Autumn Leaves Brush Embroidery Cake-Free Tutorial

5 from 1 vote

This beautiful fall cake features a simple brush embroidery technique which can be applied to cakes for all sorts of occasions!

Cake of Choice (We used an 8 inch cake frosted with our Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting tinted ivory as well as red, orange and yellow for the leaves.)
Leaf cookie cutters We made impressions after freezing our frosted cake tier for about 20 minutes
Coloring Gels: We used Americolor Ivory Super Red, Orange, Lemon Yellow
Piping tips: Round tip 4 or similar size round tip
Small paintbrush es of choice
Miscellaneous: We used disposable piping bags a small offset spatula, small paintbrush, couplers (so that you can swap out piping tips as needed). When frosting the smooth finish on my cakes, I like to use a turntable and smooth the frosting using a bench scraper.

After frosting the cake with the base coat of frosting, chill in the freezer for 20 minutes (or more in if refrigerating) until the frosting has firmed up.
Create impressions in the chilled, firm frosting using leaf cookie cutters. (Doing this with chilled frosting will give you a cleaner impression).
Using a small round piping tip, (tip 3 or 4), outline the shapes with buttercream. Next, go in and pipe your contrasting colors next to the previously piped outline(s).
Using a small dampened paintbrush, pull the piped buttercream towards the center of each leaf. I kept the outer outline of the leaf mostly intact.
That's it! You can experiment with the length of your brush strokes as well as thin brushes vs. flat, slightly wider brushes, etc.
It is a good idea to practice on a sheet of wax or parchment paper!
If at any time your base coat of frosting becomes too soft, you can firm it in the freezer again (15-20 minutes) as needed so that you will have more control over the texture of your brush embroidery that you are layering on.