Layered Buttercream Cake Tutorial

Jump To Recipe Jump To Video

In this free cake video tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful Layered Buttercream Cake! This technique is easy to create and perfect for so many special occasions.

Combed white buttercream cake layered with peach layer of frosting and pink layer of frosting so that each layer of color is exposed.Topped with pink gerbera daisy.

 Whether you are layering on just a couple of shades of buttercream or many, this tutorial will show you how to master this design quickly and easily.

Materials for Layered Buttercream Cake

This layered buttercream technique would work well for cakes of all sizes. You can find our printable recipe card further down in this post.

The cake in this video tutorial is a 6 inch (diameter) double barrel cake. This tall cake is four layers high, with a cake cardboard halfway up and bubble tea straw supports beneath (cut to the height of the first two filled cake layers).  The cake is resting on it's own cake cardboard cut to the size of the cake.

For the Cake: Any cake recipe will do for this layered buttercream technique! Some of our favorite Cake Recipes are our Vanilla Buttermilk Cake, Lemon Cake, Yellow Cake, and Chocolate Cake! We have lots of great cake mix recipes also!

Buttercream: We frosted the cake with our Classic Vanilla Buttercream. (Our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream frosting would work well also)

Coloring Gels: I wanted to match the color of flower on top of the cake which was a deep peachy/pink shade. To achieve this, I combined a bit of Americolor Terra Cotta coloring with Wilton Rose. I used this for both the lighter shade and darker shade.

Piping Tip: Small round tip for border and dots (We used a Wilton 3 tip)

Cake Comb: Optional. We used a comb from a set of Wilton combs 

Bench Scraper or offset spatula. We find a bench scraper to be really helpful.

Turntable (optional)

Gerbera daisy for top of cake (or whatever topper you choose)

Miscellaneous: disposable piping bags

Beautiful Layered Buttercream Technique

Notes for Layered Buttercream Cake: 

Here are just a few helpful notes for creating this layered buttercream cake.

Crumb Coating and Chilling the Cake

For this technique, I frosted the cake first with a crumb coat. As I often do with my cakes, I like to freeze my crumb coated tier for about 15-20 minutes to firm things up before going in with the second layer of frosting.

Combing the Frosting, Chilling, Layering

I frosted the cake with vanilla buttercream, and then combed the cake. Keep in mind that only the top section of this combed design will be visible after applying the other layers of buttercream.

Combine white buttercream frosting around the sides of a cake.

After combing the tier, I chilled once again in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm up before applying a thick layer of lighter pink buttercream around the mid section of the cake.

Adding light pink buttercream to the mid section of the cake around the sides.
Layered Buttercream Cake Design.

Smooth with a bench scraper. You can heat a metal bench scraper with hot water to smooth any problem areas.

Combed white buttercream cake with smooth pink buttercream section around the middle.

Chilling and adding final frosting layer

Once again, I chilled the tier in the freezer for about 15 minutes or so to firm up the first two layers of buttercream before adding the final darker shade of buttercream around the bottom of the tier.

Apply it thick enough that you can easily smooth it with a bench scraper without interfering with the other layers of buttercream.

Applying dark pink buttercream around the bottom of the layered buttercream cake design.

Fresh Flower Cake Topper

We topped the cake with a gerbera daisy (resting on a small piece of wax paper which acts as a barrier).

*We did not add a water source/water pick to the flower as it will look good on the cake several hours. (In our test, we refrigerated the cake overnight and it still looked good the next morning).  Of course you can use a floral water pick/tube if you would like!

Cake with a layered buttercream cake design (white frosting, peach frosting, and pink frosting) on a white pedestal. Topped with pink gerbera daisy.

More Buttercream Cake Designs

We love decorating cakes with buttercream! Check out these other favorite designs. Some of our favorites are the Ridged Buttercream Technique, Petal Cake, and Naked Cake designs!

You can all find all sorts of Simple Cake Designs in our Birthday Cake roundup!

Cake Recipes

As we mentioned earlier in the post, this layered buttercream cake design would work with any of our cake recipes! Some popular choices are our White Velvet Cake, White Chocolate Cake, Raspberry Cake, Almond Cake, and Strawberry Cake.

Don't miss our full collection of go-to Cake Recipes and Cake Decorating Tutorials!

Layered Buttercream Cake Design

Learn how to create an elegant and unique cake design that involves layering buttercream onto cakes in different shades and textures.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Course: Dessert
RATE THIS RECIPE
Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients

  • Cake Recipe of your choosing
  • Classic Vanilla Buttercream (Or your favorite buttercream that contains butter so that it firms quickly when chilled.)
  • Coloring gels: We used Americolor Terra Cotta + Wilton Rose.
  • Bench scraper and cake comb (cake comb is optional for layered buttercream, but needed or the design that we demonstrated. Our is from a Wilton set.)
  • Piping tip 3 for adding small dots and bead border (optional)
  • Gerbera Daisy (optional)

Instructions

  • Frost your cake in vanilla buttercream as usual. We crumb coated our cake, chilled to firm the icing for 10-15 minutes in the freezer. Then, we added additional frosting and combed. Keep in mind that only the top half of this frosting will show.
  • After combing the tier, I chilled once again in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm up before applying a thick layer of lighter pink buttercream around the mid section of the cake. Smooth with a bench scraper.
  • Once again, I chilled the tier in the freezer for about 15 minutes or so to firm up the first two layers of buttercream before adding the final darker shade of buttercream around the bottom of the tier.
    Apply it thick enough that you can easily smooth it with a bench scraper without interfering with the other layers of buttercream.
  • We topped the cake with a gerbera daisy (resting on a small piece of wax paper which acts as a barrier).
    *We did not add a water source/water pick to the flower as it will look good on the cake several hours. (In our test, we refrigerated the cake overnight and it still looked good the next morning).  Of course you can use a floral water pick/tube if you would like!

Video

Notes

Your layered buttercream cake can incorporated as many layer as you'd like.
Some decorators have done mountain scenes with a similar method. There are so many great options!
The most important rule is just to chill your cake until buttercream is firm before moving on to the next layer. This is easiest to do with frostings that contain butter (rather than shortening.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image. Drop file here

5 Comments

  1. OMGosh! I love it! Great job! Simple but fabulous as always! :-) Love the added texture and polka dots :-)

  2. Thank you very much for giving us this tutorial. I made one with your instruction with a 6" tall cake.