Easy How To Train Your Dragon Cake recipe and tutorial. Learn how to make a delicious white cake recipe for a Night Fury or Light Fury dragon cake. A perfect cake for a birthday party or special occasion.
The Cutest How To Train Your Dragon Cake Recipe & Printables
How To Train Your Dragon Cake Recipe
Looking for a fun How to Train Your Dragon Cake for a birthday party or other special celebration? Then you’re going to love how easy these dragon cakes are to make with this fluffy white cake and buttercream frosting recipe with free printable cake decorations.
How to Train Your Dragon is such a cute movie series and I’m excited to share how I easily turned Toothless, the Night Fury dragon and his friend, Light Fury, into adorable cakes.
Make one cake or both, either way they’ll turn out to be the cutest cakes for any party!
Originally published February 17, 2019 – Updated April 2024
How These Dragon Cakes Were Born
As a backstory, I originally created these dragon cakes for Universal Pictures to promote How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. In this film, Hiccup, the Viking chief and ruler of Berk created a gloriously dragon utopia along with his fearsome Night Fury dragon, Toothless. They meet a white female dragon named Light Fury and begin a new journey together to protect their home.
The Original Viral How to Train Your Dragon Cake
As you can see, my dragon cakes turned out super cute! So cute in fact, that they went viral. I think there are millions of pins on Pinterest at this point. People have copied them and even sold the cake decorations (which is not legal, because I give you them for FREE here with permission from Universal Pictures.)
Fans have sent us many photos over the years and it’s been a blast to see so many cute cakes! I hope you enjoy this fun cake tutorial.
How To Train Your Dragon Cake Tutorial
The secret to making a How to Train Your Dragon cake is to use my printables! I spent a long time designing illustrations that would work just right for a small cake.
I wanted to turn both dragons into cakes, so I used 5″ round cake pans. Click here for a 5″ round cake pan.
For these printables to work perfectly, I suggest a 5″-6″ cake pan. You can make one cake, but they sure look cute when you have both the white and black dragons together!
How To Make Dragon Cake Printables
What you’ll need:
- Amy’s free printable cake decor (Scroll down to print)
- Thick matte paper for your printer
- Paper straws
- Toothpicks
- Hot Glue Gun
Step 1
Download and print these dragon cake printables in the link below (scroll down). Print with a sturdy paper.
Step 2
Once you have printed and cut them out, start by hot gluing 1/2 inch cut paper straws onto the back of the eyes.
Step 3
Use hot glue to attach toothpicks to the other dragon parts.
Step 4
Bake and frost the cake. (Click here to print cake recipe) Then decorate your cake with the printables to create your dragon.
IMPORTANT: When the paper touches the buttercream frosting, it can make the paper greasy. When inserting your printed decorations into the cake, try leaving a gap between the paper and the cake if possible. I suggest not adding the printables until right before you are ready to serve the cake.
Toothless is black, so if the frosting touches the black paper, you can’t see any residue. Isn’t he cute?
I love how pretty the Light Fury cake turned out!
Make sure your printables do not touch the white dragon cake, because you will have some of the frosting soak into the white paper.
My fluffy white cake recipe is perfect for this dragon!
I hope you enjoy these adorable How To Train Your Dragon cake tutorials!
Scroll down to print the White Cake and White Buttercream Frosting recipes.
Get the Dragon Cake Free Printables
These printables are now in a password protected area of Living Locurto. The password and link is below. **Please note: password is case sensitive.**
–> CLICK HERE Use password: Dragon5 (case sensitive) to Download the How to Train Your Dragon Cake Printables.
How to Train Your Dragon White Cake Recipe
Ingredients
White Cake
- 3 cups cake flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 egg whites room temperature
- 1 entire egg room temperature
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 teaspoons pure almond extract
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
White Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup butter softened
- 4 cups confectioners sugar
- 2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract
- 1 pinch of salt
- 3 tablespoons milk
- Black food gel if making Night Fury
Instructions
White Cake Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line three 5” or 6” inch cake pans with parchment paper. (I used 5 inch for my dragon cakes)
- Whisk the eggs, milk, and almond extract together in a large bowl; set aside.
- In a mixer, gently combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together.
- Add butter and mix on low until you get a crumbly texture.
- Add the liquid mixture a small portion at a time and mix until light and fluffy.
- Pour the batter evenly into each cake pan.
- Bake 25-30 minutes. You don’t want to over bake! Check at 15-20 minutes to test if it’s done by placing a toothpick in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done.
- Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pans.
Frosting Directions
- In a mixer, cream the butter until it is smooth for about 3 minutes.
- Add the confectioner’s sugar 1/2 a cup at a time then mix another minute.
- Add vanilla, a pinch of salt and milk until frosting has reached the preferred consistency.
