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In this cake decorating tutorial I show how to tint buttercream bright red, how to apply vertical stripes, and how to jazz them up with sprinkles and sprinkled shards! For my tutorial and recipe for 4 Minute Buttercream click here: https://youtu.be/MFKfXbnU1Lw
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Hi! I'm Emily of British Girl Bakes and I'm going to show you how to make this
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festive red and white striped cake. To start with I'll show you how to make
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bright red frosting and then how to apply the stripes and add details with
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sprinkles and then how to make these fun sprinkled spikes on the top and sides
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For the red frosting I use my 4-Minute Buttercream and I've put the link for
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that tutorial and recipe in the top of the screen and in the description below
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this video. I use Americolor Super Red gel which is very concentrated and gives
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a nice bright colour. Squeeze a generous squirt into your bowl of buttercream and
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for these stripes you really only need between half a cup and 1 cup of
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buttercream, depending on the size of your cake but I'm making a much bigger
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batch here because I'll be using it for a few other cakes as well. Mix it
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together and if your colour is lighter than this add some more until you get a
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shade that's red rather than pink but not necessarily quite as dark and bright
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as you'd like it. Then cover it up with a lid or cling film and let it sit for at
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least 30 minutes to give the colour a chance to develop and darken. If you
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haven't already, frost your cake and put it in the fridge for at least an hour so
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that the frosting sets. Choose some sprinkles if you want to decorate your
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cake with them and for the stripes I'm going to use this stencil which is
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intended for bigger cakes than this 4 inch cake that I'm using for this but it
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will work. Here's my red buttercream after 30 minutes and I'm going to add a
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bit more colour and I'm confident this will be enough so I'm going to use it
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straight away and it will darken as it sits on the cake. I'm going to use some
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sellotape to hold my stencil in place but you can pin it into the cake instead
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if you prefer. Take your chilled cake out of the fridge and put it on a
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turntable. A turntable isn't essential but it makes the whole decorating process
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much quicker. Wrap the stencil around the cake, pressing the base down onto the
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cake board so that it's sitting around the very bottom of the cake and wrap it
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tightly around the cake, taping it to hold it in place or pushing a pin
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through the stencil and into the cake. Press the stencil against the top of the
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sides of the cake as well and if it doesn't stay there you can use a clothes peg or tape or another pin to secure it. You can see that my stencil is
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bowing around the cake instead of sitting tightly against the sides and
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that's fine. As I mentioned before the stencil is meant for bigger cakes. Now
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just spread your red buttercream onto the stencil, spreading up and down to
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cover the stripe gaps from where they start at the bottom all the way up to
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the top of the stripe or the top of the cake, whichever comes first. It's risky to
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spread from side to side unless your stencil is pressed completely flat
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against the side of the cake because buttercream can get underneath the
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stencil and smudge the outline of your stripes. You can spread the buttercream
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relatively thickly at first and then after applying it, swipe it up and down
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with your offset spatula to spread it more thinly and evenly around the cake
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When you're happy with it, pull out the pins or cut the tape and carefully peel
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off the stencil. Don't expect the cake to look perfect yet. Put it back in the
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fridge for about an hour so that the red buttercream sets and gets hard and then
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use a sharp knife to trim off any red buttercream sticking up around the top
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of the cake. This way you won't get red stains on the top of your cake
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Use a knife or offset spatula to scrape around the base of the cake to take off
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any red buttercream smudges on the cake board, being careful not to scrape the
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cake as you go and then once you've cleaned up the cake board that's closest
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to the cake, you can use a paper towel to wipe around the outer section of the
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cake board. Now it's time to tidy up the stripes. Where my stencil overlapped itself, there are sections of the cake without stripes
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and even within stripes there are parts where the buttercream didn't stick to
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the cake and must have come off with the stencil as I pulled it off. This is a
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fun opportunity to spice up the design with some sprinkles to add some texture
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and detail. Where this stripe stops midway up the cake I'm adding a few
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large ball sprinkles to continue the line up to the top and I'm doing the
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same down here at the bottom of this stripe. You can fill in the middle of
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lines too, not just the top or the bottom and it looks like an intentional part of
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the design. Here I'm scraping off part of the stripe to add more sprinkles to match the other
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stripes which has several sprinkles in a row instead of just one or two. If any
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stripes have smudged, like this one has here, you can use a sharp knife to gently
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scrape sideways to remove the smudge and this works because the base colour of
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frosting, the white, is cold and hard and won't get damaged by scraping the red
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gently off it. I love how asymmetrical the stripes look with some large open
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spaces between some of them because it shows off the smooth frosting underneath
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and looks like an intentional artistic part of the design. You could fill the
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gaps with a message written sideways if you wanted to or you could reapply the
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stencil and spread buttercream over it again to make more stripes but just make
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sure you clean the stencil completely before you do that so you don't drag any
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leftover red buttercream back onto the cake. Now I'm going to make some spikes
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to add more decorations to the cake. To do this you'll need candy melts and some
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sprinkles. You can use white chocolate instead but I don't recommend tinting it
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red because you'll need a lot of gel and it will affect the consistency of the
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chocolate and probably make it seize up. Melt the candy melts at 50% power in the
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microwave for one minute at a time and then pour them onto parchment paper or
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wax paper and spread them around with an offset spatula. They need to be thick
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enough to withstand pressure as you push them into the cake. Scatter your
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sprinkles on top immediately before the candy melts set so that they stick. Now
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you can either let this set and then cut it or score it now, let it set and then
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cut it and I'll show you how to do both. If you let it set or move it to the
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fridge to chill it so that it sets more quickly, when you cut it with a knife
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you'll get random shards of candy melts with uneven edges and unpredictable
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shapes. This is the quickest way to do it and if this is the look you're going for
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great! If you want a neater look with tidier shapes, before letting the candy
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melt set, use a sharp knife to score where you eventually want to cut them
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using straight rather than curved lines because those work best. Let the candy
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melt set at room temperature or in the fridge and then cut along the lines you
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scored and in most cases the candy melts should break where you intended them to
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If you refrigerate your cakes after frosting and decorate them, which I do
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it's best to leave your cake out at room temperature while you do this so that
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the frosting softens and it's easier to arrange the spikes on it in a minute. To
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place them, just hold them against the side or top of the cake and push firmly
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in, holding the cake board on the other side of the cake so that the cake doesn't
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slide around when you apply pressure to it. You can place the spikes in a line or
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cluster or pattern or all over the cake, whatever you like! And there it is! Thank
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you for watching! If you enjoyed this tutorial please click the thumbs up
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button and subscribe to my channel for a new cake decorating tutorial every week
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