How To Make The Perfect Moana Birthday Cake (2024)

This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

If you’re throwing a Moana party, you’re going to need Moana cake ideas! This fun Moana birthday cake is the perfect way to celebrate a birthday. Complete with candy waves and edible shells, it’s a cake that any little princess will love!

This post contains affiliate links butthese are all productsthat I have personally used and love!

Ever since we first saw Disney’sMoana, we’ve been obsessed. The soundtrack all we listen to in the car (and I even catch myself listening when the girls aren’t with me). Yes, it’s THATgood!

Immediately after seeing the movie, my 4 year old started planning her Moana birthday party. It didn’t matter that her birthday was months away…she knew exactly what she wanted. I started by making a cute Moana invitation but of course, we’d need a Moana birthday cake too. That was totally fine by me…a Moana cake was right up my alley. I LOVE making fun birthday cakes!

I didn’t give it much thought until a few weeks ago, when I actually had to start planning. It was important that it be easy, not like these totally over the top Disney princess cakes!

Since I couldn’t possibly recreate a tropical island without seashells and palm trees, I started searching Amazon for supplies. This cutemini seashell mold and palm treecake topperswere the first things I found. What in the world did people do beforeAmazon Prime came along? I’m pretty sure my kids would have been getting a lot more birthday cakes from the grocery store.

Scroll down to the recipe card to get the full list of everything you’ll need to make this Moana cake.

How To Make The Perfect Moana Birthday Cake

I started by using candy melts to make the seashells. You can easily make solid colored seashells but since candy melts are so fun to play with, I thought it would be prettier to swirl different colors together. Melt each color in a separate bowl so that you can createas many color combinations as you want. When you’re ready, take two colors and just slightly swirlthem together with a toothpick or fork.

Don’t swirltoo much or the colors will combine into one solid color. Fill the mold, scrape the excess candy off the top and refrigerate.

This is also a good time to start working on the big wave, since it’s one of the most important features. You’ll needblue and white candy melts and a bowl that has a good curve on the bottom. Spray the bowl with a little Pam or rub with vegetable oil to make the wave easier to remove when you’re done.

You can buy different shades of blue and white candy melts available but I used the regular blue (not royal blue) and bright white. It’s easiest to melt the colors separately, then swirl them together once they were completely melted. Again, be sure not to swirl them so much that they form a single color.

After combining the colors, pour them into the bowl and use your fingers or a spatula to form a wave shape. Be sure to make it long enough since you’ll be pushing it about 1/4 of the way into the Moana cake to make it stand upright.

Place the bowl in the freezeror refrigerator until the candy sets, then addmore melted candy until you have the wave shape that you want. I did this several times until it looked just the way I wanted.

Now it’s time to start on the actual Moana cake. You’ll need two cakes baked in 9×13 cake pans. I recommend having two pans because otherwise you haveto bake one cake, let it cool, then bake the second one later that day or the next morning. It takes FOREVER!

You’ll also want to be sure the cakes are completely cooled before you take them out of the pan or they will break apart. If they do break apart a little, you can always use “icing” to glue them back together. Icing fixes everything!

You’ll also need to make an 8″ or 9″ round cake for the mountainthat Te Fiti forms in the end of the movie. Use four boxes of cake mix for the maincake (each 9×13 pan takes two) and one more box for the round cake.

Bake your cakes and let them cool. Use a cake leveler to make them flat on top, then place one cake on top of the other. The cakes are so big that I found it easier to cut the top one in half before trying to move it. Once it’s frosted, no one will ever know the difference…a little icing fixes everything!

Frost about a third of the cakewith white icing. Thatwill be your beach.

Frost the rest of the cake with blue icing.

Originally I left the sides alone because I didn’t know how far my island would extend out. Since it didn’t extend all the way out, I ended up coveringthe remaining parts blue. Now cut theround cake in half…

…and put it together with icing to form the mountain (this is the mountain that the Te Fititurns into at the very end of the movie).

Use a knife to shape itand place itat theend of the cake opposite the beach.

Using green icing, frost the mountain, then cover it with flowers. You can use icing to make the flowers but these candy flowersmake it really easy.

Once the island has been covered in frosting, it’s time to get to work on the beach. To create the waves crashing on the shore, make a line of blue frosting and a line of white frosting, then swirl them together. You can check out this beach caketo seehow to do this in more detail.

Add palm trees, then crush vanilla wafer cookies (the store brand works just fine) and cover your beach with “sand”.

Next add the seashells and some Moana figurines. We used these Moana, Pua and Hei Hei figures that Keira had gotten for Christmas.

The trickiest part of making this Moana cake was adding the wave. At first I tried to stick it straight into the cake but it was a little heavy and I was worried that it would toppleover. I ended up making a hole in the cake about 1/2 inch down, filling it with melted candy (the same candy I used to make the wave) and pushed the wave down into it. Once it set after a few minutes, the wave stayed in place without even a wobble. I made a green shell usingthe shell mold to create the heart of Te Fiti. Ishaped it into more of a circle with a small cheese grater, then placed it under the wave.

You can never have too many seashells on a tropical island!

I also added a few more around thesides of the cake.

Now we were ready for a birthday party!

Ithrew in a pineapple fruit bowlbecause it was fun and tropical.

Stay tuned to see the goody bags filled with more seashells, Heart Of Te Fiti cookies and chocolate covered pretzels that Tamatoa the “Shiny” crab wouldgonuts over.

Keira absolutely loved her Moana birthday cake and it looked so pretty surrounded bytropical flowers.

4.95 from 17 votes

Moana Birthday Cake

Author Lisa O'Driscoll | Fun Money Mom

Cuisine American

Prep Time 4 hours hours

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 5 hours hours

If you have a little one that loves the new Disney Princess Moana, you're going to be mommy of the year when you surprise her with this fun Moana birthday cake

Ingredients

• ▢ 4-5 canisters white frosting
• ▢ 5 boxes cake mix any flavor
• ▢ 1 cup crushed vanilla wafers
• ▢ candy melts - blue and white for the wave
• ▢ candy melts - various colors for the seashells
• ▢ blue and green food coloring
• ▢ candy flowers
• ▢ Non food items:
• ▢ Moana figurines
• ▢ Palm trees
• ▢ Seashell candy mold

Instructions

For the seashells:

• Melt colored candy melts for seashells, fill mold and refrigerate. To make the heart of Te Fiti, fill one of the round shells with green candy melts and after refrigerating, scrape the sides to make it round.

For the wave:

• Melt blue and white candy melts separately.

• Swirl colors together and use the bottom of a bowl to mold into a wave shape (see photos)

• When set, add more blue and white candy melts until the wave is finished.

For the cake:

• Use the cake mix to bake two 9x13 cakes (2 boxes per cake) and one 8" or 9" cake. Let cool.

• Start with the 9x13 cakes and level both.

• Frost one cake with white icing, then place the second on top

• Cover 1/3 of the cake with white icing, then the remainder with blue icing

• Cut the round cake in half and use frosting to put them together back to back in the shape of a mountain (see pictures)

• Carve the top to make it look more like Te Fiti turning into the mountain

• Frost with green icing and cover with candy flowers

• One the opposide side, make a line across the cake of blue icing and another line of white icing

• Swirl together to create the effect of waves crashing on the beach

• Add palm trees to the edge of the beach

• Sprinkle crushed vanilla wafers over the white frosting to look like sand

• At the water's edge, gently push the bottom of the wave into the cake. Using a small spoon or knife, dig about 1/2 inch of the cake out to make a spot strong enough to hold the wave. Fill the hold with melted candy and add the wave, securing in place to keep it from toppling over.

• Place the green heart of Te Fiti candy under the wave and put the Moana figurines on the beach in front of it.

• Place the seashells around the cake

• Enjoy!

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 445kcal | Carbohydrates: 96g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Sodium: 816mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 51g

The nutrition information provided is an estimate and can vary based on cooking methods and ingredients used.

Did You Make This Recipe?

Share it with me on Instagram @funmoneymom and follow on Pinterest @funmoneymom for more!

To make it easier for you, these are all the things I used to create this cake:

You can choose from a varietyof different candy melt colors to make your seashells.

If you’re looking for more party food, theseHeart Of Te-Fiti cookies were a big hit!

You can find all of my Disney princess ideas here, including a printable Disney Princess List…

If you’re having a Moana party, you’ll want to check these out…

31 Amazing Ideas For The Best Ever Moana Party

Moana Birthday Party: Free Printable Invitations

Get Moana activities and coloring sheets here:

Want more birthday cake ideas?

How To Make The Best Castle Cake Ever (for the non-Martha Stewart mom)

How To Make The Ultimate Rapunzel Cake (and it’s easier than you’d think)

Fun In The Sun Beach Cake

How To Make A Shopkins Cake