- If making the Night Fury cake, mix in black food gel a few drops at a time until you get the desired color.
Assembling the Cake
- Make the top of the cakes even by using a serrated knife and cutting the cake top to level the surface.
- Place bottom cake layer on a cake turntable or cake board and spread frosting to the top. Repeat until entire cake is assembled.
- Complete frosting the cake by adding one thin layer all over and placing cake into the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Then add the final layer of frosting.
- Add the How to Train Your Dragon printables into the cake as shown for the dragon.
Notes
Nutrition
GET FEATURED: If you make this cake, please tag @LivingLocurto on Instagram and use the hashtag #LivingLocurto. I’d love to feature you!
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Frosting Recipes
I was surfing net and fortunately came across this site and found very interesting stuff here. Its really fun to read. I enjoyed a lot.
Thanks for sharing the info, keep up the good work going…. I really enjoyed exploring your site.
Can’t wait to make one of these cakes this week for our boy’s birthday! Did you use pans that were 5”x2”or 5”x3”? Hard to tell from photos. Thanks!
Can I ask how you got the stilled effect on the Night Fury please?
Hi – The wings are printables. You can click the download link in the post to print them.
it doesnt say how to make the wings
my grandma is going to make one of these for my 12th birthday.
okay thank you
this is very good
If making two cakes, you’ll want to double the frosting recipe.
Making these for my daughter’s 9th birthday this weekend. Does the frosting recipe need doubled? I could only find thin 6 inch pans that came in a 5-pack so I want to make sure I have enough frosting for extra layer.
Thank you so much for making these and sharing them! You’ve saved the day for my son’s How To Train Your Dragon party!
Made these they were adorable. Used inkjet vinyl inkjet paper for eyes no bleeding through. So easy to make. Loads of complements.
These sounds wonderful! I’d love to see the cakes. You can email me, share a photo on my Facebook page or Instagram and use the hashtag #LivingLocurto. Thanks!
Thanks so much for the printables!!
I used box cake mix (it only takes ONE box per cake, btw, not two, but I figured it out pretty quickly!). I found the prospect of making black icing too daunting as well, so I used premade black fondant that I placed over dark chocolate icing for Night Fury, and it was perfect. I also used black or white plastic sheets the thickness of card stock for the ears and wings, and laminated the eyes which I printed on regular white card stock, so frosting staining the cutouts was not an issue. I wish I could post a picture, because they turned out great. Got tons of compliments and my son loved them for his themed birthday party.
Oh, one other thing I did was leave the top layer of each cake rounded for a more realistic head shape, which I think was a cool effect also!
Thanks again!!
How fun – I’d love to see! You can share a photo on my Facebook page or tag me on Instagram and use the hashtag #LivingLocurto https://www.facebook.com/LivingLocurto/
This is a link to the plush dragon on the table. It’s cute because it roars when you squeeze it. https://amzn.to/2TRUkJS
Do you know where to get the pattern for the dragon on the table with the cakes? Love your ideas and hope to see more. Thanks.
Will it look nice on a 8 inch cake ?
Hi. Will it look nice on a 8 inches 3 layers cake ?
Thank you for the printables. The cakes turned out so cute for my granddaughters birthday party Saturday.Wish I could post a picture.
I found your blog web site on google. Fun
This is the cutest cake!! Thank you for sharing the printable for the uncrafty people like me!
These cakes are ridiculously adorable and I am so excited to see how EASY they are to make! I want to make one for when we see the movie!
Yes, both cakes have frosting. The black dragon has black frosting.
This is the most adorable cake and easy to make too!
We are seeing the movie today, can’t wait! Such amazing work, love this and you make it look so easy!
Does the black cake have any frosting on it? If so, what is it?
Wow these are adorable.
These cakes are so fun! I can’t wait for the movie.
So cute and fun, my kids will love this!
These are adorable! My girls would love them.
Such a fun idea and surprisingly easy!
These are the best How To Train Your Dragon Cakes ever! I love them both!
I love the light fury cake! Both are cute and I can’t wait for the movie!
Oh my goodness these cakes are so adorable!!!
These are so fun and I love how easy your steps are to follow!
OMG isn’t Toothless the most adorable dragon EVER??? love these cakes and can’t wait to see the movie when it comes out!
These are awesome cakes! Can’t wait to see the movie:)
those cakes are seriously sooo fun!! My kids are so excited to see this movie.
This is SO awesome!!! Thank you SO much for sharing the printables, pretty sure this will be the theme this Summer for my daughters birthday!!
Ok this is soooo creative and cute. I love these.
Your cakes turned out so cute! I love how easy they are to make too.
These are the cutest dragon cakes! Thanks for the printables – will make one for a party soon.