Here are 14 useful time saving cake hacks to make you more efficient and productive, whether you’re making one cake or several at the same time. It doesn’t need to take all day to decorate a cake!

#1 Chill your cake

Before you frost a cake, put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. You can do this with the layers before you assemble the cake or with the entire cake after assembling it. Cold cake layers are firmer than when they're at room temperature. This means you’ll find it much easier and quicker to frost the cake when it’s cold than when it’s at room temperature. With this small time saving cake hacks you'll spend less time assembling, crumb coating and frosting your cakes. You’ll notice that when you spread frosting onto cold cake layers, the cake doesn’t wobble from side to side or slide around on the cake board. Also, fewer crumbs will come off the cake into the frosting than when the cake layers are at room temperature. 

You can even put the cake in the fridge or freezer the day before, if you want to space out the cake making process. Wrap the layers in cling film or saran wrap before chilling so that they don’t dry out.

#2 Pipe your frosting

Instead of spreading filling and frosting onto a cake, try piping it on. Piping is much faster and will save you a few minutes for each cake you fill, crumb coat, and frost. You don’t even need any piping tips to do this! Just use the hole cut off the end of the piping bag to squeeze the frosting through straight onto the cake. I used my 4 Minute Buttercream for all of the cakes in this tutorial but piping works with any kind of frosting.

#3 Organize your tools

Organizing your tools will save you lots of time for every cake you decorate because you’ll know exactly where everything is. Try putting bottles of colour in a case with dividers that keep the bottles upright so that they don’t fall over and leak and then stain your hands. If you have lots of bottles, lining them up in rainbow order will make it even quicker to find the one you’re looking for.

Stand your cake combs upright in a divider intended for lids of pots and pans or Tupperwares. This way you can see what you have and quickly pick up the one you want. Stencils are easy to find when they’re in a folder with clear plastic wallets, so you can flick through them effortlessly before choosing one. Piping tips are also easier to see and choose when they’re separated instead of tossed into a large box, so you don’t have to dig around to find the right one. I have a full tutorial with more hacks for storage and organization of cake decorating supplies.

#4 Re-tint leftover frosting

When you’ve finished using frosting for a cake, add more colour to tint to for the next frosting or decorative detail. For the cake above I used light blue buttercream to frost the cake and then added more blue gel to the leftovers to make the darker blue filling between the stripes. By using leftover frosting you’ll save time because you’ll need to make less frosting and also wash fewer bowls and spatulas!

#5 Make buttercream in advance

Did you know that you can freeze buttercream? That means you can make double or triple batches in advance and store them for up to two months! I like to use a large ziploc bag, which lies flat in the freezer and hardly takes up any space. Take it out of the freezer a few hours before you’re ready to use it to let it thaw and then stir it until it's smooth.

#6 Prepare piping bags ahead of time

You can also prepare piping bags in advance if you’re using buttercream because buttercream can be stored at room temperature for two days. Twist the tops of the bags and cover the tips with cling film or Saran Wrap so that the buttercream doesn’t dry out and crust.

#7 Use couplers

If you’re not using couplers in your piping bags, you’re wasting a lot of time! Drop a coupler into a piping bag and put a piping tip over the outside of the bag. Screw it on using the coupler ring. Fill the piping bag with frosting as normal and now you can switch easily between different piping tips and different colours! Just unscrew the piping tip instead of having to empty out the whole piping bag to get to it. Here’s a hack for super speedy switching of piping tips between piping bags: don’t bother cleaning the piping tip! Squeeze the new piping bag to push the old colour through the tip and when the new colour comes through the bag, it’s ready! Couplers make things much quicker for rainbow cakes and any designs with lots of colours or textures or both! For 4 reasons to use couplers, check out my tutorial on how to use couplers.

#8 Multiple tips

For any piping tips you use often, like the 1M star tip above, buy several of them. Now you can move onto the next colour or stage of your design or the next cake without having to wash and dry the piping tip first.

These tips are really cheap to buy so it’s not a big investment to buy several but it will save you a significant amount of time.

#9 One bag piping

Have you heard of one bag piping? I made up the name so probably not but it’ll make sense in a moment. For ombre or watercolor frosting, where different colours or shades bend together, you can save time by putting all of those colour or shades into the same piping bag.

The layered look is pretty in the piping bag and also on a cake, creating effortless blended frosting that looks like it took much longer to achieve. Use the same technique for blending colours in swirls piped onto the top of a cake or for piping borders around the bottom of the cake. With this technique you'll add lots of detail in seconds.

#10 Prepare decorations

If you’re making more than one cake using the same technique or ingredients, make those ahead of time together. For example, measure and cut out all of your parchment paper stencils for upcoming cakes at the same time.

If you need to make meringues as cake toppers for several cakes, make them all together so that you only have to mix, pipe, and clean up once. Then freeze the meringues in an airtight container until you’re ready to decorate the next cake or cakes.

#11 Dirty tools

While you’re frosting and decorating, keep a container next to you where you can toss dirty tools when you’re finished with them. This keeps your workspace clear and makes cleaning up and washing up much quicker.

#12 Bulk baking and frosting

This is one of my favourite time saving cake hacks! Making cakes in bulk means you can mix and bake big batches of cake batter, which is more efficient than doing different batches on different days. Then wrap the layers in cling film or Saran Wrap and freeze them for up to two months.

If I’m decorating several cakes in a week, I like to divide my schedule so that I assemble and crumb coat cakes on one day. On a different day I frost and decorate cakes. This way, you’re using the same tools and materials for the same task and that makes everything much quicker. You'll also keep cleaning up to a minimum.

#13 Music for speed

Lastly, find something that works for you to make you more productive. I like to have fast music playing in the background to make me move faster!

#14 Challenge yourself with goals

I like to set a timer for each stage of my day as an incentive to finish the task within a deadline. This makes me work faster and I enjoy the challenge, too!

For hundreds more tips, cake designs and decorating techniques, check out my online cake school and join my ClubPLUS for access to every MiniCourse, MasterCourse and Live Workshop!

You can also watch a video of this tutorial on 14 time saving cake hacks.

With just one batter to make, this easy marble cake is exactly that - easy! Chocolate and vanilla cake are marbled together and sandwiched between layers of vanilla buttercream. Then it's all covered up with chocolate buttercream. Yum!

How to mix this easy marble cake batter

Start by gathering your ingredients. Everything should be at room temperature which means taking your butter, eggs, and buttermilk out of the fridge at least two hours before you use them.

Mix the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about three minutes, until it gets much lighter in colour. It should look creamy and fluffy. Scrape down to the bottom of the mixing bowl to scoop up any sugar that the mixer hasn’t caught. Otherwise, you'll have lumps of gritty sugar in your batter.

Next add the room temperature eggs one by one, mixing for 30 seconds after each egg. Being at room temperature and adding them one at a time will help them incorporate easily into your batter. This makes the cake light and fluffy. 

