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Updated on April 30, 2020 by · This post may contain affiliate links ·

Realistic Dog Cake Toppers

Skill level: Intermediate

Learn to make super realistic dog toppers in this new tutorial from Sugar Geek Show. Liz Marek breaks down every step of creating a Golden Doodle, French Mastiff and Boerboel puppy toppers, along with tips and tricks on the different types of materials you would use to make them, and the pros/cons of each type.

1:45:25 Minutes of Instruction

What You Will Learn

  • How to make 3 different dog breed toppers (Golden Doodle, French Mastiff, Boerboel puppy)
  • Liz Marek's furring technique that she has used on many furry creatures
  • Learn to sculpt and detail dog faces and several helpful tips and tricks to make your dog pop

Tutorial Chapters

  1. Golden Doodle Dog Topper
  2. Tips about tools and materials 1:04
  3. Planning armature 3:29
  4. Bulking up dog topper 14:29
  5. Covering rice cereal 22:04
  6. Detailing face and applying fur 31:35
  7. Painting dog topper 46:13
  8. French Mastiff Dog Topper
  9. Planning armature 50:42
  10. Bulking up dog topper 53:43
  11. Covering foil bulk 59:16
  12. Detailing face and other features 1:03:09
  13. Painting the dog 1:21:30
  14. Boerboel Puppy Dog Topper
  15. Planning armature 1:26:59
  16. Bulking up topper 1:30:59
  17. Roughing the face shape 1:32:30
  18. Refining the rough forms 1:37:48
  19. Detailing the face and other features 1:39:32
  20. Painting the dog 1:42:41

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About Liz Marek

Liz Marek is a professional cake artist and recipe developer who has been teaching baking and cake decorating since 2008. She founded Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon in 2009 and now runs Sugar Geek Show, where she publishes kitchen-tested recipes, food science explanations, and step-by-step tutorials.

Liz is best known for sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes. She won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 in 2025 with a hyperrealistic Santa cake, and has competed on and won Food Network cake competitions. Cake Masters Magazine named her one of the top 10 cake artists in 2017. She is the author of Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating and a graduate of the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Her focus is on explaining not just how a recipe works but why it works, so bakers can troubleshoot instead of guess. Every recipe on this site is tested before it's published.

Liz teaches full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes, at Sugar Geek University.