In this video tutorial, you will learn to create a beautiful quilted pattern onto a buttercream frosted cake (which we then decorate with a piped chrysanthemum and a bit of ruching texture!) The elegant quilting, as well as the lovely “extras” we’ve added, are perfect for any occasion that calls for something special! We hope that you enjoy the video!
Materials:
This cake is two stacked (6″ & 8″) tiers which are each on their own cake cardboard. The top tier is supported by 4 bubble tea straws from beneath as usual (For more info on tier stacking, see our video tutorial). The tiers are frosted with our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream recipe from the Recipes section.
Your crusting buttercream of choice (we used our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream recipe)
Clear/Plastic Diamond Impression Mat (I’ve had mine for years, I believe THIS is the one–but there are many options online.)
Lollipop stick (or skewer, etc.) for the ruched technique
Piping tip 81 for the Chrysanthemum petals, Piping tip 4 (any small round tip will do) for a small bead border
Gold dragee (or your dragees/sugar pears/decoration of choice) for the center of the flower
*Allow approximately 20-30 minutes for the final coat of smoothed frosting to crust before creating your impressions. Crusting buttercreams can be effected by humidity- it may take a bit longer to crust if it is very humid it your kitchen.
Can’t wait to watch this one…thank you so much for all these great buttercream tutorials!!
Gorgeous cake! I love the quilted pattern. I’ve used it a few times and it never disappoints. Love the white on white :)
Gorgeous! Love buttercream cakes! I may give this one a try!
Love this! I also love buttercream cakes! May I ask what you do with all these cakes after you are done decorating? So sorry if that’s a nosey question but I have a list of “want to do cakes” but I wouldn’t know what to do with them…..I sure cannot eat them all :)
You made my day … again … with the all buttercream cake!!! I love this and I just so happen to have that impression mat. I’m wondering/hoping that it would work with an all chocolate icing and I can dust the mat with cocoa. Thanks!!!
Hi GuppyLove, We give some of our cakes to neighbors, it always makes people smile to be surprised with a cake….and our families love cake.
Hi Joan, If you are using a crusting chocolate frosting it should work fine, and a light dusting of the impression mat with cocoa is perfect.
I love this look! I can’t wait to make one, or two, or three! Thank you Melissa and BeBe!!!
~Jennifer
Thank you ladies for all of your nice comments!! xoxo
Hi girls, have you ever used the second method on fondant? Is it just as nice? I have used the quilt on fondant but was just curious about the other method…thanks Melissa and BeBe!!
Hi Teri- We’ve never experimented to see how much of a ruched look you can get with fondant through impressions as we did on our top tier in this video. As long as your fondant doesn’t set up quickly, you can make nice impressions on cakes that have been freshly covered with fondant as we did on the middle tier of our Ruffled Rose Cake Tutorial linked below (21 minute mark) –
https://www.mycakeschool.com/video-tutorials/fondant-ruffled-tutorialmember/
The ruched fondant tutorials that I’ve seen involve applying the ruched/gathered fondant pieces section by section which is a time consuming process but it does have a nice look to it. We hope to add a tutorial soon on this method, and I’m sure we’ll also experiment a bit with ruched impressions when we do ;0)
Love this tutorial! Thank you!!!!! <3
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What size of diamond pattern is your mat? (inches please) – thank you!!
Beautiful cake! I’m making a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Will rouching work on that as well?
Hi, I love the look of this cake and can’t wait to try it myself. Did you find a link to the clear plastic diamond impression mat?
Hi Jeanne, Thanks for reminding us, click on the link below.
https://www.countrykitchensa.com/shop/icing-fondant-tools/earlenes-diamond-impression-mat-1/38/527/1327/633897/
Hi Sherry, the diamond measures 1 1/4 inch from point to point
Have you quilted a non crusting buttercream? Any tips please?
Hi Teresa, I have not…but it would be fun to experiment. Impression mats will not work on room temp non-crusting buttercream. However, if you chill the frosted cake until the frosting is very firm, I think that you could make at least a faint impression with a mat. Then, this will give you a map to follow as you go in with a hot knife or hot metal gum paste tool to trace back over those impressions. This is all a guess…but I think that it could work. I would first test it on a smaller scale before accepting an order just to be on the safe side. I think that you could do the ruching as we did on the top tier in the same way (and much more easily than quilting) — Let us know if you try!
Would this quilt pattern work on fondant?
Hi Janelle, this is a good reminder to me that we need a quilted fondant video! We had one many years ago but took it down last year because the lighting was just not good enough to see the details.
To answer your question, you can use an impression mat but it can be a bit difficult to get the impressions as easily as you can with crusting buttercream. To remedy this you can use the imperssion mat to map things out, and then trace over the faint quilted impressions with a stitching wheel to make them deeper.
I have a 3 diamond embosser for fondant that I like to use instead of a mat for fondant quilting because you can easily get deeper quilted impressions. Mine is several years old and so I don’t have a link to share, but you can google to see many options & styles of quilted fondant embossers.
Here is a good YouTube video that demonstrates using an embosser (and tracing over with stitching wheel). I hope this helps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uifieloe_mU
I used the quilted pattern on a buttercream wedding cake and it turned out great.