After the eggs comes the vanilla. Real vanilla instead of artificial vanilla will give you the richest flavour in your cake. Once that’s mixed in, you’ll need half of all of the dry ingredients. These are all-purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda. Pour this portion of the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix at the lowest speed until you can’t see flour in the batter anymore. Scrape around the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl to mix in any flour clinging there. Then mix for a few more seconds, still using the lowest speed. 

How to turn this batter into chocolate and vanilla

Now we’re going to divide the batter and there are three ways of doing this. You can weigh the batter, measure it with measuring cups, or guess/eyeball it! The most precise is to weigh the batter using a scale until you get exactly half of the total amount. Set this batter aside to make the chocolate batter later, after you finish preparing the vanilla batter in the mixer.

Add buttermilk and oil to the vanilla batter in the mixer, mixing until everything’s incorporated. You really don’t want to overmix the batter after you’ve added any flour. Overmixing makes the cake dense and tough. Add a quarter of the dry ingredients, also mixing that only until it’s all incorporated. Now the vanilla batter is ready! Pour it into another bowl and then transfer the other half of the batter back into the mixer. This will be the chocolate batter.

To make the batter chocolatey we need cocoa powder, mixed with water to make quite a thick liquid. Whisk it together or use a fork to stir until the cocoa powder dissolves completely. The liquid should be smooth with no lumps.

It’s easiest for the cocoa powder to dissolve if the water is hot. If you do use hot water, wait for the mixture to cool before you add it to the batter.

Mix on the lowest speed until the cocoa mixture is incorporated. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix on the lowest speed until those are incorporated. You’ll probably have to scrape down to the bottom of the bowl to gather up the flour stuck down there. Just like with the vanilla part of the batter, don't overmix after adding the flour. As soon as you don’t see any white specks of flour in the batter, turn the mixer off.

Marble the cake layers

Now that we have the vanilla and chocolate batter,  let’s get this party started! Divide the batter between three cake pans which you’ve greased with an oil spray or butter. Alternate between the vanilla and chocolate batter in each pan. I like to use an ice cream scoop for this part.

To marble the batter, drag a toothpick or the end of a spatula back and forth through the batter. Make sure you push down to the bottom of the pan so the marbling goes all the way through the cake layers. If you’re using a toothpick or anything else really thin you’ll need to go back and forth in several directions to get a good marble effect. This will look stunning when we cut into it! 

Bake the easy marble cake layers

Bake the cakes at 350F or 175C until the middle doesn't wobble when you shake the pans. To double check, stick a toothpick into the middle of each layer. f it comes out clean, the cakes are baked. If there are smears of raw batter on the toothpick, bake them for two more minutes before checking again.

When you take the pans out of the oven, let them rest in the pans for five minutes. This way they'll firm up slightly and won't crack when you turn them out of the pans. Turn the pans over to flip the cakes onto a wire rack to cool. If you leave them in the pans for too long the cakes will continue to bake and might stick to the pans as they cool. By turning them onto a wire rack they’ll cool more quickly because the rack allows air to go underneath them.

How to assemble this easy marble cake

After the cake layers cool you can level them if you like. This will make them completely flat and that will make for a prettier slice when you cut into the cake. To level the cake layers, slice around the top with a serrated knife like a bread knife.

As long as you don't overbake this cake, it is incredibly moist. It's not very sweet so you can use any filling and frosting without making it overly sweet. My favourite combination is vanilla buttercream for the filling between the cake layers and chocolate buttercream as the frosting. To make the buttercream, mix butter and powdered sugar together until smooth. Then add vanilla to flavour it and milk to thin it out slightly. Use about a quarter of it to fill the cake, saving about half a cup for decorations at the end.

To assemble the cake, spread or pipe a dot of buttercream onto a cake board. Press your first layer of cake into the dot. Spread or pipe vanilla buttercream onto the cake layer and then place another layer of cake on top. Repeat with another layer of filling and the third cake layer.

How to frost this easy marble cake

To make chocolate buttercream to frost the cake, melt chocolate chips in the microwave. Use 80% power for 30 seconds at a time so that the chocolate doesn't overheat and seize. Stir the melted chocolate until it's smooth and then let it cool before adding it to the remaining buttercream. Keep stirring until there are no streaks of melted chocolate in the buttercream.

To prevent crumbs in your frosting you can chill your cake layers in the freezer for 15 minutes before frosting them. This makes them firmer and less crumbly. I always recommend applying a crumb coat, which is a really thin layer of frosting to trap any the crumbs that come off the cake. By doing this before applying your final layer of frosting, no crumbs will get into the visible outer layer of frosting on the cake.

How to decorate the cake

As a finishing touch, show that there is both vanilla and chocolate inside this cake. Using the vanilla buttercream you set aside earlier,spread or pipe a thin layer around the bottom of the cake. Use the tip of your offset spatula to swipe the vanilla buttercream upwards in a diagonal all around the cake.

When you notice the frosting building up on your offset spatula, scrape it off into a bowl before you continue. You only need light pressure for this.I f you push so hard that you expose the chocolate frosting through the vanilla, just go over that area again and any buttercream on your spatula will cover it up.

Storing and serving this Easy Marble Cake

You can store this cake for two days in the fridge but it tastes best at room temperature. If you refrigerate it, I recommend taking it out of the fridge 2-4 hours before serving.

Now let’s cut into this beauty! Look at that beautiful marbling!

I hope you love this Easy Marble Cake as much as I do! If you make it, please leave a review and tell me what you think in the comments!

You'll find the recipe for this Easy Marble Cake below, with measurements for the ingredients in cups and also in grams. Switch between units of measurement by clicking the "US" (for cups) and "M" (for metric grams and ml) at the top of the recipe. You can adjust the recipe to make larger cakes by clicking the "1X" for a six inch cake or "2X" for an 8 inch cake.

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You can also watch a video tutorial of this Easy Marble Cake!

I’m going to share 6 ideas for patriotic red, white and blue cakes. I'll show you the techniques for each design and also give you tips on making your frosting bright blue and really red.

Textured red, white and blue cake

For this first cake, all you need is an offset spatula or a palette knife. Spread a thin layer of red or blue frosting around the bottom of a frosted cake. I'm using my 4 Minute Buttercream for all of these cakes but you can use any frosting you like.

Use the tip of your offset spatula or the back of a spoon to swipe the frosting upwards diagonally. You'll pull the frosting upwards around the cake to create this pretty, rustic texture.

Spread a thin layer of frosting around the top of the cake and pull the tip of your offset spatula downwards diagonally. This will match the texture around the bottom of the cake.

I love the uneven top edge of this frosting but if you want it to be straight, put the cake in the freezer for 15 minutes to set the frosting. Pour boiling water into a glass and dip a knife into it to heat the knife blade. Trim around the top edge of the cake, slicing off the uneven top edge of the frozen frosting and leaving a neat, straight edge behind.

