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Autumn Leaves Cake
37K views
Sep 6, 2024
In this cake decorating tutorial I show a few different techniques to apply a leaf design to a buttercream cake, starting with my favourite method and also showing my cake fails at the end! I used my 4 Minute Buttercream for the frosting on this cake and for the lead decorations and you can watch the tutorial and get the recipe here: https://youtu.be/MFKfXbnU1Lw For my online cake decorating courses click here: https://britishgirlbakes.teachable.com/ SUBSCRIBE to my channel for new cake decorating tutorials every week!
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Hi, I'm Emily of British Girl Bakes and I'm going to show you how to decorate a cake with
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leaves for a seasonal autumn design. I've included a few cake fails at the end to show you ideas
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that didn't work for me, to save you the time of experimenting with those ideas. You'll need some
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leaves for this design and you can use either real leaves or fabric leaves that I've seen
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sold at craft shops and in homeware stores as table decorations, made of silk or a similarly flexible
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fabric. Simple leaves work best and this sprig of little leaves will be difficult because the leaves
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move around too much for this design. Leaves that have already fallen to the ground, or that have
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been picked and then left sitting for a few days, won't work because they need to be flexible
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not crisp and stiff. Another option is to draw and cut out leaf shapes from parchment paper
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If you're using real leaves, wash them in hot water and soap and then pat them dry with paper towel
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Put a spoonful of buttercream into a few different bowls, however many colours you want to use
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and this is my four minute buttercream frosting and I've put the link for the tutorial and recipe
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in the top of the screen and in the description below this video
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Use gel colors to tint the balls of buttercream, using green, yellow, brown, orange, and red
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to create natural autumnal colors I adding the gels to my buttercream using a clean toothpick each time to control the amount of colour I adding because gel colours are so concentrated that you can
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easily end up with colours much darker than you intended, especially with such small amounts
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of buttercream. You really only need a few tablespoons of buttercream in each bowl for this
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Next, you'll need a frosted cake which has been chilled for at least an hour in the fridge
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so that the frosting is firm and won't be damaged by the pressure against it in the
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next step. Press a leaf against the frosting and if it doesn't stick, wait a few minutes
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until condensation starts to form on the cake, which happens because the temperature in your
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kitchen is warmer than a fridge, so tiny droplets form and make the frosting a bit stickier
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Then scoop up some buttercream with an offset spatula, sticking to one color at a time
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or combining a few colors for a blended effect, and then spread the buttercream over the edges
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of the leaf to outline it onto the frosting on the cake. Then pinch the stalk of the leaf, which is the strongest part, and peel it off to reveal the shape underneath
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You can use a toothpick to touch up any unwanted buttercream smudges
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If you're going to place several leaves around the cake, it's a good idea to press on a few at a time
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so that you reserve the space for those leaves, and don't accidentally spread buttercream where you later decide to place another leaf
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Always spread the buttercream outwards from the inner parts of the leaf over the air and onto the frosting on the cake so that you don unintentionally lift up the edges of the leaf and get buttercream underneath it
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As your cake warms up with more time outside the fridge, the frosting on the cake will start to soften
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and you might imprint it as you press the leaves against it. To avoid this, put the cake back in the fridge for ten minutes after every few leaves
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but if you do get any imprints, you can use an offset spatula to gently scrape the imprint in the frosting to smooth it
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A fun way to add some dimension to your cake is to add some 3D chocolate leaves
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I'm using Wilton candy melts in the same colours as the buttercream I used for my leaves
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melting them for a minute in the microwave at 50% power so that they don't overheat and seize
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and then mixing them with the spatula to make paints, that I can use with a paintbrush, painting them onto some leaves and blending several
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shades together on the leaves. The side that I'm painting is going to be the back of the leaf
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so it doesn't matter if you can see brush strokes on it. Make sure the chocolate or candy melts
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are reasonably thick so that the shapes will be stronger. put them in the fridge for about an hour to set and harden and then gently peel the chocolate or candy melts off the leaves and it a good idea to make a few extras in case some crack or break while you doing this
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Decide where you want to place the leaves on the cake, and you can either press them into the top of the cake standing up
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or use some fresh buttercream as a glue to press the leaves into the sides of the cake
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If you're nervous about them breaking, make a small indent with a knife to press the leaf into
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so you won't need to use as much pressure when you push the leaf down
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Now for a few techniques that were unsuccessful. First, I tried spreading butter cream onto the leaves and then pressing them into a frosted, chilled cake
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peeling them off to hopefully leave the colour and texture of the leaf behind on the cake
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The result was colourful, but messy, and not easily distinguishable as leaves
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Next, I tried spreading random patches of coloured buttercream onto the cake
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smoothing over at once with a frosting scraper to flatten it, and then pressing leaves into it
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to see if they would indent the buttercream enough to leave their shape behind. But they just roughed up the texture of the buttercream
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So I scraped the coloured buttercream off the cake and tried again with my final technique, which I loved
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Inside, this cake was my caramel apple cake, and that tutorial and recipe are on British Girlbakes.com
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and on my YouTube channel
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