I’m going to show you three techniques to make character cakes with buttercream, without fondant, to make detailed and delicious cakes!
For all of these techniques you’ll need the frosting on your cake to set so it’s firm. This way it won't get damaged when you add the characters. After layering your cake and filling and giving it a crumb coat, frost your cake and put it into the fridge for at least an hour.
Find a picture of your character or characters. I like to use Google Images for this. The bigger the images, the easier it is to recreate the details on the cake so print the image as large as possible. I enlarged mine to almost fill a piece of A4 or Letter sized paper. This way, they will cover almost the entire surface of my 8 inch cake.
Next I'll show you the three techniques I like to use for character cakes. We’ll do "pipe and spread" for Gecko, a homemade stencil technique for Catboy, and a buttercream transfer for Owlette.
Cut your printed character out of the paper by following the outline exactly. Then trace around the edge with a toothpick to make an outline on the cake. Cut out the individual features of the character like the face and eyes and position them within the outline on the cake. Trace around those with your toothpick too. These outlines will guide you when you fill in the colours.
Cutting these parts out and tracing around them is the most accurate way to add details to your character. If you prefer you can simply refer to your image and draw the features on with your toothpick.
Now mix your colours of buttercream. This is my 4 Minute Buttercream, which I use for character cakes and almost every other cake I make! Put your colours in piping bags fitted with small round piping tips. I'm using a #3 by Wilton. I’ll show you how to do this without piping tips in a moment.
Choose one of the large areas of the design to start with. Outline it and then fill it in by zig zagging with your buttercream.
Spread this with a tapered
You don’t have to outline every single detail on the character before you pipe it. For example, I piped the black circles into the eyes just by looking at the image to see where and how big to make them.
It’s also not necessary to draw lines like the nose and mouth before piping. They’re simple details that are easy to freestyle by looking at your image.
If you don’t have small round piping tips you can use a piping bag with a tiny piece cut off the end. Then pipe through the very small hole you cut. Your lines won’t be as neat as if you use a round piping tip but you can using a toothpick to make them neater. Straight after piping, the buttercream is soft so you can nudge a line sideways or smooth out an edge.
I recommend leaving the white details until last, and I’ll show you why after this. For the face, outline the details that will eventually go onto it - the eyes and eyebrows, and then fill in the rest of it with zigzags.
Smooth the frosting with your spatula or palette knife. The narrower the tip, the easier this is for detailed characters, especially if they’re small.
It's best to do this technique on a cold cake because the buttercream you pipe and spread will chill quickly and become smoother than when it’s at room temperature. If you’re struggling to get a smooth surface you can heat your spatula or palette knife by dipping it in hot water and drying it off. The hot metal will work well to smooth the buttercream.
You can do all of your details straight after each other if your cake is cold because the buttercream of each detail will chill on the surface of the cold cake. When butterceam gets cold it gets firm so it won’t blend into the next colour you add. If your cake isn’t already cold you’ll need to put it in the fridge or freezer for 5-10 minutes between each detail you add.
Always chill the cake before adding any white details because white picks up other colours so easily. If the other colours haven’t chilled and set they’ll make visible smudges within the white details.
I used a #8 piping tip for the white parts of the eyes and you can see it’s way too big! A #3 or #4 tip is ideal for little details like this. I only suggest using a larger round piping tip for very large areas of colour. But here’s another example of where a toothpick comes in handy to tidy up piped buttercream!
So, that’s the first technique. It’s the fastest BUT I’d also say the trickiest to do and the messiest result of the three techniques I’m going to show you.
Tint your buttercream colours and put them into piping bags fitted with small round piping tips. If you don't have enough, cut a small piece off the end of each bag to pipe through. Just like with the previous technique, a #3 or #4 will give you the neatest results.
You’ll need a small flat surface like a cake board or a cutting board. Place your image on this with a piece of parchment paper on top so you can see the image underneath. Tape it in place and then pipe the smaller details onto it first.
Piping one detail straight after the other is fine for any details that don’t touch each other. Then put the board with the image into the freezer for 5 minutes before adding the next details on top.
To fill in an area, spread the piping with a spatula or palette knife to push the buttercream down to the parchment paper. This side is not going to be visible because it's going to be pressed against the cake. The side facing down against the parchment is the side you'll see.
Don’t worry about making this upward facing side smooth or neat. I know these eyes look demonic but from the other side, the side we’ll see when its on the cake, it won’t look so creepy!
Before adding any details that touch these colours you’ve just piped, put the board back into the freezer for 5 minutes. This will chill and set the buttercream so it doesn't smudge. Then add the next details, leaving the background colour until last.
Chill the final details for 5 minutes in the freezer. Then outline and fill the rest of the design. It's fine to spread over all of the details for two reasons. First, it’s quicker than trying to pipe and spread around them. Second, the chilled buttercream has set so it’s not sticky anymore and you want to make the entire design sticky so that it attach to the cake. Scrape across to flatten and level the buttercream design.
Straight after piping and spreading your character design, while the buttercream is still sticky, peel off the tape attaching the parchment to the board. Pick up the parchment and flip it over onto your cake. Press it down very gently to attach it to the cake. If you push too hard you’ll make the buttercream warp and bulge and you’ll change the shape of the details.
Now put the whole cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 10 minutes and then peel the parchment off to reveal your character!
You’ll have lots of little indents where the buttercream didn’t push all the way down to the parchment. Fill those in now by piping more buttercream of that colour over the gaps. Spread it to push it down into the indents. Then scrape off any excess so that it doesn’t cover up any of the other details. Since the rest of the design is cold and hard, spreading this fresh buttercream over it won’t blend with or stain those other colours.
And that’s the second technique: a buttercream transfer. It’s an easy way to trace a very detailed character design but it’s not as neat as the next technique I’ll show you.
For Catboy I’ll use my favourite technique: layered homemade stencils. All you need for this is parchment paper or wax paper. Cut several pieces of parchment the same size as your character, one piece for every colour of details. I’m cutting 5 pieces for 5 colours. Place one over the image and trace the outline of one colour. I'm starting with the blue mask.
Then on the next piece of parchment trace the next colour. I'm doing the mouth and nose under the mask. Draw the outline only, none of the details within it. Continue with one piece of parchment for each colour. It’s fine to have several details on one piece of parchment as long as they’re all the same colour. I'm doing the dark blue inner parts of the ear on one piece and then the light blue (eyes, eyebrows, mask details) on another piece and the whites of the eyes on another piece.
Cut out all of the details, leaving the parchment paper around them intact. These will be your stencils. Small scissors are ideal for cutting out the very small details like the markings on the mask. When you layer the stencils on top of the image, you should have all of the details of the character.
Now layer these stencils on the cake to re-create the entire character. Start with the background colour and position your first stencil on the cake. Spread coloured buttercream over it and scrape off the excess to flatten and smooth it. Leave a thin layer of buttercream and then peel off the parchment stencil.
Put the cake in the freezer for 5 minutes or the fridge for 15 minutes to set this colour. Then take the cake out and line up your next stencil on top of the chilled buttercream. Spread the next colour over it.
Since you’re layering details one over the other, start with the background colours and then add the smaller details on top, getting smaller as you go.
The cake needs to be chilled before doing this so that your stencils don’t damage the frosting on the cake. Since the cake is cold, the buttercream details will chill and set in just 5 minutes in the freezer, so this is quite a quick technique.
A toothpick is useful to smooth any uneven edges, where the buttercream pulls up slightly as you peel the stencil off.
Even though this is relatively detailed design, I only need 5 stencils to create all of the features. I’m piping the black eyeballs since I happen to have black buttercream in a piping bag with a small round piping tip. A stencil would work just as well if not better because piping creates an eye that sticks out quite a bit, whereas stenciling it would make it lie flat against the cake.
You can pipe the smile and nose or draw them with a toothpick. In hindsight I think drawing them with a toothpick would have looked better because the lines would be more subtle.
This last technique of layered parchment stencils is my favourite. I think it creates the flattest, smoothest, most accurate details and looks the neatest.
And those are the three techniques for character cakes! I hope this tutorial has been useful! Subscribe to my YouTube channel below for a new cake decorating video every week and visit my cake school for online courses on baking and cake decorating!
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With these 10 tips for buttercream colouring you’ll make bright white buttercream, bold buttercream colours, stunning effects like ombre with one drop of color, and rainbow colors using just one bowl! I'm using my 4 Minute Buttercream for all of the examples in this tutorial.
To mix rainbow colours in just one bowl you’ll need food colours but NOT in the traditional rainbow order.
Spoon some plain white buttercream into a bowl and add yellow gel. Mix it in and take out however much yellow buttercream you need. You can put it into a piping bag or use it for whatever frosting or cake decorating technique you like. Then mix orange in the same bowl, incorporating any of the leftover yellow. Take out what you need and then mix pink in the same bowl. Continue with purple, then blue, and finally green.
The reason for this order is that each colour will blend nicely with the next colour. This wouldn't work if you used one bowl without cleaning it and mixed the colours in a different order. For example, mixing yellow after purple would turn the yellow into brown.
For bright and bold colours, use buttercream colouring gels instead of liquids. Look at the difference between these two identical bowls of buttercream. The bowl on the left was coloured with a squirt of blue liquid colour. The bowl on the right has the same amount of blue gel colour.
Liquid colouring doesn’t make a strong colour even if you use a lot. Adding too much will water the buttercream down to make the consistency too runny to pipe with. Gel colouring makes bold colours and doesn't affect the consistency of the buttercream.
My favourite hack is using a cupcake tray to mix colours of buttercream. This is really useful if you need a small amount of lots of different colours because instead of washing several bowls at the end, you only wash this one pan.
To make a colour palette where all of the colours go well together, start by tinting several bowls of buttercream the same colour. I love using a cupcake pan for this, too! Now add a different colour to each of these. I'm starting with pink and adding purple, orange or red.
By starting with the same base colour, the colours will have that in common and will look great together on your cake.
Another way to use this idea is to mix together multiple colours you’re using on your cake. You'll make another colour that will work with your colour scheme.
To make black or red or any other dark colour of buttercream, use gel colours. They're more concentrated than liquids so you'll need less of them. You'll need to use quite a lot but stop when you've made a shade lighter than you need. Then cover the bowl and leave it for an hour. You can chill it in the freezer for even better results and then let it thaw to room temperature. The gel will develop and darken and you’ll end up with frosting several shades darker than you had originally!
To make ombre frosting with just one squirt of color, make your darkest shade first. Then spoon a little bit of that into another bowl of plain white buttercream to make a lighter shade. Spoon a little bit of that into another bowl of plain white buttercream to make an even lighter shade. You’ll need the most buttercream for whichever colour is going to go on the top of the cake.
Now you have three shades of the same colour to spread onto your cake. Smooth the frosting and then zig zag to mix it up a bit to make the gradient more gradual. I teach this in a lot more detail in my free online course on 10 Frosting Techniques. Smooth again and tadaa! Super easy but stunning ombre frosting!
Now a hack for that elusive white buttercream. Butter is yellow so buttercream will naturally have a yellow tinge. Violet will cancel that out but only a tiny amount, much less than a full drop. Use a toothpick to poke into the bottle of buttercream colouring and smear that into the buttercream. Remember that you can always add more if you need it!
Mix it in well to make bright white buttercream. Look at the difference between before and after adding violet to this batch of buttercream:
If you don’t use all of your buttercream, don't throw away the leftovers! This works for buttercream scraped off while making striped frosting or facelift frosting, for example. You can cover leftover buttercream with plastic wrap and leave it at room temperature for 2 days. To freeze it, spoon it into a ziplock bag and it will last 2 months without changing flavour! Take it out the night before you use it to thaw.
To re-use leftover buttercream, stir it until it’s nice and smooth. Then add another colour if you like before using it on another cake!
If you’re piping a design with multiple piping tips, couplers are a huge time saver. As you finish with each tip, unscrew the coupler ring and take the piping tip off from the outside of the bag. Then put another piping tip on and screw it on and you’re ready to pipe! This way you don’t have to prepare lots of piping bags with lots of piping tips.
Couplers come in different sizes so make sure you choose the right ones for the sizes of your piping tips!
If you don’t have couplers, skip them with this hack! Use buttercream colouring to make the shades you need and spoon them into piping bags. Don't use any piping tips in these piping bags. Then take an empty piping bag and drop a piping tip into it. Now lower your first coloured piping bag into the one with the tip. When you squeeze the piping bag, you’ll push the coloured buttercream straight through the piping tip.
When you finish with this colour, pull it out and lower the next coloured piping bag in. Squeeze out that last little bit of the previous colour into a bowl, until you see this next colour come through on its own.
After piping with each colour, take that bag out of the outer piping bag and put the next bag in. Always squeeze the leftover colour into a bowl before piping with the next colour. By using an outer piping bag for the piping tip you can quickly switch between as many colours as you like without couplers.
I hope you’ve seen some hacks that will make your buttercream colours really POP! Click below to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a new tutorial every week and visit my cake school to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs with my online courses and membership options!
You can also watch a video on this tutorial for buttercream colouring hacks:
From fixing broken cake layers and preventing leaning cakes, to achieving impossibly smooth frosting, you’ll WISH you knew these 10 cake hacks sooner!
Prevent cakes from cracking or crumbling by turning them out of their pans this way! After taking a cake out of the oven, place a cooling rack on top of the cake pan. Then grip both the rack and the pan and flip them both over together. Lift the cake pan up and voila! Intact cake layers every time!
For evenly baked cakes with level tops (no domes) and no burnt edges, the secret is cake strips! I resisted buying these for a long time but they really aren’t a gimmick. You could soak oil towels or cloths in water instead to make your own DIY version of them.
Look at the difference between the same cake batter baked in cake pans with and without baking strips!
Cakes sometimes break or crumble or crack or fall apart as you’re turning them out of their pans. Theis may be because you didn't grease the pan before pouring your batter in. Most commonly, it happens when you turn the cakes out immediately after taking them out of the oven. Instead, wait 5 minutes for the cake to cool and firm up slightly.
If your cake does break, don’t throw it away! Wait for it to cool and wrap it in plastic wrap. Put it in the freezer and when it freezes, the pieces of cake will stick together. Now use them as normal, layering them with buttercream as your filling. When this buttercream sets it will hold the crumbled cakes together like glue! You can even spread it on to attach a piece that’s fallen off completely.
Chill the cake again to set the buttercream and then frost it with buttercream. Then this buttercream sets it will also hold the cake together. Decorate the cake and when you serve it, no one will know how ugly those cake layers were to begin with!
Air bubbles in your frosting? Or dents or gaps or uneven parts? Here’s a hack for those! Heat a metal cake comb by dipping it into hot water or using a blowtorch along the edge. Then scrape around your cake. The hot metal will melt the very outer layer of frosting, pulling that melted frosting around the cake. It will fill in imperfections in the frosting to create a super smooth surface.
Bulges in the sides of your frosting? You won’t have any if you use this method of assembling your cake. For runny fillings like caramel or lemon curd, pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of the cake before spooning in your filling. This ring of buttercream is called a dam. It will hold the filling in so it doesn’t ooze out, which is what causes a bulge in between cake layers, underneath the frosting.
After assembling your cake, scrape around the sides to flatten the buttercream sticking out from between the layers. Then frost and decorate and your sides will be straight without bulges!
Basic cake hacks like these ensure a strong, stable foundation so every frosting and decorating technique will look its best. To perfect your caking skills, take my Basics of Cake online course.
If your cake looks like it’s leaning sideways, your layers aren’t placed directly on top of each other. Even if you’ve already started frosting your cake, it’s not too late to fix this! Spread some more frosting to fill in the lean on each side of the cake. This means the bottom of one side of the cake and the top of the other.
Then when you scrape around the cake, press your comb down on the cake board to line it up straight. You’ll smooth this frosting you’ve spread on to create straight sides on the cake. Add your final layer of frosting and you’ve got rid of the leaning or tilting effect!
For super tall cakes that won’t collapse or topple over you'll need an internal support structure. This isn't as complicated as it sounds! Alternate cake layers and filling but stop after your first three or four cake layers. Then push a boba straw or wooden dowel down to the bottom of the cake. Pinch it where it sticks out above the cake and cut it there so it’s the same height as the cake so far. Measure another three straws to be the same height. Then push them all into the cake, spacing them about 2 inches apart from each other.
Spread some frosting on top to act as glue and then push another cake board on top. The cake board should be as wide as the cake so that it doesn't stick out beyond the sides. Warning: a six inch board might be bigger than a cake baked in six inch pans! This happens because some cake recipes shrink after baking as they're cooling. In this case you can use a board an inch smaller or trim the cake board.
Use some buttercream to attach your next cake layer to the bottom part of the cake. Continue assembling your cake with the next three or four layers.
The final step is to take a long wooden dowel and push it down through the middle of the cake. It will poke straight through that cardboard cake board in the middle. When it hits the cake board at the very bottom, mark the dowel with a pencil where it sticks out of the cake.
Pull the dowel back out and cut it on the pencil line with wire cutters or a sharp knife. Then push it back down into the cake. I haven’t finished frosting and decorating this cake yet but when I do, I know it will be stable enough to display and transport without problems!
There are two parts to this hack for perfectly neat cake slices. First, let your frosting set before cutting the cake. You can set the frosting quickly by putting the cake in the fridge or freezer for 30 minutes. Next, dip your knife in a glass of warm water and dry it before cutting. Now your knife will slice cleanly through the frosting and cake. The set frosting will be firm enough that you can balance the slice as you place it on a cake.
To transfer your cake from its cake board onto a cake stand the hack is to chill the cake first. The frosting will get cold and firm to the touch. Then slide an
Lift the cake up and lower it down onto a cake stand. You can adjust and center it on the stand because the frosting is firm enough to push against without damaging it.
Need a hack for condensation on cakes? Condensation is caused by two things. The first cause is moisture in the fridge or freezer so your cake needs to be sealed before refrigerating or freezing. You can wrap it in two layers of plastic or store it inside a cake caddy or any other airtight container.
The second cause, which is more common, is a big change in temperature. Avoid moving a cake from the freezer straight to room temperature or from the fridge to a hot room. If you need to refrigerate your cake, when you take it out move it to a cool room. In summer this usually means using air conditioning or a fan. If you do get condensation droplets on your cake, dab them with a paper towel to absorb the liquid.
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Cake dummies or fake cakes are a great way to save money and avoid waste while creating extra tiers on cakes or practicing new techniques!
You can use cake dummies to practice techniques without wasting any actual cake. Businesses often use them for display cakes that don’t need to be eaten. They're also a popular option to add an extra tier to a wedding cake for height. I love my Perfect Chocolate Cake and all of my other cake recipes but a cake dummy is ideal when you don't need any servings from a cake. Once the cake is frosted and decorated, you'd never know it was styrofoam on the inside!
Cake dummies come in different widths and also different heights. I like to buy a variety of sizes so that I can stack them into a tier cake. If you buy short dummies but want to decorate a tall cake you can stack two of them together. Spread buttercream or royal icing on top of the first dummy and press the next one on top. When the buttercream or royal icing sets it will attach the dummies together like glue.
Cake dummies are styrofoam and they’re easily damaged so be gentle with them and store them carefully.
Being lightweight makes frosting cake dummies tricky so here are tips for that! Start with a bit of buttercream on the middle of your cake board. Press your cake dummy firmly down onto it, centering it on the board. Then put the cake on the board in the freezer for 10 minutes or the fridge for 30 minutes. This will chill and set that buttercream. I use my 4 Minute Buttercream to frost and decorate almost all of my cakes.
Now you can frost the cake dummy. The dot will hold the cake in place on the board while you spread and scrape the frosting. However, since cake dummies are so light you'll push the cake on its board all over the
One of the advantages of cake dummies is that you can skip the crumb coat! There are no crumbs to get into your frosting so just a single layer of frosting is enough, which is a nice time saver.
To make tier cakes you can stack cake dummies or combine them with real cake tiers. Since they are more sturdy than real cakes, you don’t need a support structure within them. You don’t need a cake board underneath them on the top tiers either.
To use a cake dummy for a tier cake, slice underneath the cake dummy to separate it from its cake board. Then spread a bit of buttercream on the cake that will be below it. After placing the cake dummy on top, the buttercream will set and secure it in place. Then you can move or transport the cake safely.
Just like with real cakes, I recommend chilling a cake dummy after frosting it, before stacking a tier cake. When the frosting is cold you can touch it to balance or adjust the tiers with damaging it.
A huge benefit of cake dummies is that they’re reusable! When you’ve finished with a decorated dummy, rinse it under hot water to take off the frosting. Leave it to dry and then frost and decorate it again!
Cake dummies are a time saving and cost saving way to improve your cake decorating skills. You can practice techniques like smooth frosting, sharp edges, stenciling, piping, and more!
Visit my cake school to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs with my online courses and membership options!
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If you're celebrating a half birthday this trendy cartoon birthday cake is the most fun cake you can make!
You'll need two layers of cake if you want to make a four layer cake. This is my Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe. Cut each cake layer down the middle to make two semi-circle cakes, making four in total.
Attach the first cake layer to a cake board with a bit of buttercream on the cake board. When you push the first layer of cake down onto it you'll attach it, like glue. Spread or pipe your filling onto that layer. I'm using my 4 Minute Buttercream to fill and frost this cake.
Place the next layer on top and continue alternating cake and filling to assemble your half cake. I recommend chilling this before frosting it for two reasons. Firstly, because room temperature cake layers are very crumbly but cold cakes are firmer. Secondly, because room temperature cakes are very soft so it will wobble if you try to frost it now. Put it into the freezer for 15 minutes or the fridge for half an hour to firm up.
Then cover it in a thin layer of frosting. This is a crumb coat, which traps any crumbs that come off the cake. The crumbs get stuck in this layer of frosting so they won't get into your final layer later. Spread the frosting all over the top and the sides of the cake and then smooth it. This doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to trap the crumbs so you shouldn't see any exposed cake. Now put this back into the freezer for 15 minutes or in the fridge for half an hour to set the crumb coat. Meanwhile, prepare coloured buttercream to frost and decorate the cake.
I'm going to pipe very colourful layers onto the cut side of the cake. The quickest way to do this is to put the frosting into piping bags. Instead of using piping tips you can just cut the ends off the piping bags to pipe through. As you're piping on the colourful frosting you'll be able to see the layers of cake underneath the crumb coat. If you follow those then when you cut into the cake, the colourful layers that you've created on the outside will match the actual cake layers on the inside!
Smooth the piping with a cake comb, scraping from side to side to take off the excess. Then tidy up the edges with your
Put the cake back into the freezer for a few minutes while you prepare the frosting for the rest of the cake. I recommend using gel colours because they're much more concentrated than liquid colours. With just a few drops you'll get really bold colours and that means you won't affect the buttercream consistency.
I like to frost the top of the cake first. Spoon some frosting on and spread it around so that it sticks out over the edges of the cake. This will help you get really nice sharp edges later.
After a few minutes in the freezer, the colourful striped frosting on the cake will have chilled and set. As you spread more frosting onto the cake, you won't damaged that chilled frosting.
Where the yellow frosting meets the colourful stripes, don't worry about the edges being perfectly straight. This is a cartoon style cake so it's for lines to be wavy instead of straight. Also, you're going to add an outline later which will cover up any small imperfections along the edges.
Something a little bit tricky about half cakes is that you'll have to use your cake comb in the opposite direction to the way that you're used to using it. Scrape from one side of the curve to the other and then back the other way.
When you finish smoothing you should have a lip of frosting sticking up. Now with your
Next, pipe some swirls onto the top of the cake. I'm using a piping bag with the end cut off without a piping tip. If you have a 1A piping tip, which is a large round piping tip, you'll get even neater results. I don't recommend using a star-shaped piping tip because the outline will be even trickier to do than with a round hole.
Use a small round piping tip to pipe the filling between the colourful cake layers. This is a #8 with some plain white buttercream in the piping bag. You'll notice that the coloured layers blend slightly where meet, which happens when you smooth the frosting you piped on. Pipe the filling between the different colours to cover that blending so that there's a clear divide between each colour.
You could stop now and leave the cake like this and I think it looks gorgeous! The pastel colour are pretty but to create the iconic cartoon style cake you'll need to add an outline.
Before doing the outline I really recommend chilling your cake to set this frosting. Put it back in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes while you tint your black frosting.
A lot of people struggle with black buttercream but here are two tips. Firstly, use a lot of black gel! If your buttercream is grey instead of black, you need more gel. Secondly, after adding gel, let the the buttercream sit for about an hour. Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap to keep it soft. The gel will develop and the colour will darken all by itself.
Put the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a small round piping tip like a #3 or a #4. Now it's time to pipe the outlines. For me this is probably the trickiest thing I've ever done with cake decorating because I have incredibly shaky hands. Luckily, this cartoon style doesn't require perfectly straight lines so it's okay for your lines to wobble. Even better, it'sf ine for them to break apart because the little gaps in between the lines are actually part of the style.
Work your way up or down or around the cake, piping every line which represents an edge or an outline. That means going above and below each layer of filling, around the edges of the sides of the cake and also the edges at the top.
The trickiest part is outlining the piped swirls. If I did this again I would do it a little bit differently. I would pipe these swirls onto a piece of parchment paper on top of a tray or a cutting board or a cake board. After piping the swirls, I would put that board into the freezer to set them. Then I would outline them on that tray because once they're on the cake it's quite difficult to angle your hand all the way around each swirl to follow the outline of the piping because other swirls are going to get into the way of your piping hand. Finally, I would lift the frozen swirls and place them on the cake.
Follow any edges or outlines you can see including the little peak at the top of each of the swirls. Before doing any touch-ups, put the cake back into the freezer for a few minutes to set the black frosting. It's very easy to scrape off any piping you don't like when it's set. use a sharp knife and you'll lift the black frosting off without smudging it.
Now take a hundred photos of your cake! It's fun to try to angle it so that it really looks like a cartoon and that will make people stop and look twice to figure out if it's actually a real cake or not.
And of course cutting into a cartoon cake is like an optical illusion. This cartoon style is so much fun!
I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial. Visit my cake school to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs and subscribe to my YouTube channel for a new cake decorating tutorial every Tuesday.
You can also watch a video of this tutorial on how to make a cartoon birthday cake for a half birthday:
In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to use a cake comb for 8 different cake decorating techniques. Of course, you can use a cake comb to smooth frosting but also for so much more!
Before piping onto a cake, it’s a good idea to mark where you’re going to pipe. This will keep your piping straight and level and also the same width or height. Cake combs are great for this because they're thin and sharp so they'll easily score the frosting.
Then just pipe along these lines for the neatest results! I decorated this cake with my new Facelift Frosting technique. I’ll show you how to do this later in this tutorial!
When you’ve smoothed the frosting on the sides of a cake, you’ll have frosting sticking up around the top edge. Use your cake comb to smooth that, pushing sideways to swipe it off. Clean your comb after each scrape for the sharpest edges. As you can see, I use lots of different cake combs: plastic, metal and acrylic. Check out this tutorial on which cake scraped is best. Spoiler alert: they’re all great for different stages and different techniques!
For an even sharper edge, cut the frosting! Put the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill and set the frosting first. Then dip a metal cake comb in hot water to heat it. Dry it off on a towel or paper towel and then use the edge to slice through the frosting. Work your way around the cake, dipping the comb back into the hot water if it cools down. You’ll create a neat, razor sharp edge around the top of your cake!
The hot metal cake comb method works for the frosting on the sides of the cake, too! Use hot water or even a blowtorch to heat the comb. Then use it to get rid of any air bubbles or indents or unwanted texture in the frosting. Scrape the frosting and the hot metal will melt the other layer of frosting, dragging it to fill in any gaps in the frosting and leaving it super smooth.
If you have a metal cake comb you can use it for the facelift frosting technique. Pipe details onto the cake and then set them in the freezer for 20 minutes. Next, frost over them to cover them up completely.
Chill the cake for another 20 minutes and meanwhile, heat a metal cake comb. Scrape around the cake again and again, taking off layer after layer of frosting. You'll reveal a cross-section of the piping, creating a colourful design or pattern that’s completely flat on the cake. It will look as if it’s been printed or painted onto the cake but it’s just frosting!
After frosting and decorating a cake on a cake board you can transfer it onto a cake stand. This makes for prettier photos or a classier way to display the cake on a dessert table. A cake comb is a great tool for this because it’s thin so it's easy to slide between the cake and the cake board. Also, it’s wide so it’s easy to balance the cake on it as you move it. The cake needs to be refrigerated for at least an hour before doing this to chill the frosting. When it's cold, it gets very firm so you can touch it without damaging it.
Frosting, chocolate and cake crumbs can be a pain to clean off your work surface. If you wipe them off straight away they’ll smear and smudge and make a mess. Instead, wait an hour or so for them to dry out and set. Then you can clean them with hardly any effort using a cake comb! Scrape across the table or counter and your comb will dislodge any ingredients, leaving a clean surface behind.
After spreading frosting onto your cake, you probably use a cake comb to smooth that frosting. That's what it's intended for but it's also a useful tool to scrape off frosting smudges from your cake board. It will leave the board smooth and clean and pretty. A comb is especially useful if the frosting has already set after chilling the cake. With a solid tool like this you don’t need much pressure at all to loosen and remove the hard frosting.
Visit my cake school to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs and join my ClubPLUS membership for access to every MasterCourse, MiniCourse, Live Workshop and 5 Minute Fridays.
You can also watch a video of this tutorial on how to use a cake comb 8 different ways:
I’m going to show you how to cut a tier cake in three different ways. By using different techniques you can vary the size and type of portions.
The first way, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, is to cut wedge shaped slices. Slice from the middle of the cake to the outer edge and then pull out your knife. Then rotate to cut from the middle to a little bit further around the outer edge.
Slide your knife or a cake lifter underneath the cake and wiggle it to loosen the slice from the cake. Pull it out, using a finger to balance it if you need to, and lower it onto a plate.
This wedged shaped cake slice is the quickest way to cut a cake. Each slice is a generous portion of layers of cake and filling surrounded on two sides by frosting.
As you can see, it's possible to serve the top cake while it's still on top of the tier cake. Your knife won't push the cake down into the lower tiers because of the internal support structure inside the tier cake. If this is new to you, learn all about it in my tutorial on How to Make a Tiered Cake. If you prefer, you can take this cake off the tier cake before cutting it. You'll need an
Lift up the cake on its board and lower it onto the table or counter, where you can then slice it. To balance the cake as you move it, you can touch the frosting if it has set. This is one of the reasons that the ideal time to cut a cake is after the frosting has set. You'll find that the frosting is firm and less messy than immediately after frosting a cake. The cake shouldn't be cold so if it has been refrigerated, wait at least 2 hours after taking it out of the fridge.
This wedge-shaped slice is a quick and easy way to cut a tier cake. It's great if you have plenty of cake for the number of people you're serving.
If you need to get more portions out of a cake, you'll need smaller portions. This is typical for wedding cakes and events where there are several desserts being served. Next, I'll show you how to cut a tier cake in two other ways that are better suited for that.
For this method you use a cutting board to cut a cake into strips and then divide those strips into smaller portions.
To remove the tier of the cake you're going to serve, slide an
Cut across the cake an inch or two in. When your knife gets to the bottom, angle it to push the slice over onto the cutting board. Then cut this into pieces. I usually cut the first slice into 3 pieces and the rest of the slices into 4 pieces. The portions of this end slice are perfect for frosting lovers!
Cut the next slice another inch or two over, tipping it over onto the cutting board. To make four portions, cut the slice down the middle and each piece in half again. If the cake is really tall you can cut the piece in half the other way too, making twice as many portions. This is useful for a wedding or any occasion where you have lots of other food and desserts so you don’t need very big servings of cake.
Assuming your tier cake has a support structure inside, you’ll need to remove that before cutting your slices. I have a tutorial on how to make a tiered cake that has a lot more information on that. Tweezers are useful to grip onto support straws and pull them out.
For large cakes that are wider then a cutting board, another way to serve them is the ring method. Cut a ring a few inches within the outer edge to make an inner circle. Use sawing motions with your knife to cut all the way down to the bottom of the cake around the whole circle.
Then slice this ring of cake into portions. You can cut wide pieces if you want large portions or make the cuts closer together for narrower pieces. By cutting the circle within the cake, instead of having really long wedges you’ll be able to cut another round of slices out of the inner part of the cake, so you’ll get a lot more portions this way.
So, there are three very different ways to cut a tier cake.
Which one would you choose? Tell me in the comments!
If you prefer, you can watch a video of this tutorial on how to cut a tier cake:
In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to mix rainbow colours using just one bowl, how to create a completely flat rainbow heart design on top of the cake and how to make perfectly neat rainbow striped frosting.
Start by assembling your cake. Alternate cake layers and filling using any recipe you like. I'm using my Perfect Chocolate Cake and these are huge 10 inch cake layers. I'm filling and frosting the cake with my 4 Minute Buttercream. Cover the cake in a crumb coat, which is a thin layer of frosting to give the cake a neat shape and trap any crumbs. I like to pipe it on because it pulls off fewer crumbs but you can spread it straight on instead if you like.
The important thing here is to cover up the entire cake. This crumb coat doesn't have to be super smooth but you don't want there to be any exposed cake. Put the cake into the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 15 minutes to set this crumb coat.
Now let's tint the colours for the rainbow design. You'll need a different piping bag for every colour that you use. The easiest and quickest way to do this is using just one bowl. Put some plain white buttercream into your bowl and add yellow first. I know we're not going in rainbow order but you'll see why in a second.
Mix your yellow buttercream and spoon it into a piping bag with no piping tip. I like to fold over the top of the piping bag as I'm spooning the buttercream in so it's doesn't get all over my hands when I'm piping later. Now mix orange in the same bowl, stirring to incorporate all of the leftover yellow frosting. This is much quicker than washing and drying the bowl first. Scoop up the orange buttercream and put that into another piping bag with no piping tip.
Now mix pink in the same bowl again, incorporating any leftover orange buttercream. Next do purple and then blue and finally green. The reason for doing it in this order is that each of the previous colours blends really nicely with the next colour so it won't dirty or muddy your colours. I'm making pastel colours but this works the same way for bright rainbow colours.
Make the rainbow heart design on the top of the cake before doing the stripes. You'll need an open star piping tip for this, for example a #32. To avoid using couplers or multiple piping tips, drop this tip into another piping bag. Then one by one you'll use the colours that you prepared inside this piping bag.
Take your cake out of the fridge or freezer when the crumb coat has set. The frosting should be very firm and that means you won't damage it during this process. Use a toothpick to draw a heart onto the top of the cake. Divide it into sections to match the number of colours you're using. I've made six rainbow colours so I'm dividing my heart into six equal sections. The sections will guide you as you pipe.
Starting at the top of the heart, pipe rosettes to fill in that first section. Try to space them evenly apart. Pipe right up to the edges of the section outline so that the shape is really clear.
When you finish with the first colour, pull it out of the piping bag. Put the next piping bag in and squeeze a little bit of buttercream out into a bowl. This gets rid of the very last bit of the previous colours. When you see the next colour coming out, it's ready to use!
Now pipe onto the next section of the cake. Take the orange out, put the yellow in and squeeze a little bit of buttercream out until you see the yellow coming through. Repeat this process to complete the heart.
Of course, if you have lots of different piping tips you want to use that's fine. You could use couplers in the original piping bags but this is an easy way to do this using minimal tools.
Next, put the cake in the freezer for 15 minutes. The reason for this is to set the heart design you've just piped. You need the rosettes to hold their shape for the next step. Take the cake out of the freezer and pipe buttercream to cover the top of the cake. Piping it is ideal so that you don't damage those piped colourful details.
Spread the frosting very gently and then put this cake back into the freezer for 20 minutes. I know there's a lot of back and forth at this point but the result really is worth it!
When you take the cake out of the freezer, all of that frosting will have set. Now you need to take off the top layer of frosting to reveal the design underneath. Pour some boiling water into a cake pan that is as big as your metal cake comb. Dip your cake comb in to heat it and then dry it off. Scrape over the top of the cake to take off the top layers. I call this Facelift Frosting because you're giving the frosting a facelift!
You'll need to scrape several times to take off all of the excess buttercream but this frosting won't be wasted. You can save it for your stripes or freeze it in a ziplock bag for another project later. For now, scrape the excess off your cake comb into a bowl.
Keep dipping your metal cake comb into the hot water to keep it hot, which will make it the easiest to take off these layers of buttercream from the top of the cake. Once your entire design has been revealed, scrape around the sides of the cake to flatten any frosting sticking out. Use your
Now it's time to make the rainbow stripes. You'll need a striped cake comb and these come in lots of different shapes and sizes. When you choose one, keep in mind that the smaller the grooves are, the trickier the comb is to use.
Push your cake comb into the side of the cake to indent the stripe grooves as a guideline. Do this periodically so that you have lots of guidelines all around the cake.
Choose the order that you want to pipe your colours. Pipe only the colours that go into the areas where you don't see any markings on the cake. I'm skipping pink at the very bottom because there is a marked groove there. Instead, I'm starting with the next colour, which is orange. Use the guidelines to pipe a straight band all the way around the cake.
Let's go back to the beginning when you cut your piping bags for these rainbow colours of buttercream. It's a good idea to refer to your striped cake comb to see how wide the grooves are and then cut the piping bags so that they match that size. That way you only have to go once around the cake to fill in the entire width of the stripe.
Skip the next colour, which is yellow for me, and then pipe the next colour, which is green. Continue to pipe only where there are gaps in the grooves marked on the cake. Don't worry if your buttercream sticks up above the top edge of the cake because that will make a nice sharp edge later.
Now take your striped cake comb and scrape around the cake. Push the base down on the cake board so it's lined up straight. Use your left hand to spin the
After one or two scrapes, check that each colour fills in the entire stripe groove from the cake comb. If there are any edges that aren't straight, those indents need to be filled. Use the piping bag of that colour to pipe over it. Scrape again after your touch-ups to smooth the piping. Don't worry about these stripes being perfectly neat on the surface because you're going to scrape a little bit off them later. However, you do want the top and bottom edge of each stripe to be perfectly straight. If there are gaps, other colours will fill them and you'll have random dots of different colours within the stripes.
When you're happy with these stripes, put the cake in the freezer for 15 minutes. Set a timer because if you leave it in longer, it will be difficult to do the next step.
When you take the cake out of the freezer, pipe on the missing stripes. Then scrape off the excess, which will look really messy at first. Be patient and trust the process because this is going to be beautiful in the end! With the first few scrapes you'll smudge all of this excess frosting all over the cake. You'll cover up the first stripes that you made but that's the reason for chilling this cake before piping in the second round of colours. Now those first colours you piped are cold and firm and they won't lose their shape. Even as you scrape off the excess of the second round of colours, you won't damage the stripes underneath.
Keep scraping, taking off all of that excess. Your stripes are going to get more and more defined with each scrape. If the frosting starts to chill against the cold cake you might notice air bubbles in the frosting near the end. A quick hack is to heat your metal cake comb, which makes it glide very smoothly over the frosting, melting the very outer layer of frosting. This will fill in any air pockets and leave perfectly smooth frosting.
I don't recommend tidying up the top edge yet because you will spread that colour over on top of your heart design. Instead, put the cake back into the freezer for 15 minutes to set the frosting.Then use a sharp knife to cut off that frosting that's sticking up around the top edge. You'll leave a perfectly even edge underneath. You'll get the best result if your knife is hot so dip it into hot water in between cuts. You can use a glass or the pan from earlier, with new hot water course because the old water will have cooled down.
Now you have perfectly neat rainbow stripes around the sides of the cake and a sharp top edge. The rainbow heart design looks like it's been painted or printed onto the cake because it's totally flat, which is really unusual for designs done with buttercream.
I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial! Visit my cake school to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs and join my ClubPLUS Membership for access to every MasterCourse, MiniCourse, 5 Minute Fridays and Live Workshops.
You can also watch a video of this tutorial on how to make a rainbow striped cake:
In this tutorial I'll show you how to frost mini cakes with the right tools and techniques for super smooth frosting.
Before diving into the technique, let’s talk about the tools you’ll need. You don't need anything special for mini cakes compared to larger cakes.
A
You’ll need an offset spatula and a cake comb with a straight edge, also called a frosting smoother. It can be made of plastic, metal or acrylic. I like to use a 9 inch
You'll assemble your cake on a cake board. It can be cardboard with a greaseproof lining or foam core or acrylic. It should be at least 2 inches wider than your cake.
A piping bag is really helpful but not essential. You don’t need any piping tips for frosting mini cakes with a piping bag. Cut a little piece off the end and fill the bag with frosting and you'll pipe through that hole.
Of course, you'll also need cake layers and frosting! I'm using my Small Chocolate Cake Recipe, baked in 4 inch pans. I'll fill and frost it with my 4 Minute Buttercream, which is delicious and also easy to make, use, and store. For mini cakes I add a bit more milk than normal so that the frosting is a bit less stiff. You’ll see how this makes the process much easier.
To explain how to frost mini cakes it's important to start at the very beginning because the first step is crucial.
Pipe or spread some frosting onto the middle of cake board and then press your first cake layer down onto it. Adjust it to center it so that the cake is in the middle of the board. That frosting underneath will set and act like glue to hold the cake in place. This is how to prevent mini cakes from moving around while you frost them.
Now add your filling on top of this first cake layer. Piping is quicker and will pull off fewer crumbs from the cake. After piping it, I like to spread it to cover the whole cake and also level it. If you don't want to dirty a piping bag, spreading it straight onto the cake is fine too.
As you place your next cake layer on top, it’s important to spin the
Alternate filling and cake layers to assemble your mini cake. Then spread around the sides to push the filling flat against the cake if it’s sticking out.
The other most important step is to chill mini cakes before frosting them. Room temperature cake layers are crumbly and soft but when they’re cold, they’re firm and much less crumbly. That means that as you spread the frosting onto the cake, you won’t pull off as many crumbs.
Put the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill, or the fridge for an hour. Meanwhile, check the consistency of your frosting. It should be smooth without air bubbles and it should be easy to stir. It should be just stiff enough to hold peaks when you pull your spatula out of the bowl. If you scoop some up and tap your spatula on the side of the bowl, the frosting should fall back down into the bowl instead of clinging to your spatula.
Now for the most troublesome part of the process: how to frost mini cakes. If you've followed the steps so far you will have set yourself up for success. Now it's time for the crumb coat. When your cake is cold, pipe or spoon some frosting onto the top. Spread it around to cover the top so that it sticks out over the edges.
This is the first layer of frosting, called a crumb coat. It doesn’t have to be perfect because it’s going to be covered up but it does need to trap any crumbs that come off the cake so it needs to cover the entire cake.
I like to pipe the frosting onto the sides because this way you’ll pull off the fewest crumbs. Spread the frosting using side to side motions with your
When the cake is completely covered with frosting, switch to a cake comb. Push the base down on the cake board to line it up straight and then scrape around the cake. You'll smooth the frosting and take off the excess.
For mini cakes it’s really important that you don’t let much frosting build up on your cake comb. That weight can push the cake sideways and dislodge it from the frosting on the cake board that’s acting as glue to secure the cake.
When you notice frosting building up on the cake comb, swipe away from the cake. Scrape that excess frosting into a bowl.
Then spread that frosting back onto the cake to fill in any indents, gaps, or air bubbles. Scrape again to smooth this frosting against the cake.
Tidy up the top edge by pushing sideways with your
Chill the cake again for 15 minutes in the freezer or 30 minutes in the fridge to set this crumb coat. If you haven't already, tint the frosting for your final coat.
Now that the crumb coat has set, it's time for the final coat of frosting. Repeat the process of crumb coating the cake except this final coat needs to be much neater. Take your time to smooth the top by spinning the
Once the top is smooth, move down to the sides. Spread the frosting to cover the whole cake, all the way down to the cake board. My frosting around the top of the cake is never as thick as lower down so I go back up and spread more there. Spread the frosting upwards as well as sideways to create a lip around the top edge of the cake. This will prevent drooping edges or a domed top.
Now scrape around the cake with your cake comb. Push the base of the comb down on the cake board to line it up straight and scrape around several times. Then touch up any indents or gaps by spreading more frosting over those. Scrape again and repeat as necessary.
I start by scraping the frosting with a plastic cake comb, which I find the quickest to use. For the final stages I switch to a metal or acrylic comb because those give me the smoothest frosting.
When the sides are smooth, push sideways with your
I like to chill my cakes before decorating them so that the frosting gets firm and doesn’t get damaged. There are endless ways to decorate mini cakes and you’ll find hundreds of designs and techniques on my cake school. I have a membership option called ClubPLUS which gives you access to every MasterCourse and MiniCourse on the school as well as Live Workshops and 5 Minute Fridays, where I teach tips and techniques and demonstrate FAQs in just five minutes. I hope to see you there!
You can also watch a video of this tutorial on how to frost mini cakes:
Stacking a cake can be nerve-wracking but in this tutorial I'll show you how to make a tiered cake, sharing tips and tricks so that you can assemble, frost, and stack a two or three tiered cake confidently!
The first step is of course to bake your cakes. I’m using my Perfect Chocolate Cake batter for a standard height 8 inch cake and a tall 4 inch cake. For my middle tier, I'm using my Small Chocolate Cake recipe for a short 6 inch cake. My Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe has a table with the ingredient conversions for different sizes and heights of cakes.
After baking, leave your cakes in the pans for 10 minutes to cool slightly. Then turn them out onto wire racks and leave them to cool completely which takes about 2 hours. After they cool, I really recommend chilling them and you’ll see why in a moment. You can put them into the freezer for 30 minutes or the fridge for an hour. If you prefer, wrap them with plastic wrap and leave them in the fridge overnight.
You'll need a cake drum to support the weight of a tiered cake. A cake drum is a type of cake board that's thicker and stronger than cardboard. It should be at least 4 inches wider than your bottom tier so that there's space for frosting and decorations. I'll show you how to assemble the bottom tier straight on the cake drum. If there isn't space in your fridge for it, you can use a smaller cake board and transfer it later.
Even if you've never made one before, you're probably already familiar with several of the steps for how to make a tiered cake.
Start by assembling your largest cake, which will be the first or bottom tier. Spread buttercream onto the middle of the cake drum and push the first layer of cake down onto it. The dot of buttercream will stop the cake from sliding around as you frost and decorate it.
Spread or pipe your filling onto this first layer of cake. Then alternate between cake and filling. As you place each cake layer on the cake, take your time to line it up above the layer below. Make sure the sides of the cake are straight and it’s not leaning. My layers are very firm because they’re cold so I can lift them and move them around without them cracking or crumbling.
Cover the cake in a thin layer of frosting. This is called a crumb coat because it’s meant to catch any crumbs that come off the cake. I like to start with the top, spooning on a generous amount of buttercream. Spreading it all over the top of the cake. Push it out beyond the edges of the cake to prevent a domed top later. Hold your
Move down to the sides of the cake, spreading from side to side to cover the whole cake with frosting. Make sure that the frosting sticks up above the top edge of the cake, which will prevent drooping edges.
Frosting a cake is definitely easier to do when your cake layers are cold compared to room temperature cake layers. Cold layers are firm so the cake won’t wobble when you apply pressure to it as you frost it. Also, cold layers are less crumbly so you won’t pull off pieces of cake as you spread your sticky frosting. I'm using my 4 Minute Buttercream.
Scrape around the cake a few times with a straight edged cake comb or frosting smoother. The crumb coat doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth because it's going to be covered up but make sure it gives the cake a neat outline. Focus on getting straight sides and a level top and, very importantly, make sure there’s no exposed cake. You need this layer of frosting to cover the whole cake so that it traps every crumb that might come off the cake.
Use your
Put this cake on its cake drum or cake board in the fridge while you assemble the other tiers.
For the next tier of the cake, choose a cake board that’s the same size as the cake. If you don't have one, choose one as close to that size as possible. If it's more than 1/2 an inch bigger you'll need to trim the board with scissors. This is a 6 inch cake on a 6 inch board:
Attach the first layer to the board with a dot of buttercream and add your filling. Repeat to assemble the cake. Cover this cake in a crumb coat, which is typically the same colour as your final layer of frosting. Alternatively, you might choose to use something different if you want to incorporate another flavour. I'm doing that here, using chocolate buttercream for the crumb cot and then I'll use vanilla for the final coat. Put this cake in the fridge to chill and repeat the process with the rest of your cakes.
Once you know the steps of how to make a tiered cake you can create as many tiers as you like. Mine will be three tiers with this little 4 inch cake at the top. For every tier except the bottom, the cake needs to be on a board the same size as the cake. I didn't have one small enough for this cake so I trimmed a cardboard cake board. The board needs to be the same size as the cake so that it will be invisible after frosting, stacking and decorating the tiered cake.
To frost a cake on a board the same size as the cake, use a larger board as well. Put a non-slip mat or masking tape on the larger cake board, placing the cake (on its small board) on top. This way, the frosting won’t get all over your
I mentioned earlier that you don’t have to assemble your bottom tier on a cake drum. If you prefer, assemble it on a board the same size as the cake, like I’m doing for this cake. Later you can attach that board to the cake board with a ring or masking tape.
To set the crumb coat, leave the cake in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Chilling the crumb coat makes it firm so it doesn't mix with this final layer of frosting. This means the colours will stay separate instead of blending. Also, any crumbs within the crumb coat frosting won’t get into this final layer of frosting. This ensure that there are no crumbs visible on the final decorated cake.
Frost your cakes but I don’t recommend adding any decorations yet, like piped borders or texture or wafer paper. When you stack the tiers, these decorations might get damaged. It’s best to add them right at the end, when the cake is tiered. I’m using my facelift frosting technique on all of these cakes.
Note that your cakes don’t all have to be the same height! The pink cake is about 5 inches tall but the white cake is only about 3 inches tall. Sometimes it’s nice to vary the heights of each cake. You’ll see at the end that this design is so dramatic and colourful that the different heights really adds to the effect. For a more traditional design you might choose to use the same height for each cake. The conversation table for my Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe has measurements for both standard and tall cakes. Whatever width your cakes are, the heights will be the same, either standard or tall.
It’s fine if you can see the cake board at the bottom of the cake, like you can on these. I’ll show you how to cover that up during the stacking process. When you finish each cake, put it back into the fridge to chill and set the frosting.
I’m using lots of colours of buttercream for my cake but you might be using just one. However many colours you’re using, it’s important to save any leftovers for the stacking process. Cover any bowls of leftover buttercream with plastic wrap so the buttercream doesn't dry out. If you’re using piping bags you can leave the leftovers in those. Put the whole bag into a Tupperware or twist the end to keep it tight and wrap the piping tip with plastic wrap. This will prevent the exposed buttercream from drying out and crusting.
Take your time to make the top edge of each cake neat because they'll be very noticeable when the cake is stacked. Sharp angles from the sides onto the top makes the cake look much neater than a rounded top edge. My tutorial on 15 frosting mistakes you’re making and how to fix them will help improve your frosting technique!
Put all of your cakes in the fridge for at least two hours before stacking them.
At this point, your bottom tier should be on a cake drum at least 4 inches wider than the cake. All of the other tiers should be on cake boards the same size as those cakes. It’s fine if the boards are visible for now!
A tiered cake needs an internal support structure to hold the upper tiers up. This sounds a bit intimidating but it's much simpler than it seems! All you need are some boba straws and a pair of scissors. Boba straws are thicker and wider and stronger than normal straws. They're much easier to measure and cut to size than wooden dowels.
Start with the bottom tier and before adding any supports, you need to know where to place those supports. Take the next tier out of the fridge, the one that will sit on top of it. Separate the cake on its little cake board from the large cake board by slicing in between the boards with an
Lift the cake up on its little cake board and place in on the bottom tier. Adjust it to center it and then trace around it with a toothpick or your
Take the top cake off and put it back into the fridge so that the frosting stays cold and firm.
Before seeing how to make a tiered cake by stacking the tiers, you need to add support to the cake. For this you’ll need your boba straws. They all need to go within the line you traced around the cake. For cakes 8 inches or larger, I start with one straw in the middle. Push it down until you feel it hit the cake board. Then pinch it level with the top of the cake. Pull it up and cut where you pinched it. Now it’s exactly the same height as the cake.
Use this piece of straw to measure the rest of the straws, cutting them to be the same height.
Poke your first straw back into the first hole. Then place the next one halfway between that first straw and the circle you drew around the top cake. Push it down until you feel it hit the cake board at the bottom. Then place the next straw 2 inches away, also halfway between the middle straw and that outer line. Continue with the rest of the straws.
This is an 8 inch cake and I can fit 4 straws if I place them all 2 inches apart from each other, plus the straw in the middle. To push the straws as far down as you can, use the handle of your
Remember the leftover buttercream you saved from frosting your cakes? Spread some of that onto the top of the cake within the circle you drew. This will act as glue to attach the next tier of cake. It will stop it from sliding around when you move the cake.
Take your next cake out of the fridge and place it, still on its cake board, onto the bottom tier. Press it down to attach it to the frosting you just spread. Don’t worry that the cake board is still visible because we’ll fix that soon.
If you're making a three tiered cake, this second tier of cake needs supports, too. The supports will allow it to hold up the third tier of cake. Place the third tier on top, center it and trace around it. Then put the top cake back in the fridge. Keeping it cold is important so that the frosting stays firm even when you touch it as you’re stacking it.
Follow the same steps to measure and cut and arrange your straws. My top tier is a 4 inch cake and for the straws to be 2 inches apart from each other I can only fit 4 straws into the 6 inch cake below it.
One of the frequently asked questions I get about tiered cakes is why I don’t use a central dowel. I don’t find them necessary for a 3 tiered cake. The buttercream you spread onto the top of each cake will attach the cake above it. It prevents it from sliding around. Keeping the cake cold until you transport it will make sure it’s stable even with the movements and vibrations of a car. More about that in a moment!
Spread a little bit of leftover frosting to cover the straws. Keep it within the circle you drew so that the next cake will hide this extra frosting. Then place the next cake on top. Center it and push down to secure it to the frosting you spread on.
The joins between each tier won't look very nice yet. You'll be able to see the cake boards under the top tiers. This is easy to fix! Put the cake on a
This is an open star tip and the next one is a round tip. I’m choosing to pipe borders because I want the extra decoration and because all of the cakes are different colours. If they’re the same colour you can pipe or spread buttercream around the bottom of each tier. Then use a cake comb to scrape off the excess to leave a thin layer flat against the cake. This will disguise the join or seam. I demonstrate this technique in my tutorial on how to make a semi-naked wedding cake.
For hundreds of cake decorating designs and techniques, visit my online cake school!
Now the cake has a stable support structure inside it and it looks stunning on the outside. It’s ready to store, transport or serve! I recommend refrigerating the cake until you transport it. Keep it in the fridge until 2-4 hours before serving it, depending on the temperature of the room where it will be on display.
Ask me any questions in the comments! You can watch a video of this tutorial on how to make a tiered cake as well:
