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In this cake decorating tutorial I show how to cover a cake with ombre frosting, how to pipe cacti and succulents with buttercream and how to make chocolate and sprinkled cacti to decorate the top of the cake. I used my 4 Minute Buttercream for this cake and you can find the tutorial and recipe here: https://youtu.be/MFKfXbnU1Lw For my online cake school click here: britishgirlbakes.teachable.com/courses
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Hi! In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to pipe buttercream cacti onto a cake with
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Ombray frosting and how to make chocolate and sprinkled cacti to place on top
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For the Ombray frosting, tint buttercream to make two different colours and then mix some of each colour into another bowl
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to make a shade in the middle of those two colours. This way the colours will blend gradually into each other
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I'm using my 4 minute buttercream for this cake and I've put the recipe and tutorial link in the top of the screen and in the description below this video
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Start by frosting the top of your cake, and you'll need the most of whichever colour you're going to use for the top of the cake
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so I have at least double the amount of pink compared to my yellow and orange buttercream
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Continue down the sides of the cake, spreading the colours one after the other, so that they're in bands around the cake, but they don't need to be neat, even bands
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because we're going to blend them together in a minute. Aim for an equal thickness of buttercream all over the cake
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so that you don't have to fill in a lot of air pockets later. Your cake should be crumb coated before you start, which means that you've already covered it in a thin layer of frosting to trap in any crumbs that come off the cake, so that they stay in the crumb coat and don't get into the final coat of frosting
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You should let the crumb coat set before you do this enbre frosting, and it will set in about 30 minutes in the fridge
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Make sure your last colour goes all the way down to the cake board to cover up the very bottom of the sides of the cake
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I've spread three colours onto the sides of the cake, but you can do more if you like
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If you want the colours to blend more gradually, you can spread on dabs of buttercream randomly around the cake
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like this orange buttercream on the section of pink buttercream. If you're enjoying this tutorial, please click the thumbs up button to like it
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Scrap around the cake a few times with a frosting smoother, to smooth the frosting
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and you'll see whether buttercream isn't as thick, because there'll be air pockets in the frosting
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Spread some more buttercream over those areas, using some buttercream, using the frosting, and you'll see the buttercream, areas using buttercream you've just scraped off the cake, which will blend the colours
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even more gradually together. Or if you want the blending to be more dramatic, so that the frosting
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is in distinct bands of colour around the cake you can stick to separate colours matching the colour you spread onto the cake to the colour in that section of the cake Smooth again do any more touch you need to to fill in any air pockets And when you happy with the sides of the cake
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use your frosting smoother or offset spatula to tidy up the top edge of the cake
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scraping from the outside to the middle of the cake, to pull the overhanging buttercream onto the top of the cake
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and then pulling it off as you swipe off your offset spatula or frosting smoother
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Put the cake in the fridge to set this frosting, and meanwhile, tint some more buttercream different shades of green to make some cacti and succulents
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I'm using different amounts of green and orange gel in these bowls to make bright and dull shades of green
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I'm going to use a star tip, a Wilton 1M, and two open star tips, a 4B and a 199
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and a drop flower tip, or 2-24, and a small round tip, a number 4
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Before you start piping, you can practice on a piece of parchment paper or wax paper
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or any flat surface like a plate. I'm using this cactus cookie cutter as a guide
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but you can use a drawing or a printed image or just make it up. Starting with a 4B tip, I'm piping a cactus
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and then using a 199 tip for a few different shaped succulents and barrel cacti, nothing too specific
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And it's much easier to pipe on a horizontal surface instead of on the side of a cake
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so it's a good idea to get comfortable with the shapes here first. I'm using a 1M star tip too
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You can layer the buttercream to create some more dimension, and when you finish practicing
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you can scrape the buttercream up and put it back in the piping bags so you don't waste it
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I'm leaving a few of these practice ones on the paper to refer to as I pipe onto the cake
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and since the cake is now cold after being in the fridge, the frosting has set
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and I won't damage it as I pipe onto it. If you like, you can indent a cookie cutter into the frosting as a guide
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or use a toothpick to trace around a cut-out drawing or printed image
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and I'm doing that here for my first cactus, but after that first one I'm just going to wing it
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For this one I'm squeezing harder on the piping bag and moving it more slowly
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so I'm squeezing more butter cream out of the bag and that makes a thicker stem for this cactus