Cake with a berry border

Berries are naturally red and blue and make pretty and delicious decorations. You can line them up around the bottom or top of a cake to add a colourful border.

If you’ve just frosted the cake and the frosting is still soft, the berries will stick to the frosting easily. If the frosting has set so it’s firm, you’ll need to spread or pipe a little bit of fresh frosting over the area where you want to put the berries. Then press the berries gently into that frosting to attach them. When that frosting sets, the berries will be held securely in place so you can move the cake or transport it worry-free.

Cake covered with berries

If you want to be more dramatic with your berry placement, arrange them in diagonal rows to completely cover the cake. The neatest way to do this is to choose an order, in this case raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, and press the berries one layer at a time into the frosting on the cake.

I’m not using strawberries because they're much bigger than the rest of my berries. If the berries are a similar size, like these raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, they’ll support each other as you layer them. Also, using similar sized berries will create the clearest diagonal lines on the cake. This design makes a red white and blue cake with so much fruit on it that it’s almost healthy!

Cake topped with berries

You can use berries to add red white and blue to any cake, like this chocolate cake, which is perfect is you want to make a cake look patriotic but still keep the focus on the flavour.

Vintage red, white and blue cake

For a vintage look, use piping to add lots of texture and colour to a cake. Use a round cookie cutter to push the bottom half into the frosting to imprint semi-circles around the cake as a guideline before you start. For my design I want the top of the semicircles to be about halfway up the cake.

This is a #102 petal tip which is tiny because this is such a tiny cake! You’ll find a mini cake course and hundreds of other cake designs and decorating techniques on the British Girl Bakes cake school and if you join my ClubPLUS you’ll get access to them all!

The trick for these ruffles is to hold the wide end of the petal tip pressed against the cake and point the narrow end downwards. By wiggling your wrist slightly as you pull the piping bag you'll creates ruffles in the piping.

Another way to use a petal tip is to make these wavy ribbons. You’ll need the wide end of the piping tip to be pointing towards the middle of the cake with the narrow end pointing out to the edge of the cake. As you squeeze the piping bag and pull it around the cake, move it quickly up and down to make the waves. This looks pretty at the top of the cake and also around the bottom.

Pipe another ruffle using white over the top of the first ruffle, layering them around the cake. Keep the top of the piping tip, the wide end, pressed against the frosted cake to attach the top of the ruffle to the cake, so that it doesn’t droop. You can pipe these ruffles and this wavy ribbon onto the cake straight after piping the blue buttercream, or if you want to do it in stages you can do it after the first colour sets.

Now to add red I’m using a small round #3 piping tip to pipe strands of frosting around the cake. If the line breaks you can use a toothpick to touch it up. My hands are really shaky so if I can pipe these lines, you definitely can! Keep an eye on the ruffles below so that your lines mimic that curve and line up above them.

Then pipe three tiny dots down from the join of each of the curved lines. If your buttercream isn’t coming out of the piping bag easily it can be for one of two reasons. The first is that your buttercream is too stiff so you need to add more milk to thin out the consistency. The second is that you need to twist the top of the piping bag to put more pressure on the buttercream so that when you squeeze the bag it comes out effortlessly.

I’ve placed some buttercream roses on top of this cake and you’ll find more ideas in my tutorial on homemade cake toppers.

Red, white and blue ombre frosting

This cake design is the quickest because instead of frosting and then decorating the cake, the frosting is the decoration. After crumb coating a cake, spread red white and blue frosting in layers around the cake to completely cover it.

Use a cake comb to smooth the frosting. You can use a textured cake comb if you want to add texture instead. The colder the cake is, the less the colours will blend together so the bolder the separation will be. This cake has been in the freezer for a few minutes so the edges of each colour are quite dramatic.

How to colour buttercream red and blue

Here are a few tips for colouring buttercream. For a really bright red, start with white or pink buttercream and add a generous squirt of red gel colour. You need more than you think! I recommend using gel colours because they're much more concentrated than liquid colours so will make your buttercream bolder.

All gel colours will develop and darken with time so you can make the buttercream a bit lighter than you want it to be. Then cover it with cling film or Saran Wrap or a lid and wait about an hour and you’ll have an even bolder colour.

You can also put it in the fridge overnight, covered or in a ziplock bag, to allow the colour to develop.

Which red white and blue cake design is YOUR favourite? Tell me in the comments! You can also watch a video of this tutorial on 6 red, white and blue cakes if you prefer:

Add flavour and moisture to your cupcakes with these 6 easy fillings! I'll show you how to fill cupcakes with two different methods and share lots of tips and tricks for filling, frosting and decorating cupcakes.

You can add filling to cupcakes using piping bags and also without them. I'll show you both methods and share my tips and tricks for both.

Method #1: How to fill cupcakes with piping tips

The quickest way to fill cupcakes is to use a piping tip. You don't have to buy a special piping tip to fill cupcakes - round tips or even a star shaped tip will work. When you choose the size of your piping tip, keep in mind the consistency of your filling. If it's runny, choose a tip with a small opening. If the filling is thick or stiff you can use a small or large piping tip.

Drop your tip into a piping bag. The neatest way to fill piping bag is to fold it over a glass and then spoon the filling inside. This first filling is dulce de leche, which is a thick caramel that comes in a can. If you’re intimidated by homemade caramel, this is a great alternative!

You can make it runnier by stirring in some cream if you want to, which I’ve done here. You only need about a tablespoon for each cupcake. Unfold the piping bag and the top edge will be perfectly clean instead of covered with smears of your filling ingredient.

Squeeze the filling down to the end and then push your piping tip into the middle of a cupcake, going in maybe a third of the length of the tip, and squeeze the bag to fill the cupcake. When the cupcake bulges and the filling oozes out of the top, stop squeezing and lift the piping bag up.

For another easy filling, mix dulces de leche or caramel with about half that amount of peanut butter. This peanut butter caramel is sweet and creamy and still a good consistency to pipe as filling into a cupcake.

Ideally, filling ingredients won’t be very runny because those will absorb into the cupcake and you won’t notice them when you bite into the cupcake. Nutella is ideal! It’s best to push your piping tip with your fingers into the cupcake, otherwise the tip can be pushed by the cupcake back up into the piping bag. I’ll show you an easier option in a second. The cupcake cracking is a good sign that it’s bursting with the filling ingredient, for maximum flavour! You’ll cover up the cracks with frosting so don’t worry about them being ugly.

For the cupcake in the photo below I'm using lemon curd as the filling. You can buy it in a jar pre-made or make your own. Homemade tends to be runnier so using a smaller tip will prevent it oozing out of the bag while you’re moving the piping bag towards the cupcake!

To make it easier to push the piping tip into a cupcake, use a coupler. These go on the inside of piping bags and then you attach the piping tip to the outside of the bag, screwing it on with the ring that comes with the coupler. This will hold the tip in place so it doesn’t push back up from the cupcake when you’re trying to fill the cupcake.

After using this filling just unscrew the ring on the coupler and take the piping tip off to wash and dry. Then you can use that some piping tip on another bag with a coupler, which makes it really quick to switch between different filling ingredients.

Method #2: How to fill cupcakes with a knife and spoon (the "cone method")

The second method for filling cupcakes is the knife and spoon method. It’s a bit more time consuming but it works best for really thick ingredients or really runny ingredients that are difficult to pipe. You don’t need a piping bag or piping tips for this method.

Start by choosing or preparing your cupcake filling. This is a package of vanilla pudding prepared according to the package directions. It makes cupcakes really moist and rich without making them overly sweet. Using a package of pudding means it only takes 5 minutes to set!

Hold a sharp knife at an angle to cut a cone shape out of the middle of the cupcake. Cut about halfway down the cupcake, not all the way down to the bottom of the cupcake. Save the piece of cupcake you cut out. Spoon your filling into the cupcake, letting the pudding or jam or any other ingredient fill the hole you've cut out. Then gently press the cupcake cone back over it. 

How to frost and decorate filled cupcakes

Now it’s time to frost and decorate these cupcakes! I’ll show you options with and without piping tips.

How to decorate filled cupcakes with a drizzle

This is a 1M tip, which is a star shaped tip. After piping a swirl of my 4 Minute Buttercream or any other frosting onto the cupcake, to show what the filling is you can decorate the cupcake with it.

This cupcake is filled with dulce de leche so I’m going to use more dulce de leche to decorate it. Spoon some into a ziplock bag and microwave it for 10 seconds to thin it out a bit. Then cut a tiny piece off the corner of the ziplock bag to squeeze the dulce de leche through and drizzle over the cupcake. Yum!

You can do this with any filling, like Nutella or melted chocolate. The trick is to make sure it’s runny enough to drizzle so you might need to add cream or heat it for a few seconds in the microwave. Also, don’t cut off too much from the corner of the bag or you’ll have pipe globs instead of a nice thin drizzle.

How to decorate filled cupcakes with two-tone piping

To incorporate the filling in the frosting you could stir the filling ingredient into your frosting or try two-tone frosting. It’s easiest to do this inside a glass so that the bag stays wide open while you’re filling it. Start by spooning the filling ingredient down one side of the piping bag and push it all the way down to the piping tip.

Then fill the other side of the piping bag with frosting. My favourite is my 4 minute buttercream! Lift the piping bag up and squeeze the filling and frosting down to the piping tip.

You should see both go all the way to the tip, meaning they’ll both pipe out through the tip together at the same time. Pipe a swirl onto your cupcake and you’ll see pretty two-tone frosting that tells everyone what flavour the cupcake filling is inside!

How to decorate cupcakes with filling ingredients

For another way to display your filling ingredient, pipe a swirl onto a cupcake with any piping tip but don’t finish the swirl. Leave a little gap at the top of the frosting and fill that with more of your filling ingredient. You can spoon the filling onto the top of the swirl, like this strawberry jam, or pipe it on, like the lemon curd below.

How to frost cupcakes without piping tips

If you don’t have piping tips you can just use a piping bag with the end cut off. Hold the bag still as you squeeze it so that the frosting bulges out to cover the cupcake. Scoop out a bit from the middle with a spoon or an offset spatula and fill the hole with more of your filling!

Easy cupcake filling ideas

Now for the best part - biting into the cupcakes to discover what’s inside! Here are my favourite cupcake filling ideas that are easy as well as delicious:

Lemon curd is deliciously tart, which balances out the sweetness of the frosting. You can use store-bought or homemade lemon curd but ideally it will be thick enough so that it doesn’t absorb into the cupcake.

Strawberry jam or any other flavour of jam will provide a refreshing burst of flavour in the middle of the cupcake.

Peanut butter caramel is easy to make by mixing dulce de leche with half the amount of peanut butter. It pairs perfectly with chocolate and isn’t too sweet.

Nutella is decadently chocolatey with a hint of hazelnut. It's a nice consistency to pipe or spoon into a cupcake as filling and also to drizzle over the frosting to decorate the cupcake.

Dulce de leche is a thick, creamy caramel that comes in a can so it's insanely easy to use. It looks beautiful in two-tone frosting and tastes incredible, too!

Vanilla pudding keeps the cupcake nice and moist without adding a lot of sweetness. If you're short on time, use a package to make it in just five minutes!

How to store filled cupcakes

Cupcakes will stay fresh for two days if they're stored in an airtight container at room temperature. If your filling needs to be refrigerated, for example lemon curd, you can put the cupcake in an airtight container in the fridge for two days. Cupcakes taste best at room temperature so take them out of the fridge a few hours before you serve them.

What's your favourite cupcake filling? Tell me in the comments!

You can watch a video of this tutorial on how to fill cupcakes with 6 easy fillings if you prefer:

I’m going to show you 12 tools that you already have in your kitchen that you can use to decorate cakes. Use these instead of buying fancy cake decorating tools and you’ll save money and space!

#1 Cupcake pan

Cupcake pans aren’t just for baking cupcakes. Those little cups in the pan are perfect for tinting small amounts of frosting for cake designs, instead of using lots of little bowls with will take you forever to wash afterwards. Since you’ll only have a tiny amount of frosting in each cup, you’ll only need a tiny drop of gel to get really bright colours. I love repurposing tools to get the most out of them and this is such a convenient hack!

#2 Casserole dish

Casserole dishes or baking dishes can double up as cake pans. You’ll need to bake the cake for a few more minutes than normal since a glass or ceramic dish is thicker than a metal cake pan. This makes a cake that you decorate inside the dish so you don’t have to worry about covering up the sides.

Piping is a fun way to add lots of colour and texture or you can spread frosting to cover the top instead. Either way, these "tray bake" cakes are quick and easy to decorate. You’re not limited to cakes, either - try this with brownies or chocolate chip cookie dough! They’re easy to transport to an event and also easy to serve.

#3 Ziplock bags

Leftover frosting? Don’t throw it away! Pipe or spoon it into a ziplock bag, which is airtight to keep the frosting fresh for 2 weeks in the fridge or 2 months in the freezer! After you push the air out it lies flat, taking up almost no space.

You can also use ziplock bags for piping beaded borders, dotted decorations or piped lines, if you run out of piping bags or want to use up buttercream from the freezer without dirtying a piping bag. You’d never guess this border was piped with ziplock bag!

#4 Parchment paper

Let’s make a homemade stencil next. Parchment paper or wax paper is perfect for stencils because it’s easily available, cheap, lightweight and flexible. Draw your design or you can trace an image and then cut it out.

Wrap the stencil around a cake after chilling it. This is my 4 Minute Buttercream, which gets really firm when it’s cold so you won’t damage it with the stencil.

