In this free cake decorating video tutorial, you will learn an elegant technique for creating cascading rosettes of buttercream. I absolutely love to cover cakes in buttercream piping!
This is one of those great piping techniques that looks SO impressive that nobody would ever believe how simple it actually is.
In fact, it has the appearance of rosettes that are piped individually in an overlapping pattern. This method is every bit as beautiful as if we had piped the rosettes individually, but can be done with more consistency and in a fraction of the time.
No matter what your cake decorating skill level, you will be able to master the technique in no time.
Once you get the basic motion down, I think that you’ll find that this style of decorating goes much more quickly than trying to create a perfectly smooth buttercream finish to your cakes!
It’s nice to change things up now and then, isn’t it? In the cake video, we are using a Wilton 2D star tip.
A large 1M star tip will give you a very similar look. Whether you use a large star tip or experiment with various piping tips, I hope that you enjoy the technique! It’s one of our favorites.
Materials:
In this video, I’m piping onto a freshly crumb coated 6″ cake with our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream. The tier is on it’s own cake board, cut down to the size of the cake.
Wilton 2D piping tip
Americolor Christmas Red Coloring Gel (for the pinky/peach color of our buttercream)
*This piping technique will work with any buttercream recipe that holds up well to piping. We used our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream frosting recipe but you can find other frosting choices in our Recipes Section!
Thanks for stopping by!
Another gorgeous design! Very pretty and fabulous! I have learned to absolutely love textured buttercream. It is so much faster and far less boring than smooth buttercream. Love it! :)
I agree with MsGF, thanks for another gorgeous cake design. I am also enjoying seeing different ways to use tips, nozzles, tubes, which ever way you call them.
I agree…smooth buttercream is so boring…love love these fancy buttercream cakes. Beautiful color on this one too!
Beautiful!!! Thanks Melissa!!!!
Love all the buttercream cakes and new designs. So quick and easy to do and there’s a big wow factor. Thanks!!
Forgot to add that I could probably do this using chocolate frosting as well.
I love this! Much more than the original rosette cake. It’s beautiful. Much more clean looking.
Please keep the buttercream decorating videos coming! I love all these ideas!
Very nice. I was looking for a fresh buttercream idea that will go quickly on a work night. This will fit the bill nicely! Thanks for keeping BC videos coming
Very elegant look and the added candle & ribbon kick it up a notch to stunning!
Thank you xx I’m sure to try this sometime xx
Thank you all so much for your comments!! I’m so glad that you like the tutorial. It’s such a fun technique, have fun experimenting!
Thank you, I really like your elegant and simple ideas. from where can I get this color???
This is beautiful, and a nice alternative to individual rosettes!! Thank you for the wonderful video!!
I have a question. How do you deliver your buttercream cakes on a pedastool? I am having trouble delivering my cakes the getting them on the appropriate stand without losing the design.
Hi Adrienne- I actually never deliver cakes on the pedestal. If the cake needs to travel, I decorate the cake (as always) on it’s own cake board trimmed down to the size of the cake, chill the decorated tier until firm, then move it and glue it with frosting to a cake base. The cake base could be something along the lines of a cake drum, or a few round cake cardboards glued together and covered with your covering of choice (decorative foil, plastic tablecloth & ribbon, fondant, etc.). Then, the cake on it’s cake base would simply be placed on the pedestal.
Hi Melissa,
I made this cake and I had a little trouble with it. I got it completely iced and then a section of the roses started sliding off. I waited a few minutes and then iced again, well the next day another section fell down. :( Any thoughts as to why this might have happened? I was really sad because it looked really pretty when it was finished.
Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that cjrod! How frustrating!! –
I’ll go over a few possible reasons in case one of these stands out to you:
As you work your way up the cake with your piping, you want most of the rosette to be in contact with the crumb coated cake beneath. There is some overlap with the rosette beneath as you work your way up, but as long as most of the rosette is in contact with the cake, it should be fine. Too much overlapping with your rosettes could weigh things down and cause sliding.
I also think that it’s a good idea to pipe soon after crumb coating the cake. Piping onto the cake before the crumb coat has a chance to develop a crust may help it to adhere even better.
Another idea is to keep the crumb coat on the thin side. If by chance you had a thick layer of frosting beneath the rosettes, it may slide (especially if the crumb coated layer was soft.)
If the crumb coat was very cold (just removed from the fridge) it may have developed condensation as you did your piping which may have interfered.
Finally, the next time that you try this design, (and if you have the fridge space) I would chill the cake until it’s closer to the time of serving. This is especially true if you will be transporting the cake. I like to travel with chilled cakes. This firms up the frosting and helps everything to stay in place.
I hope that this helps and I’m so sorry that you had an issue! xo
I love this technique, but I’m wondering how it will work is only 4 inches tall…. I’m doing a cake for my in laws 50th anniversary, a 12 inch, 10 inch, 8 inch (possibly a 6 inch on top)… Any thoughts? Would you do this on each tier, on leave one tier plain frosting? Piped top, or smooth? I want it to look really professional, but I’m not sure exactly how to put it all together.
Hi Melissa, would this design work with SMBC frosting?
WHERE can I find the large unusual tips? No super JoAnn or Michael’s.
Hi Barbara, the tip that I used in this video (2D) should be available at JoAnn, Michael’s, etc. The more unusual tips like Russian tips or larger french tips, etc. can be found online. (Amazon is a good place to look for unusual piping tips!)
I can’t wait to try out this technique! So pretty. I’ll be making a 2 tiered cake for my mom’s birthday and can’t think of another buttercream piping technique that will pair well with the cascading rosettes. I was thinking the top 6″ will have the cascading rosettes and stuck on the bottom tier. Any thoughts?
Thanks ?
Can I do it with whipped cream instead of buttercream? Thank you
Hi Laura, my guess is that it wouldn’t be quite sturdy enough to hold it’s shape. A stabilizer could help but I would definitely do a practice run first. Let us know if you try it!
Hi I have tried a couple times.Mine fall off after they crust.I don’t put in frig,afraid cake will dry out?Any other tips
Hi Rachel, I’m sorry that you’ve had trouble. For best results, you’ll want to pipe your buttercream onto a freshly crumb coated cake. This helps the piping to adhere a bit better. If you did this and still had issues, I would make sure that your piping is largely on the cake itself. As you see in the video, there is a slight overlap with each rosette over the rosette before it, but most of the piping is connecting to the cake itself so that it can better support the weight of the frosting. Otherwise, the weight of the frosting becomes too heavy.
Finally, I wouldn’t worry about refrigerating the cake. We do it all the time. The buttercream does a great job of sealing in the freshness. As long as the cake is in a bakery box or cake dome, etc. it is fine to refrigerate. I hope this helps!
Thank you!
How many cups of frosting would I need to do this technique on a 3 layered 8-inch round cake?
Thank you:-)
Hi Suzanne, I don’t think a single batch will quite do it (which would be around 6 cups of frosting). I would double the batch, and just freeze the leftovers for another time.
Thank you! Good to know the frosting can be frozen.
Gosh, it sure looks easy, a cinch, till all the frosting starts oozing out of the top of the bag and I have a huge mess going on. My cake did not look anything like your beautiful work of art. More practice for me!
Haha, oh no! It will become a little easier with every cake ;0)