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instead of piping two lines like I did for the previous one. It makes the ridges and the
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buttercream wiggle a bit but I like that It reminds me of that mirage you see when you driving on a hot road and everything looks wiggly You don have to make every cactus identical so after a few fat ones I making a skinny one
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and I'm piping the arms at different heights to make them all unique. With my next colour, I'm piping something like a barrel cactus by piping a few lines right
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next to each other of about the same height. Finally, with a leaf tip, I'm piping some small succulents around the bottom of the cake
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to vary the height of the piping a bit more. When you use a leaf tip, you hold it so that it looks like the tip has teeth which are biting
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into the cake, so the two sharp points are one above the other, and the buttercream is squeezing
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out of the sides of the tip to make the piping wider than the teeth of the tip
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After piping my cacti, I'm going to chill the cake in the fridge for about 30 minutes to set
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the buttercream, and now I'm using this yellow buttercream in a piping bag fitted with a drop
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flower tip to pipe little flowers on top of some of the succulents. And I'm doing this after
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the succulents have chilled and set, so that I don't accidentally damage the green buttercream
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as I pipe the flowers. If my hand wobbles or I apply too much pressure and push the piping
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tip into the green butter cream. This drop flower tip is a number 2 to 4. To pipe spikes onto the
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cacti, I'm using a small round tip, a number 4, with white buttercream
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and I'm piping tiny dots along the ridges of the piping on the cacti
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After positioning the piping tip against the edge of the piping, squeeze the bag gently to push out a tiny dot of buttercream
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and as you pull your hand away with the bag, release your pressure on the bag
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so that you leave a spike at the end of the white dot. Now for the top of the cake
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I'm using candy melts for this, or you can use chocolate, and I'm making two colours
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light green and a darker colour using red to make it dark. red to make it dull. I'm tracing my cactus cookie cutter onto paper and placing parchment over the top
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or you could just draw directly onto parchment and flip it over so that the pencil lines are on
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the underside. Melt your chocolate or candy melts at 50% power in the microwave for a minute
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at a time so that they don seize and then stir them until they smooth And you can see how the red dulls this green here If you using white chocolate you can add gel colours at the end Then spoon them onto the parchment or wax
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paper and use a fork to spread the chocolate or candy melts where you want them to go, and also
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to leave grooves in them, which look like the ridges in the buttercream ones you've just
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piped onto your cake. Instead of the fork texture, another way to decorate these is to cover them
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with sprinkles before they set, so that the sprinkles stick. Place your parchment or
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wax paper on a board or baking tray for this so that you can lift it up and shake the excess
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sprinkles off, all of the ones that didn't stick to the cactus. Put the paper with the
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cacti on it, into the fridge or freezer for about 30 minutes to chill and set the cacti. Then lift
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them carefully off the paper and you have some fun and delicious decorations for the top of your
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cake. I'm using a 1M tip to pipe some buttercream onto the top of the cake to add some detail there
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using this round tin to mark out a circle or you could use a round cookie cutter instead
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or a glass. And then holding my piping tip a little bit within the circle
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I'm applying pressure to the bag to squeeze out the buttercream as I move the bag towards the
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outer edge of the circle, and then pull it back towards the middle of the cake
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and that makes these little waves of butter cream. As well as being pretty
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they also act as a glue to stick the chocolate cacti onto the cake, since the frosting has set, so it isn't sticky. And also, that frosting is now hard
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so I don't want to risk pushing the cacti into it in case they snap. For even more stability
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after making the cacti on the parchment paper, you could press a cocktail stick or toothpick or wooden skewer into the cactus, starting at the bottom section
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so that you have a support beam which you can then poke into the cake and hold it in place
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Straight after piping this buttercream while it's still sticky, I'm scattering on some sprinkles and they'll stick to this fresh buttercream. And using the same sprinkle mix
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as I used for one of my cacti so that they match. Now I'm pressing the chilled cacti gently into the buttercream
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pushing down until I can feel the resistance of the chilled frosting underneath the yellow piping
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and I'm going to keep this cake in the fridge until I transport it so that the yellow piped buttercream sets and holds the cacti securely in place
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Scattering on a few more sprinkles onto the top of the cake, and there it is
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A piped desert cactus cake! Thank you for watching! Please click the thumbs up button
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