Spread buttercream all over the stencil and scrape off the excess to leave a thin, smooth layer. Then peel the stencil off to reveal an intricate homemade stencil design! Now you can create endless unique designs on a cake instead of buying expensive stencils.

#5 Drawer liners

Non-slip mats are intended to line drawers and shelves but they're useful for cake decorating, too. Any mesh mat will act as a non-slip mat to stop your cakes sliding around on the turntable. You only need a small piece and this makes frosting cakes so much easier. You can also use it inside cake boxes if your cake board isn’t as big as the box, to stop the cake from moving within the box. You can wash and dry these and use them again and again!

#6 Toothpicks

I always have a box of toothpicks handy for cake decorating. They’re great for outlining designs and they’re so tiny that they’re the perfect tool for manipulating frosting to tidy up lettering, stencil smudges, or borders on cakes. They work best on details that have just been piped or spread, so they are still soft and sticky.

#7 Baking tray

Cleaning up isn’t as fun as baking and decorating so to make that part as quick as possible, put your cake on a tray or baking sheet when you’re using sprinkles for cake decorating. The tray will catch any sprinkles that roll off the cake board, saving you from crunchy footsteps and finding stray sprinkles everywhere for days.

When you’ve finished, tilt the tray to pour the sprinkles down into one corner and into a bowl or jar to use for another project!

#8 Boba straws

Boba straws are these wide straws and they’re stronger than normal straws, which makes them perfect for supporting tier cakes. Use one to measure the height of the cake by pushing it all the way to the bottom of the cake, pinching the straw where it sticks out above the cake, and pulling it out.

Cut it where you pinched it and then measure the rest of the straws against that straw, so that they’re all the same length.

Push them into the cake and these will hold up the next cake, on its own cake board, so it doesn’t sink into the bottom tier.

#9 Paper straws

Use paper straws to make your own cake toppers of any shape and size. Draw or trace your shape and put it on a plate or tray or cutting board. Choose something flat and small enough to put in the freezer. Tape a piece of parchment or wax paper on top so you can see the shape through it. Melt chocolate chips, spoon them into a ziplock bag and cut off a corner. Squeeze the melted chocolate through the hole to outline the shape and then fill it in.

Use a toothpick or a spoon or a small offset spatula to spread the chocolate flat and then pour sprinkles on top straight away, while the chocolate is still soft and sticky. Press the sprinkles gently into the chocolate and then put the plate into the freezer for 5 minutes to set the chocolate.

Lift the shape off the parchment paper and flip it over and make a little line of melted chocolate towards the bottom of the shape, which will act as glue.

Push a paper straw into the melted chocolate, leave it to set, and then push the straw into a cake to make a fun, colourful, cake topper!

#10 Ice cream scoop

Ice cream scoops can be used to divide batter between cupcake wrappers without spilling onto the top edge of the wrappers or onto the cupcake pan, and if you fill the scoop with the same amount of batter each time, all of your cupcakes will be the same size!

You can do this for cake batter too, which will make sure you have the same amount of batter in each pan so each cake layer is the same height. [It’s also great for marble cakes, so you can alternate between different flavours of batter and then swirls them together to marble them at the end.

#11 Fork

Another multipurpose utensil is a basic fork. When you frost a cake the frosting will be soft and sticky. Straight away, before the frosting sets, press the prongs of a fork gently into the frosting and spin the cake, moving the fork to imprint whatever pattern you like.

This is an easy way to add lots of texture and detail without needing to buy a cake comb. Also, the process with a fork is much quicker than with a cake comb!

#12 A tall glass

Finally, a tall glass will be your best friend when you’re using piping bags. Drop the piping bag in so that the piping tip is at the bottom of the glass and fold the top edge of the bag over the rim of the glass. Spoon your frosting into the bag and this way, you’ll keep the top edges of the piping bag clean so you don’t get frosting all over your hands when you pipe.

Unfold the bag, squeeze the frosting down to the bottom, twist and bag and you’re ready to pipe!

I hope these tips have been useful! For more ideas for easy cake decorating visit my online cake school for hundreds of cake designs and techniques - join my Club PLUS for access to every MiniCourse, MasterCourse and Live Workshop!

You can also watch a video of this tutorial on 12 secret tools for cake decorating.

Piping onto cakes adds colour and texture and in this tutorial I’m going to share 15 piping hacks to make piping easier!

#1 How to fit a piping bag with a tip

Let’s start with the basics: how to fit a piping bag with a piping tip. Drop your tip into the piping bag and push it to the end and then use scissors to score about half way up the piping tip.

Push the piping tip out of the way, cut alone the line you scored, and then when you push the tip back down it should sit snugly within the bag. 

#2 Choose the right piping tip 

Before we go any further, let’s talk about how to choose a piping tip. They come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Keep in mind the size of your cake and the size of your decorations - for example, the 1M tip on the left is perfect for a rope border on top of an 8 inch cake but the #199 tip on the right is more suitable for a nest on top of a tiny 4” cake.

#3 How to fill a piping bag with frosting

Here's another basic but useful hack: how to fill a piping bag without making a mess! You can spoon frosting straight into a piping bag but you’ll probably get frosting all over the edges of the bag and that will get all over your hands when you pipe.

Instead, fold the top of the bag over or even better, use a glass and fold the top of the bag over the rim of the glass to hold the piping bag open while you fill it. Unfold the bag and it’ll be clean to hold as you pipe!

#4 How full should you fill a piping bag?

Don’t fill the bag more than 3/4 full or it will be difficult to grip onto as you pipe. Also, if the piping bag is very full the frosting will ooze out of the top of the bag as you pipe.

#5 How to hold a piping bag

Grip the bag and push the frosting down to the piping tip. Twist the bag to apply pressure to the frosting, which makes it much easier to squeeze through the tip. This will put less strain on your wrist as you pipe so you won't get tired quickly.

#6 When to pipe onto a cake

Before you pipe onto a cake, chill it for at least an hour in the fridge to set the frosting on the cake, and that way you can rest your piping tip right up against the cake without damaging the frosting on the cake.

Also, since the frosting on the cake is cold and firm and not soft and sticky anymore, the frosting you’re piping won’t pick up the frosting from the cake so that it blends with the colour in the piping bag. And here's a third reason for chilling the cake to set the frosting before you pipe: piped frosting is heavy! Chilling the cake will make it firmer and more stable so that it can support the weight of the pipe frosting without sinking or drooping.

#7 Two-tone piping

For two tone swirls, put your piping tip into a piping bag and fold it over a glass to hold it open and then spoon one colour of frosting into one half of the bag. Push it against that side of the bag and then spoon another colour into the other half. As you spoon the colours in, push them down with your spatula to lower them into the bag.

Unfold the bag from the glass and then shake the bag a few times before you twist it so that both colours go right down to the piping tip and then they’ll both come out together when you pipe.

