Hi
@midwestmama I'm back.
I'm not sure of the overall look of your cake so I'm going to give you a few options for you depending on how you want to make the cake and what you want to do.
I don't know whether you are looking to use the dragon fruit, for flavouring or colouring, or both but here are a few things you will need to know.
Yes the dragon fruit powder will be much easier to incorporate into your cake batter or buttercream as it can just be added when you add the dry ingredients to your mixes. Adding it to buttercream/frosting will give it a very pink hue although I'm not sure you will get a rich flavour from the powder itself as dragon fruit has very little flavour, so hints of vanilla would be helpful if you were to make a buttercream frosting.
Here is a Dragon Fruit Frosting Recipe that I found for you:
Dragon Berry Frosting
This is very similar to my strawberry milkshake frosting (for reference) and will be easy to make and keep the colour:
Here is the recipe and guide for making strawberry milkshake buttercream. This recipe will allow you to fill a 7-inch round cake or around 6-8 cupcakes, depending on how much buttercream you use. If you are trying to cover and fill the cake with strawberry buttercream, you may wish to double...
www.helpmebake.com
I found this Dragon fruit cake recipe using the fruit itself:
As in the video above, you can see that if you make the cake, using actual dragon fruit, the pink colour dissipates when it's baked and the vibrant pink that was seen in the batter seems to disappear, so this is something to be mindful of. (This also seems to be a regular occurence with other bakers, along with slight pink colouring of the cake or even an ombre effect). I don't want you thinking you will end up with a vibrant cake and then be dissapointed that all the colour has disappeared when it baked.
If you are making a jam I would use actual Dragon Fruit, Sugar and Lemon Juice. You can substitute lime juice instead of lemon if you prefer. Here is a recipe for Dragon Fruit Jam that I found also for you:
Homemade Dragon Fruit Jam
I'm unsure if you want to make the unicorn, or whether the full cake will be a unicorn shape, but here is an edible topper you could have a go at if you wanted to.
Unicorns are lovely little mystical creatures that seem to be adored by everyone, so what better way of bringing your favourite creatures to life than making an edible one! Whether it be for kids or adults alike, I'm sure the recipient of this lovely whimsical creature will thoroughly enjoy it...
www.helpmebake.com
As you haven't mentioned when you daughter's birthday is or how exerienced you are as a baker I'm hoping that the above is helpful to you. I'm someone who likes to try things out first so you may want to play about with the powder, say make a batch of cupcakes or your regular cake recipe and add the powder in there and see how the cake turns out. It may hold the colour better if you use the powder. However, if you are unhappy with the results you could use the powder for embellishments on/in the cake say for the frosting or jam to enhance a regular cake still giving you daughter the tastes and colours that she's looking forward to.
I would have tried the pitaya powder with one of my recipes but I don't have an oven at the moment otherwise I could have least worked out how it faired for you.
Anyway, I will leave you with all of the above, and if you need anything further then please let me know.
Best wishes
Angie
Angie is a fount of information, so hopefully she will have something for you once she has a chance
