi circle where the book binding will go.

I rolled out some blue fondant for the book binding and used a pizza cutter to cut long strips.

Then I placed the binding around the edges of the book, using a little bit of water to help it stick to the other fondant.

Lastly, I made some fun colors of icing and piped some decorations using a plastic ziploc with the tip cut off.

I’m so happy with the way these cakes came out! I made both of these cakes for under $30! I hope this is a helpful post that inspires you to create your own book cakes!