To double check you can squeeze to pipe a little bit of frosting into a bowl first, until both colours come out at the same time.

#8 Rainbow piping

To incorporate even more colours into your piping, spread out a piece of plastic wrap like cling film or saran wrap and pipe or spread lines of coloured frosting along it. Use as many colours as you like and of course the wider and longer the area you cover with these lines, the more frosting you’ll have so the more swirls you’ll be able to pipe onto your cake.

Roll it into a log and cut off one end and then push that end down into the piping bag. Cutting it means that all of the colours will come out together to pipe beautiful colourful swirls, or whatever style of piping you like!

#9 How and why to use couplers

Couplers are another way to effortlessly create designs with lot of colours or textures, or both! Couplers come in two pieces. Push the bigger piece down to the end of a piping bag and then you’ll attach the piping tip over the outside of the piping bag, screwing it on with the ring that comes with the coupler and that will hold it in place as you pipe.

Use the piping bag as normal and when you want to use that piping tip with another colour, just unscrew the ring, pull the tip off, and attach it to another piping bag, also fitted with a coupler, to use that tip with another colour of frosting!

You can either wash the piping tip in between different colours or here’s a quick tip for speedy cake decorating: unscrew the tip from the first colour and move it straight onto the next bag of colour without cleaning it. Before you pipe onto the cake, squeeze the frosting out of the bag until you don’t see the cold colour coming through anymore and you’ve just cleaned the tip in two seconds!

I love using couplers because you can switch back and forth between colours as often as you like. If you don't use couplers you'll have to pipe everything of one colour first, all over the sides and top of the cake, and then squeeze the frosting out of the bag to get the piping tip out so that you can wash and dry it to use with the next colour. Couplers give you creative flexibility to pipe whatever you like, whenever you like! For 4 reasons to use couplers, check out my tutorial on how to use couplers.

#10 How to store piping bags 

If you prepare your piping bags in advance or take a break in the middle of using them, the buttercream at the end of the piping tip will dry out and crust because it’s exposed to air. To avoid that, wrap the piping tips in cling firm or Saran Wrap to keep them airtight and that will keep the buttercream soft and sticky until you pipe with it.

#11 Make piping bags last longer

Disposable piping bags are washable so you can use them again and again and again but eventually you’ll notice holes in them and frosting will ooze out of those holes.

No problem - wipe the frosting off the outside of the piping bag and then cover the holes with tape so that you can use that piping bag to finish off your cake without dribbling frosting all over your design.

#12 How to refill piping bags

If you run out of frosting while you’re piping you can refill the piping bag but you’re likely to trap a pocket of air in between the old frosting and the new frosting.

Before you use the refilled bag, squeeze that last little bit of old frosting out of the bag until you hear a "burp". You’re looking for a little explosion of air and you want that to happen in a bowl, not onto the beautiful piping on your cake!

#13 How and why to pipe without piping tips

You don’t have to use piping tips for piping, which means you can save time cleaning up after cake decorating. I’ll show you two alternatives to piping tips now. The reason for using a piping bag with no piping tip is if the texture of your piping doesn’t matter, for example to apply the filling and frosting onto a cake.

Piping frosting instead of spreading it straight onto a cake is much quicker. Also, you won’t pull crumbs off the cake if you pipe it and then spread and smooth it, so your frosting will be beautifully crumb-free! 

#14 How to pipe with ziplock bags

You can even pipe without a piping tip OR a piping bag, by using ziplock bags instead. Squeeze the frosting down and cut a tiny piece off the corner to pipe through.

These are perfect if you want to use lots of colours but don’t have lots of piping bags. The only limitation is that you can only pipe lines or dots with them, so you won't get the texture that would come through the shapes of piping tips. But with just lines and dots you can create surprisingly intricate designs using ziplock bags!

#15 Leftovers

Let’s talk about leftovers. You’ll almost always have leftover frosting in your piping bags or ziplock bags. You can refrigerate it for 2 weeks or freeze it for 2 months before using it on another cake - just let it come to room temperature and then squeeze it into a piping bag and voila! Reusable for another cake design!

I hope these hacks are useful! Join my newsletter for more and visit my cake school for hundreds of cake designs and techniques. Join my ClubPLUS for access to EVERY MiniCourse and MasterCourse and Live Workshop on my cake school!

Tell me your favourite piping hack in the comments!

You can also watch a video of these 15 piping hacks for cake decorating:

When you find a recipe you LOVE, use that same recipe for 4 different delicious desserts! These desserts will work with any cake batter but I’m using a tiny batch of my Perfect Chocolate Cake. It makes the moistest cake that’s not too sweet.

For a glaze, filling AND frosting I’m using ganache which is delicious, super easy to make and only uses two ingredients. These recipes, which can be used to make any of the four desserts below, are at the bottom of this page.

#1 Baked Donuts

For the first dessert, spoon your cake batter into a piping bag. (t’s easiest to do this by lowering the bag into a glass and folding the top over the rim to hold it open. 

Grease a silicon donut mold with an oil spray and pipe the batter into the donut rings. Keep in mind that these will rise so don’t overfill them or they’ll cover up the signature hole in the middle as they bake.

Donuts bake at 375F or 190C for 14-18 minutes depending on the batter. Let them cool until the mold has cooled slightly, enough to pick up and push through the silicon mold to get the donuts out. The donuts will definitely crumble and fall apart if you don't grease the mold so don't skip that step!

Make ganache by following the recipe below. Let it cool for a few minutes and then pour it into a wide, shallow bowl. It will be runny and this is the perfect consistency for a donut glaze.

Dunk the donuts in the ganache and twist them a few times to coat the top surface. Then flip them over onto a wire rack to let the excess drip off. If you want to sprinkle them with any toppings or sprinkles, do that now while the ganache is still soft and sticky.

Quick shortcut tip: if you want to bake these in advance, freeze them in a ziplock bag for up to a month before you glaze them and they’ll stay perfectly fresh!

#2 Cupcakes

You can use the same cake batter recipe to make cupcakes instead. Use an ice cream scoop to fill cupcake wrappers without making a mess. Aim to fill them up 3/4 full so that they don’t overflow and bulge out to make big muffin tops when they bake. Cupcakes bake for between 15 and 19 minutes at 375F or 190C.

While they bake, whip the cooled ganache until your whisk or mixer leaves a trail behind as it mixes and stiff peaks form.

Transfer the whipped ganache into a piping bag fitted with a star shaped tip like a 1M tip. Once the cupcakes cool, pipe a swirl onto the top of each one.

#3 Mini Cake

To bake a cake instead, use this recipe to make a three-layer 4" cake. Grease three 4” pans and divide the batter between them.

Bake for 18 minutes at 350F or 175C and notice that the baking temperature for cakes is lower than for donuts or cupcakes, so that they bake evenly. More tips on that in my Basics of Cake MasterCourse on my cake school. I like to use these springform pans for mini cakes because it's so easy to release the cakes from the pans after baking.

