In today's cake decorating video, I'm going to demonstrate how to create a beautiful ruffled buttercream cake with a striped gum paste bow!
These techniques are so versatile, and can be applied to cakes for all sorts of occasions (from weddings, to baby showers, to birthdays)!
I think that you will love how quickly the buttercream ruffles take shape. Enjoy the video!
Materials:
The cake in this video is an 8 inch tier with a 6 inch double barrel tier on top. Double Barrel cakes are tall cakes with a cake board (and supports beneath) about halfway up.
Each of our tiers is on its own cardboard cake circle cut down to size. The 8 inch (bottom tier) has 5 bubble tea straw supports to hold the weight of the 6 inch tier.
The cakes are frosted in our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Recipe. Our Classic Vanilla Buttercream is perfect for this also!
Buttercream
Gum Paste for the bow (or fondant with tylose kneaded into it)
Pre Colored Black Fondant for the stripes & center of bow
Gold Dragees or your decoration of choice for the center of bow
Wilton Heart Sprinkles, painted gold
Gold Luster Dust (we used Rolkem Super Gold)
Vodka (for creating the "paint")
Piping Tips: Wilton 104 (petal tip/ruffles)
Coloring Gel: We used Wilton Rose
Piping Gel (for "glue")
Spatula- I used a small tapered spatula for the ridged buttercream
FMM Multi Ribbon Cutter (Optional, but I used this for cutting my stripes.)
Supports of your choice (I used bubble tea straws for my supports. 5 beneath the top tier, and 4 within the double barrel.)
Cardboard cake circles- 3 total. I used one beneath each tier, and one within the double barrel (halfway up)
Miscellaneous: Small paint brushes (only use with cakes), plate or palette for mixing gold and painting sprinkles,
Notes:
- My strips of gum paste for the loops were 7 inches long by 2.5 inches wide.
- The black stripes and black band around the bottom tier were just over ¼ inch wide.
- For the ruffle technique, I like to pipe my ruffles onto a freshly crumb coated cake. There is a chance that if the crumb coat is very dry and crusted, the ruffles may not adhere quite as easily.
Bows on Cakes!
We just love elegant gum paste bows on cakes! We've created many over the years, from large loopy gum paste bows to fluffy, Curled Gum Paste Bows, to Classic Gum Paste Bows and more!
More Cakes with Buttercream Ruffles!
We've made so many cakes over the years that feature piped buttercream ruffles! Here are just a few more of our favorite ruffled buttercream tutorials:
Elegant Swan Cake (featuring tiny diagonally piped ruffles)
Gum Paste Peony Cake with Vertical Buttercream Ruffles
Buttercream Ruffles and Roses Cake
Buttercream Ruffled Roses Cake
Elegant Swan Cake
Show us Your Cakes!
If you try out this design or a decorative element of this design (whether the gum paste bow, ruffled buttercream tier, or buttercream textured ridged effect) we would love for you to leave a comment and photo below!
I LOVE this ruffle look! The pink,black and white look so chic together!
What is your counter made of? Quartz, marble?
Ansa
This is gorgeous!! I love the ruffle technique and it goes on so fast! Thanks for this fantastic tutorial!
Oh and the best part...you don't have to completely smooth your buttercream!! Love that!
Anither fab cake idea Melissa x
Thank you all so much for your comments!!
@Ansa- Thanks! We film at Mom's (BeBe's) - She has a limestone countertop ;0) xo
Lovely cake Melissa. I've only tried ruffles once and it was a disaster. Is the buttercream stiff consistency? Thanks
I love the hot pink with the ruffles and the bow! It's just so chic and elegant! Love it?
Adorable! If you had to estimate, how many batches of the buttercream would this require (inside and out)?
Hi Carrie, I think you would need 1 1/2 time the recipe, or you could double the recipe, knowing that you will have some leftover. You can freeze the frosting for months.
Wow that is a very striking cake! Gorgeous! Love that bright pink too. Beautiful and creative as always! :)
I love it beautiful cake awesome technic
I thought this was such a pretty cake. Here's my version of it. Thanks Melissa!