How To Make A Letter Cake: E is for Easter

A traditional Victoria sponge with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream as a letter cake in the shape of an E. For this special Easter letter cake I've used plenty of Easter toppings that include a white chocolate Easter egg, Cadbury Creme Eggs, Mini Eggs, Galaxy Mini Eggs and more!

For my daughter's 18th last year I jumped on the letter cake trend - or in this case the number cake trend and made her a cake in the shape of an 18. I loved the process and final result so much I decided to make a special Easter showstopper cake in the shape of a letter 'E'.

Hence my latest recipe: E is for Easter Letter Cake

It is much easier than you think to make a letter cake, if you enjoy baking and make birthday cakes and other celebration cakes then I highly recommend the Wilton Countless Celebrations Cake Tin. (Affiliate link)

You can use it to make any letter from the alphabet or any number. I am so pleased with how sharp my letter E cake turned out and how easy it is to assemble the tin into different letters.

I know I'll use it time and again which is great because I think there is something really special about letter cakes and they look seriously impressive once they've been decorated to your heart's content.

You can make any flavour you like and top the letter cake with whatever you fancy but as Easter is just around the corner I thought it would be good to demonstrate just how versatile letter cakes can be by making an Easter version to show you.

For this recipe, you will need: Wilton Celebration Tin, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, spray oil, strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream icing (butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract) and Easter-themed decorations.

What cake recipe should I use to make a letter cake?

For my letter cake I've used a traditional Victoria sponge, there are a couple of reasons for this. I have made Victoria sponge hundreds of times and I know it is hard to get wrong! It is also a dense cake mixture that holds its form really well. It isn't too soft and doesn't crumble which makes it easy to cut in half and layer. It will also hold the weight of plenty of decorations on top.

I have also made a letter cake in the shape of an O and for this, I used a chocolate shortbread biscuit (or if you're in the US cookie) dough. It's very easy to use a biscuit base and cut out your desired shape using a stencil however, you won't get the height that a cake baked in a tin will give you.

I have also seen cream tarts made into letter cakes and also heart shapes which look lovely but they are quite a bit flatter than my cake version.

Does a buttercream cake need to be refrigerated?

Buttercream icing does NOT need to be refrigerated. It’s stable due to the amount of icing sugar used and will keep for 2-3 days. You really don’t need to worry about cramming a huge buttercream iced cake into your fridge! Just cover it will some clingfilm and leave it somewhere cool.

How much do letter cakes cost?

In the UK you will be looking at between £85.00 - £170.00 to buy a letter cake! I can promise you they are not difficult to bake or decorate and once you have your tin the cake will cost the same amount as a basic homemade cake plus any decorations. The total cost for ingredients to make my letter cake was around £20.00.

If you have any further questions about letter cakes or want to ask a question about the Wilton Celebrations Cake Tin Set then feel free to ask in the comments below and I will do my best to help you.

How to make a Letter Cake

I made a short video of the steps for this recipe. You can see it in the recipe card below – hope it helps.

• Time needed: 1 hour 30 minutes (includes baking and cooling time)
• Cake serves approximately 15 people.

Making a letter cake couldn’t be easier, just follow these simple steps.

1. Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5.
2. Assemble Wilton Countless Celebrations tin (instructions are provided) into your desired letter and spray the tin with vegetable oil.
3. Cream together 400g butter and 400g caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add 4 eggs and 8 tablespoons of milk until you have a smooth batter.
4. Into the bowl sieve 400g self-raising flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Fold the mixture together using a wooden spoon.
5. At this point, you can do the 'drop test'. If the mixture falls easily from the wooden spoon and drops into the bowl the mixture is fine. If it sticks to the spoon - add more milk, a tablespoon at a time until you are at 'dropping' stage.
6. Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for half an hour or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
7. Once baked remove from the oven and leave the cake to cool inside the tin.
8. Once cool, turn the cake out onto a board and cut it through the middle using a serrated knife so that you have two cake layers. You can freeze them at this point or wrap them in greaseproof paper until it's time to decorate.
9. Spread strawberry jam onto the first cake layer and top with buttercream icing (instructions to make buttercream in recipe card below.)
10. Sandwich the second layer on top of the first layer and repeat the jam and buttercream step.
11. To finish, top with fruit and Easter decorations.

Making a letter cake - step by step images to help you

That's really all there is to it! Making a letter cake is not so different to a regular cake.

You can top your letter cake with whatever you like, here are a few ideas to get you started.

What other decorations can I use to top a letter cake?

• Macarons, small cookies and biscuits, Lindt chocolates.
• Use edible flowers to embellish what decorations you're using or to top the entire cake.
• Retro sweets, candy, marshmallows and chocolates.
• Fresh fruit.
• Meringue kisses, heart-shaped cookies and colourful cake sprinkles.

Other Easter-themed recipes I think you'll love

• Double Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Buns 
• Easter Cake Showstopper
• Cadbury's Creme Egg Shortbread
• Mini Meringues With A Hidden Chocolate Surprise