When the cakes have cooled, use a serrated knife to trim the tops to level them. This will make it easier to assemble a straight cake that doesn't lean, which will be prettier and also more stable.

Place the first layer of cake onto a plate, attaching it with a dot of whipped ganache. Use a round tip like a Wilton 1A to pipe dots of ganache in a ring all around the cake, working your way inwards to cover it.

Place the next layer of cake onto, centering it and pressing down slightly to attach it to the ganache dots, and then pipe another round of dots on top. Lower your final layer, flipping it over so that the flattest side is on top. This is the side that was at the bottom of the cake pan when you baked it, not the top that you trimmed. By placing it this way round you’ll keep your cake moister and also give it a nice flat top.

These naked cakes are SO quick to decorate and for me, the ratio of cake to ganache is perfect because it’s not too sweet or too rich!

#4 Cake Sundae

If your cupcakes bake too low or if they overflow or if your cake layers crumble, save that cake! I keep my cake scraps in a large ziploc bag in the freezer and most of them end up as cake sundaes! Spoon some whipped ganache into the bottom of a glass and optionally, add a scoop of ice cream. Press half a cupcake or some cake crumble on top and continue layering until you get to the top of the glass.

For bonus points for presentation, pipe a swirl of whipped ganache on top and drizzle it with some leftover ganache glaze - YUM!

Which of these desserts would you choose? Tell me in the comments!

How to make the cake for these 4 desserts

The recipe below makes enough cake batter for 6 donuts, 6 cupcakes, a three-layer 4" cake, or 6 cake sundaes.

To make this chocolate batter, start by whisking cocoa powder and hot water together until the cocoa powder dissolves. Do this first so that the mixture has a chance to cool to room temperature before you add it to the batter.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, which takes about 3 minutes on medium speed if your butter is already at room temperature. Since this is a very small batter, if you're using a stand mixer you'll probably need to scrape down to the bottom of the mixing bowl with a spatula to loosen any ingredients there because your mixer attachment won't be able to reach them.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix for about 30 seconds to combine. Whisk your dry ingredients (flour and baking soda) in a small bowl and add half to the mixing bowl. Mix on the lowest speed until you don't see any flour in the batter and you might need to scrape down to the bottom of the mixing bowl again to incorporate all of the ingredients. Add the cooled cocoa powder mixture and mix on the lowest speed until the batter is all the same shade of brown. It will look a bit grainy since there is so much liquid in the batter at this point:

Add the rest of the flour mixture and mix on the lowest speed to combine until the batter is smooth.

How to turn cake batter into 4 desserts

How you bake this batter will depend on which dessert you choose to make:

For donuts, grease a silicon donut mold with oil spray and spoon the batter into a piping bag. Pipe the batter into the mold and bake for 14 minutes at 375F or 190C.

For cupcakes, line a cupcake tray with 6 wrappers and use an ice cream scoop to divide the batter between the wrappers, filling each one 3/4 full. Bake at 375F or 190C for 15 minutes.

For a mini cake, grease three 4" pans (I love these mini springform pans) and divide the batter between them. Bake at 350F or 175C for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each one comes out clean.

For cake sundaes, use broken donuts or cupcakes that baked too low or too high or cake scraps from trimming mini cakes. To bake the chocolate batter especially for cake sundaes, I suggest baking cupcakes and dividing each one in half horizontally to make two layers. I use two layers of cake for each cake sundae so if you bake six cupcakes you'll be able to make six cake sundaes.

How to make a ganache glaze or frosting for these 4 desserts

The recipe below makes enough chocolate ganache glaze for 6 donuts or enough ganache frosting ("whipped ganache") for 6 cupcakes, a three-layer 4" cake, or 6 cake sundaes.

To make ganache, pour heavy whipping cream into a saucepan over medium heat.

Stir as the cream warms and when you see tiny bubbles forming around the edges of the pan and the cream feels very warm to the touch, remove the pan from the heat. Don't wait for the cream to simmer or form a skin on top.

Pour your chocolate into the cream immediately and push it underneath the surface of the cream. Leave it for 5 minutes so that the chocolate melts. Then whisk the mixture and you'll notice it get darker with little brown flecks and gradually turn darker and thicker.

When the mixture is smooth you've made ganache!

How to use ganache to glaze donuts

This ganache is ready to use immediately to glaze donuts. The easiest way to cover donuts with the ganache glaze is to pour the glaze into a wide, shallow bowl.

How to make ganache frosting

To turn it into a frosting you'll need to let it cool and then whip it. Cooling will take 2 hours at room temperature or 45 minutes in the fridge. When the ganache has cooled it will still be shiny but it will be thicker so when you transfer it to a bowl you'll notice that it holds its shape better than when it was warm.

You can whip this by hand with a whisk or use an electric mixer with whisk attachments and it will take about 3 minutes to whip to stiff peaks. The ganache will get lighter in colour as you whip it and it will also expand.

When you can lift the whisk out of the bowl and the ganache holds stiff peaks, it's ready to use as frosting.

The recipe below has the quantities to make chocolate batter and chocolate ganache 6 donuts, 6 cupcakes, a three-layer 4" cake, or 6 cake sundaes. You can switch between US and Metric measurements and you can also scale the recipe up if you want to make a larger batch.

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You can also watch a video of how to turn 1 recipe into 4 desserts:

These one bowl carrot cupcakes are lightly spiced and unbelievably moist. Best of all, you can make the batter in just one bowl! The cupcakes pair perfectly with tangy cream cheese frosting.

This recipe makes 6 carrot cupcakes but you can double the recipe to make 12 or make my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting instead.

How to make carrot cupcakes

To make the carrot cupcakes you’ll need a large bowl and a spatula. You can use a handheld mixer if you like but it’s not necessary. Start by stirring the oil and sugars together and then add the egg and vanilla. 

When everything is combined add the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Stir as few times as possible, until you can’t see the flour in the batter anymore. Add grated carrot and chopped walnuts or choose your own add-in ingredients, for example replace the walnuts with pecans or add raisins or sultanas for more sweetness.

Fold these ingredients into the batter and then use an ice cream scoop to fill six cupcakes wrappers about 3/4 full.

Bake at 350F or 175C for 18 minutes, until the cupcakes spring back slowly when you poke them or a toothpick poked into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the cupcakes onto a wire cooling rack while you make the cream cheese frosting.

Make the cream cheese frosting

For cream cheese frosting it’s essential that the butter and cream cheese are at room temperature before you start, otherwise you’ll have lumpy frosting. Take them out of the fridge 4 hours before you start baking or if you forget you can microwave them for 10 seconds to take the chill off.

Mix the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add powdered sugar and stir for about a minute to combine completely. You can use a mixer if you like but it’s also possible to make this frosting without one. The powdered sugar give the cream cheese frosting its stability, meaning it will hold its shape when you pipe it.

