Every once in a while I’ll have a client request a fondant cake because it “looks better” than buttercream cakes. But buttercream cakes can look just as beautiful as a fondant cake! And some people don’t even like the taste of fondant. Or a fondant cake may be a bit pricier than a buttercream cake!
Many cake designs can only be created with buttercream frosting. And with the right tools and technique, you can create gorgeous cakes without fondant 🙂 So let’s go through a few of them, shall we?
Naked Cakes
Naked cakes are the most effortless buttercream frosting design, and it doesn’t even have that much buttercream. You can also add a thin layer of buttercream frosting to create a semi-naked, equally beautiful look!
Naked cakes are essentially your crumb-coated cake before you apply the final coat of buttercream or fondant. Usually, the crumb coat is meant to trap all of the crumbs before the final buttercream coat of a cake, but you don’t really want your naked cake to be all crumby 😐
Feel free to watch our YouTube video on how to crumb coat and mask a cake 🙂 And you can see how we decorated this smash cake, but we crumb coated the cake first!
Keep your naked cakes clean by using a pastry bag to add your buttercream frosting. Pipe the buttercream onto each layer as you’re assembling the cake, and you can also pipe around the cake once you’ve stacked each layer. This method really helps reduce the crumbs since you’re not “pulling” and spreading the crumbs as you spread the buttercream with your offset spatula.
Another quick tip for naked cakes is to trim the edge of your cake board/circle so it doesn’t show at the bottom of your cake!
We demonstrated this cake decorating tip in our Instagram reel decorating a naked cake for an 18th birthday!
Ombre Cakes
Ombre cakes are very impressive and mesmerizing to look at, don’t you think?? If you’re unfamiliar with the term “ombre”, this effect displays a gradual change in colour from dark to light. With buttercream frosting, an ombre effect can look so seamless and the shades of colour flow into each other so beautifully.
To create an ombre buttercream cake, start with the darkest shade of the colour you’ll be using, and gradually add more and more white buttercream to lighten the colour for each row. For example, if you’re making a smooth cake, piping one row of buttercream around the cake, add the rest of the buttercream to a bowl and add some white buttercream. Mix the buttercream and pipe the next row. Repeat this process until the cake is covered. Then smooth it out with a cake scraper.
We go more in-depth about ombre cakes in our post – How to Create a Beautiful Ombre Effect on Your Cake! Learn how to decorate a cake with a flawless and smooth ombre 🙂
Rosette cakes
Rosette cakes are so pretty, don’t you think?! Once you get the hang of piping beautifully even rosettes, this cake design is so easy since it really only requires one technique!
You can also create a few different designs with rosette cakes. Rosette cakes can be one colour or ombre, or even rainbow!
For rosette cakes, I like to use a closed star tip to pipe the rosettes. My preferred piping tips are the Wilton 1M or Ateco 844. I love my set of Ateco closed star tips! I definitely use these tips the most when decorating cakes and cupcakes!
Painted Buttercream Cakes
I always feel like an artist when I make a painted buttercream cake. A blank cake is my canvas and I just “paint” away! Painted buttercream cakes mimic the look of brush strokes in a painting.
To create a painted buttercream cake, you can use an offset spatula or palette knife to “paint” the cake. Just add a bit of buttercream to the tip of your cake decorating tool and spread it onto the cake. You’ll need to reapply buttercream with each “brush stroke”, and you should also have a separate palette knife for each colour.
Paint buttercream with white buttercream frosting alone, or add another colour. You can also research some colour palettes to be even more creative and decorate with colours that complement each other.
I’ve made cakes with just a hint of painted buttercream, and some that are completely covered with buttercream “brush” strokes. Either way, this cake style is truly so elegant and would fit perfectly with any special occasion, like a wedding or baptism!
Marble cakes
Like painted buttercream cakes, marble cakes also make me feel so artistic! In my opinion, looking at a marble cake almost feels like looking at a painting. Art is subjective after all, right?
There are a few methods for making a marble cake design. In the method I normally use, I would mask the cake with one colour, and smooth it out. Then I add little smudges of buttercream sporadically in another colour (or two), and smooth it out again.
I made this fun donut and ice cream scoop cake using this method.
Another method combines different colours of buttercream in a bowl. Marble together and spread onto a sheet of acetate. Wrap around the cake, chill then unwrap. This cake decorating technique displays a more typical marble look.
Buttercream cakes are more versatile than some may think. It’s not only the typical smooth white buttercream, with some pretty piping and sprinkles around the cake that we’re used to seeing in bakery windows and grocery stores.
Plus, with multi-tiered cakes, you can combine more than one type of cake decorating technique! Maybe try one tier with smooth buttercream, then rosettes on another cake tier. Or a rustic design on one cake tier, and painted buttercream on the other tier.
Want to learn more about cakes with multiple tiers? We outline everything you need to know in your post Creating a Cake With Multiple Tiers: Assembly and Design Ideas!
Happy cake decorating!
Mich
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