Happy New Year~2015! Cake Tutorial {Blog}

Hi everyone! The new year is almost here and I wanted to share a festive, quick & easy cake tutorial with you!

First, I truly love the look of piped buttercream on cakes. In fact, the more piping, the better! It's often a quicker option than applying frosting with a completely smooth finish, and I love the dressed up feel.

I often use my trusty 2D tip to pipe vertical ribbons of buttercream onto cakes....but today I wondered what would happen if I piped horizontally instead. The result is so pretty...and so easy! It's my favorite part of this tutorial ;0)

First, I crumb coated my cake with a thin layer of buttercream. Then, starting from the bottom of the cake, I piped long strands of buttercream with my 2D tip. If you have a turntable, it makes things a bit easier so that you can spin as you pipe. We used this recipe but any frosting that holds it's shape nicely to piping would work well.

Still going! I love the effect.

Here is a shot of the back of the cake. I stopped and started my bands of frosting in the same spot, creating a seam all the way down. If the seam bothers you, you can pipe a vertical line of small rosettes, or add sugar pearl "buttons", but I like the look just as it is ;0).

The piped frosting was finished in just a matter of about 5-10 minutes! Next, I created a fondant plaque. We actually used a plaque cookie cutter for this. If you don't have one & would like this same shape, you can use a rectangular cutter and then snip away the corners with a small circle cutter or piping tip.

I dusted my plaque with silver luster dust. (Rolkem Super Silver)

My fondant numbers were cut using a Wilton cutter set. I dusted with gold luster dust (Rolkem Super Gold) & sparkled with hologram twinkle dust.

Now for the stars! I melted white candy coating/bark coating and spooned it into a disposable piping bag (with the tip snipped away). Then, I piped lots of stars onto a waxed paper lined cookie sheet. I chilled in the freezer for about 5 minutes so that they would set up much more quickly and could be easily handled.

Using a dry paintbrush, I dusted my stars with silver and gold luster dust. Pearl dust would have been nice too! I chilled the dusted stars one last time for a few minutes before placing them into the frosting. (* Use your preferred luster dust for your stars. I used Rolkem Super Silver & Rolkem Super Gold luster dust for mine, which I ordered online. You could also sprinkle your stars with sparkling sugar/sprinkles or sugar pearls before they set up, or by using a little piping gel as adhesive.)