Stir in vanilla and salt and spoon into a piping bag fitted with a star shaped piping tip like a Wilton 1M. Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, pipe a swirl onto each one. You can store these in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days but I doubt they’ll last that long!

You can adjust the recipe below by switching between US and Metric measurements and you can also scale the recipe to make larger batches of this recipe. For a cake, make my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

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For more visual instructions watch a quick video of this carrot cupcake recipe.

In this tutorial I’m going to share all of my tips for making a moist and delicious vanilla cake!

#1 Temperature of ingredients

First, make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature. If they’re refrigerated like butter, eggs, or milk take them out of the fridge three hours before you start baking. When ingredients are cold they don’t mix together easily but at room temperature they’ll incorporate easily, making the cake light and also preventing over-mixing. More on that later! For this tutorial I'll be using my Very Vanilla cake recipe.

#2 Creaming

Creaming the butter and sugar together is really important because this is the base of your cake batter, and if this mixture is light and fluffy it will make your cake light and fluffy, too!

Creaming takes about two minutes of mixing on medium speed and you’ll notice the butter get lighter and also it will look like it’s expanding.

Now add the vanilla. Most cake recipes will include vanilla and using real vanilla extract will give you the richest flavour. Artificial vanilla is cheaper but doesn’t give you the same results so it’s worth spending a little bit more and buying the real stuff.

#3 One by one

Now add the eggs but these should be added one by one, not all together. The reason for this is that you want all of the ingredients to mix together. If you dump the whole bowl of eggs into the batter, it’s more difficult for the butter and sugar to incorporate the eggs than if you add the eggs gradually, one by one. Give each egg about 30 seconds to combine into the batter.

#4 Add moisture

Buttermilk is a great way to add moisture to your cakes. If your recipe uses buttermilk but you don’t have any, you can make your own very quickly and easily by using milk instead. Use the same amount of milk as the buttermilk listed in the ingredients but then take out 1 tablespoon of milk for every cup and add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar instead. Leave it for 5 minutes to curdle and then add it instead of buttermilk! My vanilla cake recipe uses oil too, to make the cake extra moist.

#5 Don't over-mix

Once you start adding the dry ingredients like flour, the way you mix your batter is really important. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl before adding them to the mixer and that will spread the rising agents evenly through the batter and through your cake layers. When you add the flour to the batter, the gluten in the flour starts to develop and if you overman the batter, you’ll make it tough and dense. It’s super important that after you add the flour, you don’t over-mix the batter. What does this mean? Only mix the batter until you can’t see individual ingredients anymore. As soon as the flour has incorporated into the rest of the batter, turn the mixer off. 

#6 Scrape down

Another quick tip for a moist cake is to scrape down to the bottom of the bowl with a spatula after mixing in each ingredient. The reason for this is that ingredients can get stuck at the bottom of the bowl, where the paddle or beater can’t reach. If you don’t scrape these up to mix into the rest of the batter, you’ll have gritty chunks of melted sugar in your cakes or little dots of clumps of flour. 

Divide your batter into cake pans and spread the batter with your spatula so that the cakes are flat and level. I teach how to covert this recipe into different shapes and sizes of cakes and different quantities of cupcakes in my Basics of Cake MasterCourse.

#7 Don't over-bake!

Tap the pans a few times on the counter to knock out air bubbles and then bake them until you can poke the top gently and the cake will slowly rise back up. If you over-bake them they’ll dry out. Leave the cakes in the pans for 10 minutes before you turn them out and let them cool completely, for three hours, before you level or divide them. 

I teach every step of making a cake, from mixing and baking to making fillings and frostings, leveling and diving layers, assembling cakes, frosting and decorating, storing, transporting and serving in my Basics of Cake MasterCourse on my online cake school.

You can also watch a video of these 7 tips for a moist vanilla cake.

Baking should be fun, not stressful, and by avoiding these 5 baking mistakes you’ll end up with a cake that looks and tastes amazing!

#1 Over-mixing

Over-mixing your batter is a guaranteed way to make a tough, dense cake. For butter-based recipes like my Perfect Chocolate Cake or my Very Vanilla Cake you need to cream the butter and sugar together for several minutes to make a light and fluffy base for your cake. But as soon as you’ve added the flour you need to slow things down and be gentle, only mixing until everything is just incorporated and no longer.

As soon as you add the flour the gluten in it will start to develop and that’s what can make a cake tough. As soon as you can’t see the separate ingredients in your batter anymore, it’s properly mixed so it’s time to stop!

#2 Old baking powder

Old baking powder isn’t dangerous to eat but it won’t do its job anymore. Look at this cake that was made with expired baking powder: it stops rising before it’s finished baking. The cake is dense instead of springy and on the inside it’s doughy instead of cakey.

You can check if your baking powder is still active by pouring boiling water over a spoonful of it and if it bubbles, it’s fine, but if it doesn’t do anything then if you use in your baking, it won’t do anything there, either! Don’t use it past the expiration date or 6 months after you open it. 

#3 Opening the oven door

You’ll be excited for your cake or cupcakes or whatever to be ready but if you open the door several times to check on it while it’s baking, you’ll let cold air rush into the oven and the temperature won’t stay constant. What happens next?

The edges of the cake will bake normally but the heat won’t go all the way through so the middle will be undercooked and it will sink. This doesn’t look or taste good and there’s no way to fix it because if you put it back in the oven, you’ll burn the edges of the cake by the time the middle cooks through.

To prevent this, use the light in the oven to see what’s happening and only check the cake 5 minutes before the time listed on the recipe. I show how to troubleshoot all sorts of baking issues like over-rising cakes, domed cakes, underbaked cakes, and what happens if you use too much or too little of ingredients like flour and sugar, in my Basics of Cake MasterCourse. You’ll learn to perfect the foundation of your cakes with modules on EVERY step of making a cake: mixing, baking, leveling and dividing cake layers, making fillings and frostings, assembling cakes, frosting, decorating, storing, transporting and serving!

#4 Turning cakes out too soon

After baking your cakes it’s tempting to flip the pans over straight away but the cakes are still very fragile because the baking process continues as the cakes cool. If you turn the cakes out now, they’re likely to crack and crumble because they have’t had a chance to firm up properly. 

#5 Turning cakes out too late

The opposite is true, too. Don’t wait too long to turn the cakes out because once they cool, they can stick to the pans. When you flip the pans over, chunks of cake will cling to the pans instead of coming out neatly with the rest of the cake.

How long should you wait after baking before turning cakes out of pans? As a guide I use this trick: wait until you can pick the pans up comfortably with your bare hands. They’ll still be very warm but not burning. At this point, the cakes have cooled enough to firm up slightly but not so much that they’ll stick to the pans.

If your layers DO crack or crumble, don’t throw them away because you can still use them! I'll show you how to fix broken cake layers in this tutorial.

You can also watch a video of these 5 baking mistakes and how to avoid them: