Today I’m going to demonstrate the beautiful technique of buttercream palette knife painting!
I just love frosted cakes with lots of texture, and in this free cake video tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create a gorgeous floral design without using any piping tips.
Adding Texture to Buttercream
The buttercream texturing techniques that you will learn in today’s video tutorial are so beautiful, yet very simple to learn and recreate.
The palette knife floral design looks just like a painting.
In addition to the palette knife flowers, we also demonstrate how to create fine textured lines in buttercream using a silicone pastry brush.
We are always in search of new, fun ways to add texture to buttercream and this method is just about as easy as it gets!
Materials:
In this tutorial, our tier sizes were 8 inch and 6 inch. As usual, each tier is resting on it’s own cardboard cake circle cut down to size. The top tier is supported by 4 bubble tea straws from beneath (cut to the height of the bottom tier).
Buttercream Frosting: We used our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Recipe
Silicone Pastry Brush (for texturing our tiers)
Palette Knives of Choice- We bought ours locally from Joann Fabric (as we mentioned, you could also achieve a similar look from offset spatulas)
Coloring Gels: We used Americolor Deep Pink, Avocado Green, Electric Green, and Lemon Yellow
Disposable Piping Bags
Miscellaneous- Plastic Spoon (optional) we used for the tulips, turntable (helpful), bench scraper (helpful for smoothing the frosting before applying texture), small offset spatula, parchment or waxed paper, disposable piping bag
Notes:
If adding texture to our tiers as I did, go ahead and use your pastry brush immediately after frosting your tiers so that the frosting doesn’t crust before you have a chance to apply texture.
You may find it helpful to chill your tiers to firm up the buttercream before applying the flowers.
A soft (not runny) consistency of frosting is best for painting.
I kept my main colors of buttercream in small containers with plastic wrap or a dampened paper towel on top so that they wouldn’t crust over while I worked.
I find it easiest to pipe dots of buttercream first and then use the palette knife to spread it/add texture.
Very fun and delicate… easy too.
I have a tiltable turntable that might work for BC palette painting.
I will try it and get back to you. Lovely! Thanks Melissa.
So so great. thanks
Thank you Ann & D!
@Ann- Yes, if you try, let us know what you think! ;0)
I haven’t had a chance to watch the video yet, but the cake is beautiful!!!! :-)
Love this design! It’s gorgeous! Love it! :-)
Thank you. So pretty.
So excited to watch and learn this. I’m very happy you did this technique :) Thank you
Beautiful! On my list of wanna do’s?
What buttercream recipe did you use for the cake?
Hi Rosa, we used our fluffy vanilla buttercream recipe from our Recipes section:https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes/fluffy-vanilla-buttercream/
It is beautiful! I love the linen look and the beautiful flowers!
Love the look and the technique!
Just beautiful! Can’t wait to try this!
Very inspiring! I sadly gave up decorating my cakes because of arthritis.
But, even if I do squeeze a bag, for this, it’s softer buttercream.
Do you have other cake decorating ideas that don’t involve lots of hand squeezing? I wish I could make things like your fondant unicorn, but I can’t.
How tall was each tier? Relationship was perfect! Beautiful work
am going to try it