St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Trap Cake

Leprechaun Trap Cake

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Roaming Leprechauns are fairly common around St. Patrick’s Day. You can’t have a Leprechaun wandering around your house, or classroom, so what do you do? Well, you’ve got to create a Leprechaun trap of course! Doesn’t everyone have these sitting in their homes on St. Patrick’s Day? When my kids were in 1st grade, one of their projects was to make a trap to leave on their desk on St. Patrick’s Day, to catch the Leprechaun. This was a home project, so I had to break out my creativity and come up with something clever. I searched and searched online and didn’t want to make the same trap that everyone else would have.

Thanks to Pinterest, last year, I found a Leprechaun Cake Trap, inspired by Not Martha. My twins each had one to take to class, and I was right – nobody else had a trap quite like theirs! Making two of these cakes was a bit of an undertaking, but I got it done! I think it turned out pretty darn cute considering I am NOT a cake decorator.
First you have to know that if you are ever in need of gold wrapped chocolate coins, WINCO is the place (if you have a WINCO)! I went to Bel Air and Walmart first, to no avail. Luckily WINCO is open 24 hours because I went late last night. These guys owe me right? I have been told that Rite Aid may carry the coins as well, just FYI.

I have been having rain and clouds, so there hasn’t been much good lighting for my pictures. Sorry!

First you make your cake mix per the package instructions. Then separate your cake batter, to dye. Reserve less and less cake batter for each color of your rainbow. For example, have the most plain, then red, orange, yellow, and so on. After coloring each of my reservations, I placed the batter into their own small zip lock bag, and snipped the very corner with a pair of scissors. This created my own piping bag.

Spread your white cake batter (or un-dyed) in the bottom of a greased angel food cake pan. Then slowly squeeze each color (one at a time) over the center of the cake baker that is already in the pan. Repeat with each color, through purple. I don’t yet know how well this turned out because the kids’ classes haven’t cut into the cake yet. Crossing my fingers! This isn’t difficult – just tedious, with lots of dishes.

Bake your cake per the instructions, and remove from pan. Cut a little of the cake off the top, so it will lay flat when you turn it upside down.

Frost your cake using the Magnolia Bakery buttercream frosting recipe. It is seriously one of the best buttercream frosting recipes! If you are only doing one cake, just half the recipe (it makes a lot). Dye your frosting green and do a crumb layer.

Stick your cake in the freezer for a few minutes. This is a must if you want your piping, with a tip, to come out half decent. I learned this the hard way. I’m sure there are tips that make better grass than others, but I just used what I had. I have never piped frosting before, so I think I did pretty well considering. Doing this for 2 cakes was a bit much for me though.

Stick a few pretzels across the center of your cake, creating your trap! This will be covered up with gold coins, which serve the purpose of luring the Leprechaun in! The sign is just in case the Leprechaun isn’t very smart, and to say, “Hey dummy, your gold is over here!”

I’m not super happy with how my pretzel ladder turned out, but it works. Use two large pretzel rods as the sides, and use the smaller pretzels to be your steps. I used gel frosting to attach the smaller pretzels – it’s not the prettiest. The boys were tickled with how they turned out, so I guess my job is done. 😉