I absolutely love the details on this cake, from the pretty piping to the spooky sprinkles and a touch of sparkle created with this gold shimmer dust. It would be so stunning on any Halloween party table! And it’s delicious too – underneath all that pretty piping is my favorite black velvet cake recipe.

JOANN has an incredible selection of Halloween food crafting items like sprinkles, molds, cake pans, toppers, and really everything you could need to spook up your party table. It’s really a one-stop shop for all things Halloween though – from frightening home decor to the perfect fabric for any costume. I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing some extras like these skull shaped ice cube molds and this pretty pumpkin scented candle. 

Lambeth Cake Tips for Success

If you’ve never made one before, a Lambeth cake may look a little intimidating. Since the style involves over-piping (aka you can never pipe too many details), it ends up being a really forgiving design. Here are some of my best tips to set you up for success: 

Start with a chilled cake. Before you pipe any details, make sure that your smooth buttercream finish is nice and chilled (firm to the touch). This helps keep the buttercream finish intact while you pipe on top and will help any piping set quickly because of the cold surface. 

Place a larger cake circle underneath. Since you’ll be piping details onto the bottom border of the cake, it will save you a lot of stress to make sure the cake is sitting on a cake circle that’s larger than the cake and any piping. This way you can just lift the whole cake off of the turntable while keeping all the piping perfect. For example, since my cake layers are 6-inches in diameter, I decorated my cake on an 8-inch cake circle for easy transfer. 

Plan out your piping. It’s not enough to know what kinds of designs you want to pipe on a Lambeth cake. You have to know where to pipe them. This is where a template comes in handy, and I’ll show you how to make the most simple template ever in this tutorial below. 

Create the ideal buttercream consistency. Piping looks its best when you’re using buttercream that is the right consistency. Not so thick that there are crinkly edges, but not so thin that you can’t see detail and the designs are drooping. You want a stiff consistency buttercream, and this post will show you how to create it with my American buttercream recipe. 

Here’s a video tutorial that will walk you through how to create this Halloween Lambeth Cake from start to finish. Give it a watch before you read through the detailed steps below!

If you love cake decorating tutorial videos like this one, be sure to check out my YouTube channel! I’ve got a growing collection of recipes, decorating tutorials, and Cake Basics over there. Hit the subscribe button on my page so you never miss a new video.

You Will Need

• 6-inch cake that’s been frosted smooth and chilled
• 8-inch cake circle to decorate on
• 6-inch cake pan (for tracing)
• Wax or parchment paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Toothpick
• 2 ¼ inch round cookie cutter 
• Scotch tape
• 1 batch (3 Cups) of vanilla buttercream 
• Bowls and spoons for color mixing
• Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring
• 2 Tablespoons Black cocoa powder or regular cocoa powder
• Cake turntable
• Wilton tips 104, 4B, and 32
• Piping bags
• STIR Halloween Sprinkle Mixes
• STIR Edible Shimmer Dust in Gold 

Step 1: Make the Lambeth Template + Mark the Cake

The Lambeth technique is all about symmetry. The best way to keep your piping symmetrical is to make a template to mark out equal sized sections on your cake. To make the template, flip a cake pan (the same size as your cake layers) upside down onto a piece of parchment paper. Trace around it with a pencil and cut out the circle. Flipping the pan upside down and tracing around the lip helps account for the frosting on the sides of the cake when measuring the true diameter.

After cutting out your parchment paper circle, fold it in half three times to create 8 equal-sized sections.

Place the template on top of the chilled cake and mark each crease with a toothpick (a). Find a round glass or cookie cutter that’s the same diameter as the sections in your template and place a piece of scotch tape across the middle to create a half circle (b). This will help you line it up with the top of your cake as you press it into the sides (c) to indicate where each garland will go.

Step 2: Mix the Color Palette

Divide the 3 Cups of buttercream equally amongst three separate bowls and mix in the color gels of your choosing. I used the Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring set to custom mix these colors. In the first bowl, I mixed in 5 drops of Orange. In the second bowl, 5 drops of Pink and 2 drops of Blue to create a warm purple tone.

To create the black color in the last bowl, I first mixed in 2 Tablespoons of black cocoa powder to create a dark brown color, then mixed in 3 drops of Black. This way, I didn’t have to use nearly as much food coloring. If you don’t have access to black cocoa powder, you can use regular cocoa powder instead but note that you’ll need to use a few more drops of Black. 

Step 3: Prepare the Piping Bags

Fit two piping bags with Wilton Tip 104 and add half of the black buttercream into one and half of the purple buttercream into another. Fit two piping bags with Wilton Tip 4B and add the rest of the black buttercream and the rest of the purple buttercream. Fit one piping bag with Wilton Tip 32 and add the orange buttercream. 

Step 4: Create the Bottom Border

Starting at the bottom edge of the cake, pipe a shell border with Wilton Tip 4B using the black buttercream. To pipe a shell border, hold the bag at a 45 degree angle and squeeze the piping bag until the buttercream fans out and forces the tip upward (a). Gradually relax pressure as you lower the tip and pull the bag toward you to create a tail (b). Pipe the next shell directly onto the tail of the first (c).

Continue piping shells all the way around the bottom edge of the cake, until you reach the very first shell you piped.Using the same technique, pipe a smaller shell border on top of the first using Wilton Tip 32 and the orange buttercream.

Place purple eyeball sprinkles onto the shell border as accents. I placed mine directly below where each of the indented semi-circles from the template connected.

Step 5: Create the Ruffle Garlands + Accents 

Onto each of the semi-circle indents you created in Step 1, use the black buttercream-filled piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 104 to create the ruffle garland. To create a ruffle, hold the piping bag at a 45 degree angle to the surface of the cake with the skinny end of the tip facing away from the cake (a). Squeeze the bag as you move your hand slightly up and down to create the ruffle texture as you pipe (b). Release pressure on the bag once you’ve ended the ruffle where you desire (c).

Continue piping black ruffles along the semi-circle indents until you reach the first one you piped.

Using the piping bag filled with purple buttercream and fitted with Wilton Tip 104, pipe a second set of purple ruffles directly onto each black ruffle.

Use the orange piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 32 to pipe a small shell with the tail pointed upwards where each of the ruffle sets connect. Place a black spider sprinkle onto the top of the middle shell.

Pipe a purple star about an inch beneath each space where the ruffles connect using Wilton tip 4B. Place a skull sprinkle on top of each star. Gently press a pumpkin sprinkle about ½ inch beneath each skull-topped purple star.

Step 6: Decorate the Top of the Cake 

On the top edge of the cake, pipe a shell border with Wilton Tip 32 and the orange buttercream. Pipe another shell border directly next to it using Wilton Tip 4B and the purple buttercream.

Place skull sprinkles in between the two shell borders.

Use the black piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 4B to pipe swirls next to the purple shell border and place an orange eyeball sprinkle on top of each swirl.

Step 7: Spray with Shimmer Dust 

For a little extra shine on all this pretty piping, I spritzed this Gold Edible Shimmer Dust all over the cake. It gives a really subtle finish of gold luster and was really fun to use! I want to top every cake with this stuff now.

And there you have it! The perfect Halloween showstopper cake for your party table, regardless of the average age on your guest list. Even if you’re not throwing a Halloween party this year, it’s a really fun cake design to whip up this spooky season!

I hope you love making this colorful, vintage-inspired Halloween lambeth cake as much as I did! If you do end up making one, let me know how it went in the comments below + be sure to tag @sugarandsparrowco and @joann_stores on Instagram to show us. We’d love to see what you create!   

Disclaimer: I was compensated by JOANN for my work of creating this project, styling, filming, photographing, and writing about their products. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Sugar & Sparrow.

The post Vintage Halloween Lambeth Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

Although it looks pretty intricate, this embroidery cake ended up being so much easier than I thought it would be. This is partly because the piping techniques I used were so forgiving, and partly because I had some adorable floral cookie cutters to imprint onto the cake and use as piping guides for the larger flowers. I went the extra mile on the buttercream color palette and mixed up nine different colors for this design. Since this cake will look great in any color scheme you can feel free to mix up a simpler palette if you want.

To show you the piping techniques in action, here’s a full video tutorial of this embroidery cake before I get into the written tutorial below:

If you’re into cake decorating videos like this one, be sure to check out my YouTube channel for further learning! I’m always rolling out new videos, so click the subscribe button while you’re there to ensure you never miss a new one.

You Will Need:

• A chilled, crumb coated cake (mine is three 6” layers)
• 4-5 Cups of vanilla buttercream (about 1.5 batches)
• Cake turntable
• Icing Smoother
• Angled Spatula
• Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring Set 
• Bowls and spoons for color mixing
• Large floral cookie cutters
• Small floral cookie cutters
• Piping Bags
• 8x Wilton Tip 2 or 3 
• Wilton Tip 12
• Small paint brush (optional)

Step 1: Frost the Cake with Smooth Buttercream

Place your chilled and crumb coated cake on the turntable and frost a smooth buttercream finish onto the cake. Start by frosting a smooth layer on the very top of the cake with your angled icing spatula.

Next, add buttercream to the sides of the cake and glide your icing smoother over them while turning the turntable to create smooth sides.

You’ll notice a crown of buttercream forming on the top edges of the cake, which is essential to getting sharp edges on the top. Use your angled icing spatula to swipe the crown inwards (toward the top center of the cake). Repeat until you’ve got nice sharp edges.

When your cake is looking ultra smooth, pop it into the refrigerator to firm up for at least 30 minutes. If you need more tips on creating a perfectly smooth cake finish, I’ve got a great tutorial for you here. 

Step 2: Mix the Color Palette

Divide the remaining buttercream amongst nine different bowls (or however many colors you plan on mixing, plus one bowl you’ll leave uncolored). Use the Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring Set to create your ideal color palette. This set comes with 8 bottles of ultra concentrated food color gels and a guide to help you mix the colors you’re imagining. If you want to replicate the color palette I created, here’s what I did:

• Dark Green: 1 drop blue, ½ drop yellow, ¼ drop brown 
• Light Green: Mix dark green with uncolored buttercream using a 1:1 ratio
• Light Purple: 1 drop pink, ¼ drop blue 
• Periwinkle Blue: 1 drop blue, ¼ drop pink
• Sky Blue: 1 drop blue
• Coral Red: 1 drop orange, 2 drops red, ½ drop brown 
• Peach: Mix 1 Tbsp of the coral red buttercream with uncolored buttercream
• Yellow: 1 drop yellow, ¼ drop brown

It might seem intimidating to custom mix your color palette but I promise it’s worth it! You’ll get more control over your colors (thus a more cohesive color palette), but like I said before – feel free to walk to the beat of your own drum and use whatever colors you’re imagining! 

Step 3: Prepare the Piping Bags

Fit eight piping bags with Wilton Tip 2 or 3, then fill each one with each of the colors you mixed up in the previous step. There’s not much of a size difference between Tip 2 and 3, so you could even use a mix of both or fit some of the piping bags with couplers so you can swap the tips between bags mid-decorating.

Step 4: Imprint the Cake with Floral Cookie Cutters

Once your frosted buttercream cake is chilled and firm to the touch, use the floral cookie cutters to make imprints where you want your embroidery to be piped.

Leave a little room to freehand some details in between imprints as well. 

Step 5: Pipe the Embroidery Textures

Start by outlining one of the floral imprints with one of the piping bags you prepared. Place a dot in the center of the flower. Squeeze and drag the piping bag from the outlined edge of the shape to the center dot and focus on making a straight line. Continue making straight lines of buttercream from the outlined edge to the center dot all the way around the shape.

For some of the flowers, you can pipe two colors on the inside of the imprint. Starting on the outlined edge of the flower, pipe the straight lines of buttercream only part of the way to the center of the shape with one color, then overlap with a different color to reach the center.

For some of the smaller flowers, I outlined the imprint with buttercream and filled in the shape with more of a back-and-forth piping motion. I started at the bottom of the flower outline and piped from one outlined edge to the other and continued piping parallel lines in a back-and-forth motion until I reached the top of the shape.

I freehanded the stems and leaves using the same embroidery-inspired piping techniques. Mainly just lines and dots!

Step 6: Add Some Accents 

I decided to add some super tiny flowers in random places as accents and I love them so much! Each one is just five dots in a circular formation.

I also placed dots in the center of each flower I created in the previous step. This made the embroidery design look super detailed and multi-layered.

Finally, I added a border on top of the cake. This is where the ninth color in my palette came in. I mixed the remaining uncolored buttercream with a little of the Coral Red to make a mid-toned coral color. Then I placed it in a bag fitted with Wilton Tip 12 and piped dots along the top edge of the cake.

If your dot border looks more like chocolate chips than dots, you can always wet a small paint brush with a little bit of water and gently reshape the peaked top until it looks more round. You can also do this with any of your embroidery piping to get rid of unwanted peaks. 

I piped just a few more tiny flowers on the very top of the cake and had to stop myself there because it is so easy to want to keep on piping! Definitely follow your heart when it comes to this design, but also try to leave plenty of white space to let the embroidery elements shine!

Just look at how adorable this embroidery cake turned out! I am so happy I finally tried these techniques and that my local JOANN had the perfect supplies to make it exactly how I imagined.

Be sure to check out your local JOANN to see their amazing cake decorating tool selection! Their Spring collection is so fun and inspiring, but they’re also my year-round go-to for local food crafting supplies (and so much more – if you’re anything like me you’ll probably also leave with armfuls of other crafts and home decor). And if you don’t live near a JOANN store, you can also shop their vast collection of products online. 

I hope you love making this embroidery cake as much as I did! If you do end up making one, let me know how it went in the comments below + be sure to tag @sugarandsparrowco and @joann_stores on Instagram to show us. We’d love to see what you create!   

Disclaimer: I was compensated by JOANN for my work of creating this project, styling, filming, photographing, and writing about their products. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Sugar & Sparrow.

The post Buttercream Embroidery Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

Although it was my first time trying the technique, I was so pleased to find out that it was super easy to create with the right piping tips (aka a handful of Wilton Tip 233). The tips basically do all the work for you, so you only have to worry about coming up with a cool color scheme and letting your imagination for the pattern run wild. I’ve got the full tutorial over here on The Cake Blog, and in the meantime, here are some photos to inspire your next shag cake:

Coolest texture ever, am I right? I’m already dreaming about other ways I can use these Wilton Tip 233’s. Head over to The Cake Blog to learn everything you need to know about creating the perfect shag cake and be sure to tag @sugarandsparrowco and @thecakeblog on Instagram if the tutorial was helpful! We’d love to see what you create.

The post Autumn-Inspired Shag Cake appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

The first time I tried this cactus cupcake design, I shaped the base of each cactus with a big hunk of fondant, then covered it with buttercream piping to add detail. While it looked great, I realized how terrible it is to bite into the cactus and end up with a mouth full of fondant. No thank you! Since then I decided that creating a cake ball base (a mix of cupcake crumbs and buttercream) is much more tasty, sturdy, and easy to mold into cactus shapes.

The Cactus Flower mix is the perfect color scheme to pair with these pretty green cacti. It’s basically all the colors you’d find in a lush succulent garden and adds so much pretty texture to these cupcakes. If you’re wanting to recreate the look with this sprinkle mix, don’t forget to use my code SUGARANDSPARROW15 at checkout to get 15% off your SprinklePop order. I don’t get any kickback from that code, it’s just a little something special for you. You’re welcome!

Before you get started with the tutorial below, here’s a quick video of the process I whipped up for you visual learners:

You Will Need

• 18 baked cupcakes (12 for decorating and 6 chopped into bits)
• 1 batch of vanilla buttercream
• Green food color gel
• Purple food color gel
• Bowls and spoons for mixing
• Baking sheet
• Wax paper
• 4 oz bottle of Cactus Flower sprinkles
• Small icing spatula
• Piping Bags  
• Wilton Tips 4B, 352, 3, and 109 (or any drop flower tip)

Step 1: Prep The Materials

Before you get started, it’s best to get all your materials prepped and ready to go. Divide your buttercream into three different bowls: add about ¼ cup of the buttercream to a small bowl and keep it uncolored and add another ¼ cup of buttercream into another small bowl and color it with purple buttercream. Divide the rest of the buttercream into two separate bowls and color one a darker shade of green and one a lighter shade of green. I used different amounts of Americolor Forest Green for these two shades.

Next, pour the Cactus Flower sprinkles into a small bowl, then chop up six of the baked cupcakes into smaller bits and add them to a medium sized bowl.

Step 2: Make The Cake/Buttercream Mixture

Add about ¼ cup of either of the green buttercreams to the bowl of chopped up cupcake bits. Then, use a rubber spatula or spoon to mix it all together until it’s uniform in consistency.

When you’re finished mixing, the result should be moldable when you try to shape it with your hands. If it’s not sticking together enough, just add a little bit more buttercream until it’s easy to mold with your hands.   

Step 3: Create The Cactus Shapes

There are two different styles I love when it comes to cactus cupcakes. The first is a traditional elongated shape and the other is more spherical. Before you start shaping, fit a piece of wax paper onto a baking sheet. Then, roll a little bit of the cake/buttercream mixture into 1 inch spheres using your hands and place them one by one onto the baking sheet. You’ll want to make 6 of these.

To make the elongated shape, roll the cake/buttercream mixture between your hands to make more of a rod shape. They should each be about 1.5-2 inches tall and about an inch wide. Place them one by one onto the baking sheet until you have 6 of them.

When you’re finished making your cactus shapes, place the baking sheet in the refrigerator to let them firm up for about 20 minutes. They’ll be much easier to work with that way!

Step 4: Create The Sprinkled Cupcake Surface

Using the bottom of one of your piping tips, create a small cutout in the center of each cupcake to give the cactus shapes a nice foundation to sit on later.

Use a small icing spatula to frost the surface of the cupcake, excluding the small hole you created.

Then, dip the surface of the cupcakes into the Cactus Flower sprinkles. Repeat until you have all of the cupcake surfaces covered in sprinkles.

Step 5: Decorate The Spherical Cacti

For the spherical cacti, add the refrigerated cake/buttercream balls to 6 of the cupcakes.

Prepare a piping bag by fitting it with Wilton Tip 4B and filling it with the lighter green buttercream. Cover the surface of each spherical cactus in open stars.

Next, prepare a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 109 (or any drop flower tip) and fill it with purple buttercream. Pipe a drop flower onto the top of each one.

Continue decorating with spherical sprinkles from the Cactus Flower mix wherever you’d like.

Step 6: Decorate The Elongated Cacti

For the elongated cacti, add the refrigerated cake/buttercream rods to 6 of the cupcakes. Prepare a piping bag by fitting it with Wilton Tip 352 and filling it with the darker green buttercream. Then, pipe a series of vertical lines around the surface of the rods.

Use the purple buttercream bag to pipe a drop flower on top of each of the cacti. Then, prepare a piping bag fitted with Wilton tip 3 and fill it with the remaining white (uncolored) buttercream. Pipe a series of dots onto every other line on the cactus. These are meant to look like the spines of a cactus.

Use your lighter green buttercream to pipe a couple open stars next to the elongated cacti, then continue decorating with spherical sprinkled from the Cactus Flower mix wherever you’d like.

Aren’t these sprinkled cactus cupcakes the cutest thing? They’re perfect for any Summer gathering and are sure to impress.

If you’re inspired to make these sprinkled cactus cupcakes, be sure to tag @sugarandsparrowco on Instagram so I can see! I love seeing what you create.

The post Sprinkled Cactus Cupcakes Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

See? All that cake needed was a little revamp! Same sheet cake underneath, but a whole lot of pretty piping to make it eye-catching. All of these pretty buttercream florals were made possible with the Wilton Drop Flowers Tip Set + a few additional favorite tips (1M and 4B) I picked up at JOANN’s.

The best thing about baking a sheet cake is it’s easy. You don’t have to worry about leveling, filling, or stacking any layers. Just add some cake batter to your casserole dish and bake it up! The only real thing you need to worry about is giving the cake enough time to cool before you frost it.

The reason I love these Drop Flower piping tips is that they take care of all the hard work for you. They’re designed to create perfect florals in just a twist of the wrist, creating a beautiful floral look that anyone can achieve. Here’s a quick video to show you the technique before you read all about it below:

This design will work in just about any color palette imaginable, so pick your favorite color scheme and get ready to party!

You Will Need

• Your favorite casserole dish
• 1 box of cake mix
• 1.5 batches of vanilla buttercream
• Food Color Gels of your choice
• Bowls and spoons for color mixing
• Piping bags
• Wilton Drop Flowers Tip Set
• Wilton Tip 1M
• Wilton Tip 4B

Step 1: Bake The Cake

Whip up your favorite cake recipe or a box of cake mix, then pour it into your favorite (prepared) 9 x 13 casserole dish. I always like to spray the dish with Baker’s Joy to ensure that the cake doesn’t stick to the dish after baking.

Once your sheet cake is baked to perfection, allow several hours for it to cool at room temperature before you start piping your florals.

Step 2: Color The Buttercream

With your favorite color scheme in mind, divide the vanilla buttercream into separate bowls for color mixing, then use your favorite color gels to tint it. I used the Wilton Color Right System to mix up five different colors for this project.

While any color gels will work for this part, the Wilton Color Right System is perfect for getting totally custom shades. It comes with a guide for color mixing, and you can use it to achieve any color imaginable!  

Step 3: Prepare Your Piping Bags

Snip off the end of each piping bag and insert the piping tips one by one. For this design, I prepared two piping bags with Wilton Tip 4B, two with Wilton Tip 1M, and four for each of the piping tips that come with the Wilton Drop Flowers Tip Set.

The Wilton Drop Flowers tip set comes with Tips 225, 129, 109, and 190. Each one makes a different floral design, effortlessly!

Step 4: Pipe The Floral Designs

With your cooled sheet cake in the casserole dish, first pipe rosettes using the piping bags fitted with Tip 1M. To pipe a rosette, face the piping tip downward and squeeze the piping bag to get the buttercream flowing, then while keeping continuous pressure, make a small swirl around the where you originally squeezed. There’s no rhyme or reason as to where to pipe the rosettes, so just follow your heart here.

Next, use the piping bags fitted with Tip 4B to pipe star designs wherever you’d like. These stars are quite simple, just face the piping tip downward, squeeze, and release as you lift up.

And finally, use the piping bags fitted with the Wilton Drop Flowers Tip Set to fill in all of the empty spaces. You can either pipe them with a squeeze or gently rotate your wrist as you’re piping to get cool swirled floral designs.

Isn’t this floral sheet cake a hit? It’s a nostalgic concept, made modern with some easy piping! The best part is, it’ll work in all sorts of color schemes and the look can be achieved in minutes. It’s the easiest way to make an eye-catching floral cake!

Be sure to visit your local JOANN store to find all the piping tips you need to create buttercream florals, plus tons of cake decorating tools and supplies, all in one shop. If you don’t live near a JOANN store, check out their website for an epic selection of cake decorating goodness! And whether you shop in store or online, be sure to download their app, because they always have a coupon for you to get the best cake and craft supplies at a discount.

Disclaimer: I was compensated by JOANN for my work of creating this project, styling, filming, photographing, and writing about their products. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Sugar & Sparrow.

The post Floral Sheet Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

Wilton sent me a big box of supplies to create this birthday cake, and there are a few I want to highlight here because they’re total cake game changers. First, the Wilton Cake Leveler is something I always, ALWAYS use to level my cake layers before filling and stacking them. You can adjust the height of the leveler and just run it through your cake to create nice, even layers. Having even cake layers is a must for creating perfectly level cakes as an end result.

Second, having a trusty cake turntable is key for creating a smooth buttercream finish. Wilton sent me their High And Low Turntable and it was stellar for the job! It’s got adjustable legs so you can really get the turntable height that’s comfortable for you.

This cake design all starts with a smooth buttercream cake, so in addition to having level cake layers and a trustworthy turntable, the last keys to success are having a great icing smoother and angled spatula. I prefer both of these items to be stainless steel, because sometimes getting a smooth finish means slightly heating up the scraper/spatula to erase wrinkles. If you’re still trying to master a smooth buttercream finish, I’ve detailed all my best tips in this post.

Ok, back to this birthday cake design! Although it looks intricate, I promise it’s way easier than it looks. Watch this quick video of the process (above) to show you how it’s done, then I’ll walk you through the step by step below.

You Will Need:

• A 6-inch cake that’s been filled and frosted with a smooth buttercream finish
• 1 batch of vanilla buttercream
• The Wilton Color Right System
• Bowls and spoons for mixing buttercream colors
• A piece of saran wrap
• Piping bags
• Wilton Tips 1M, 104, and 4B
• Gold pearlized sprinkles
• Tall gold birthday candles

Step 1: Mix Up A Buttercream Color Palette

For this cake, I created a pastel rainbow color palette using the Wilton Color Right system.

A really easy way to do this is to divide the batch of buttercream into three bowls and color one bowl pink, one bowl yellow, and one bowl blue. Then, mix part of the blue with the pink in a separate bowl to create purple, part of the blue with part of the yellow to make green, and part of the pink with part of the yellow to make orange.

Step 2: Prepare Your Piping Bags

Before placing each buttercream color in its own piping bag, I created a multi-colored piping bag for making some rainbow rosettes! The easiest way to do this is to lay a piece of saran wrap down, then swipe four colors next to one another on top of it.

Roll the saran wrap up like a colorful burrito and snip off one of the ends before placing it into a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 1M.

Then, place each individual color into separate piping bags fitted with Wilton Tips 104 and 4B. I used Tip 104 for the green and blue colors and Tip 4B for the rest.

Step 3: Pipe The Cake

With your smooth buttercream cake on the turntable, pipe the rainbow rosettes on the upper half of the cake and the top of the cake in a random pattern.

Next, use the piping bags fitted with Tip 104 to pipe ruffles next to each rainbow rosette.

Finally, fill in all the empty spaces with stars using the piping bags fitted with Tip 4B. The goal here is to create a sort of ombrè effect with the piping, so feel free to pipe some stray stars toward the bottom of the cake.

Step 4: Add Sprinkles

I love using sprinkles to add even more texture to whimsical buttercream, and these Wilton Pearlized Sprinkles are perfect for the job. Using either your fingers or a pair of tweezers, add the sprinkles to the centers of some of the stars and the edges of some of the rosettes.

There is no right or wrong way to add sprinkles here. To keep with the ombrè look, I placed a few stray gold sprinkles toward the bottom of the cake.

Step 5: Top With Birthday Candles

No birthday cake is complete without some pretty candles, and the taller the better! These Tall Gold Candles are perfection. Place them on top of your cake and get ready to party!

Wilton has a ton of great birthday cake ideas on their site as well, so be sure to check them out for inspiration. If you’re inspired to make this cake design for a birthday or any day, be sure to tag me on Instagram (and @wiltoncakes as well!) to show us what you’re caking!

The post Pastel Rainbow Birthday Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

SugarBearHair is the world’s first gummy vegetarian hair multivitamin. In addition to being packed with tons of vitamins that are scientifically proven to benefit hair, they’re cruelty-free and also free of gluten, wheat, soy, dairy, and gelatin. They’re made with a synergistic blend of vitamins and minerals that work together to help your body produce biotin (aka Vitamin B), which helps with hair health and growth. Plus, one dose (two bears) contains as much Vitamin B12 as 4 organic eggs, as much Vitamin A as four cups of broccoli, and as much Vitamin C as 1 cup of cranberries! That’s a whole lot of vitamins, people.

While enjoying these SugarBearHair Vitamins with a slice of cake is the perfect way to satisfy your sweet tooth and get your vitamins at the same time, you don’t have to combine them with anything to make them tasty. They actually taste delicious on their own (like blueberries!), which makes me look forward to eating them everyday. My husband has started taking them as well, but I think he’s more interested in them because they taste like candy as opposed to the hair benefits. We’ll see how his hair looks after some time goes by though!

SugarBear also sent me a few bottles of their Women’s Multivitamins that are 100% Vegan and I was so surprised to hear that you can actually take them in addition to their hair vitamins! I decided to add them into my daily regimen about a month ago and am really happy with the results I’m seeing. In addition to my hair feeling great, my skin feels softer and more clear, plus my nails are growing faster than ever. In the past I’ve struggled with thin, brittle nails but I can honestly say they feel really strong and the length is amazing!

Whether you’re looking for a hair vitamin that actually tastes good (and works!) or if you’re ready to change up your multivitamin supply, SugarBear makes some wonderful options. Head on over to their shop to get your hands on some! And if you do end up trying them, let me know. I’d love to hear about how you’re liking them!

Disclaimer: I was compensated by SugarBearHair for my work of creating this cake, styling, filming, photographing, and writing about their products. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Sugar & Sparrow.

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The term “Merry & Bright” is a snippet of a lyric from one of my favorite Bing Crosby holiday songs (White Christmas). It’s also a great movie if you’re looking for a seasonal classic to watch this year, or every year! The cool thing is, you can really pipe any Christmassy saying or song lyric onto the top of the cake and get the same vibe with this technique. Here’s a super quick video to show you how it’s done:

Having a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 3 is essential to piping clean lines for the lettering and the rest of the Christmas light cords. I like to have a handful of these tips on hand for the individual Christmas lights as well, because it makes piping dots more precise. You can use any color combination you’d like for the little light bulbs, but I’ve gone with a colorful scheme using my Americolor gels (the exact colors are detailed below).

As long as you have all of your colors mixed and piping bags ready to go, you can create this design in about ten minutes from start to finish! That makes this one of the quickest and easiest Holiday cake designs ever, and in this busy time of year, saving yourself some time is everything.

You Will Need:

• At least one Wilton Tip 3 (I’ve used 6 to pipe all these colors)
• Piping bags
• A cake frosted with smooth buttercream
• ½ batch of vanilla buttercream (or other light-colored buttercream)
• Americolor Super Black color gel
• A few other color gels of your choice for the light bulbs
• Bowls and spoons for color mixing
• A cake turntable

Step 1: Chill Your Buttercream Cake

Whenever I pipe designs onto buttercream cakes, I like to start with a chilled finish. This way, I never have to worry about accidentally smudging the buttercream during the decorating process.

After you’ve frosted your cake with a smooth buttercream finish, pop it into the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, or until it’s firm to the touch.

Step 2: Mix Up Your Colors

Divide the vanilla buttercream into separate bowls (one for each color you’re mixing), then create black buttercream for the Christmas light cords and other colors for your light bulbs.

For my color scheme, I used Americolor Super Black for the cord and Americolor Fuschia, Lemon Yellow, Sky Blue, Mint Green, and Violet for the Christmas lights. When you’re finished with your color mixing, place the buttercream into individual piping bags fitted with Wilton Tip 3. If you only have one Wilton Tip 3, use it for piping the cord and snip a tiny opening off of each of the other piping bags you’ll be using for the light bulbs.

Step 3: Pipe Your Christmas Quote

Now that your cake is nice and chilled and your piping bags are prepped, it’s time to write out the quote on the top of the cake. If you want to plan this part out ahead, you can always write the quote out on wax paper and then use the end of a wooden skewer to imprint the tracing onto the cake (like I did in this tutorial).

Since the lettering is meant to look really wild and script-y, like you wrote it out with Christmas light cords, you can totally freehand this part too!

Step 4: Pipe the Christmas Light Bulbs

Next, pipe multi-colored dots in a random pattern along your lettering from Step 3 to light the quote up!

This part is my favorite, because it really makes everything come to life in just a few minutes.

Step 4: Pipe The Sides Of The Cake

Now that the top is finished, repeat the process of piping cords and light bulbs all over the sides of the cake. It looks best when you continue the cord from the top of the cake and loop it all around the sides with a random pattern.

It also really helps to have a good cake turntable for this part, because you can just spin as you pipe!

And there you have it – the quickest and easiest Holiday cake you’ll make all season:

What are some of your favorite Christmas song lyrics and/or sayings? I would love to see this cake design with some of them! Let me know if you try this technique by tagging me on Instagram. I absolutely love to see what you create. Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Disclaimer: this post does contain some affiliate links, meaning I may receive a small commission if you click them and purchase items I’ve recommended. Using these links won’t cost you any extra money, but they do help to keep Sugar & Sparrow up and running. Thank you for your support!

The post Merry & Bright Christmas Cake appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

One of my favorite cake decorating techniques I learned over the last year is how to to use icing spatulas and piping tips to create floral print patterns on buttercream cakes. So when my friends over at Wilton asked me to create a cake for their Holiday campaign, (after squealing) I instantly thought of recreating the buttercream floral print look with a Holiday theme! It’s easier than it looks with the right tools, a great color scheme, and some inspiration from your favorite Holiday florals and foliage (think Poinsettias, pine sprigs, snowberries, holly, and all the flowers that make you think of this festive season).

Although I already had the essential Wilton piping tips and icing spatula on hand, Wilton was kind enough to send me the perfect Icing Color Gels and decorating brush set to create the ultimate festive cake!

Here’s a video to see the techniques and step-by-step in action, and I’ll walk you through every detail below:

You Will Need:

• A cake frosted with smooth buttercream
• 1 batch of vanilla buttercream (or other light colored buttercream)
• Wilton Icing Color Gels
• Toothpicks
• Bowls and spoons for color mixing
• Piping bags
• Several Wilton Piping Tip #2 (one for each color you’re using)
• A small icing spatula
• Floral designs for tracing + wax paper and a pencil (optional)
• Wilton decorating brushes
• A small dish of water

Step 1: Chill Your Buttercream Cake  

It’s essential that you begin this technique with a cold buttercream cake as your canvas. That way, you won’t have to worry about accidentally smudging your smooth buttercream as you create the floral patterns.

After frosting (I’ve used a tiny amount of Wilton’s Creamy Peach to get this subtle cream shade for my backdrop), chill the cake for at least 30 minutes, or until the buttercream is firm to the touch.

Step 2: Prepare Your Buttercream Color Palette

While your cake is chilling, divide your buttercream into separate bowls (one for each color). Dip a toothpick into the Wilton Icing Color Gel of your choice and apply it to the first bowl of buttercream. Mix with a spoon and continue adding color until it’s the perfect shade, then repeat with the other colors. The color palette for this specific cake is Creamy Peach, Christmas Red, Juniper Green, Moss Green, Brown, Burgundy, White (non-colored vanilla buttercream), and Black.

When your icing color palette is looking perfect, prepare your piping bags by snipping off the end and fitting each one with a Wilton Tip 2. This will give you a small, perfectly circular opening for more precise piping. Fill each piping bag with your buttercream colors and marvel at how pretty they look all together!

Step 3: Create Floral Pattern Tracings (optional)

Since I am an ultra-perfectionist, I like to know what my floral patterns are going to look like on the cake and give myself a guide by tracing the patterns on prior to piping. I created and printed out templates of simple floral patterns and traced them onto wax paper, then used the dull end of a wooden skewer to imprint the patterns onto my cold buttercream cake.

For the tracings, you could also use floral designs from wrapping paper or doing an online search for Holiday floral patterns. If you’re more of a go-with-the-flow type of cake decorator, feel free to improvise the patterns as you go!

Step 4: Pipe Your Patterns Onto The Cake

Now for the fun part – piping the designs! Using your piping bags, outline the floral pattern tracings one by one. You’ll find that some designs (like the fir tree branches) will only require outlines, while other designs (like pinecones and snowberries) require dots. The Wilton Tip 2 is perfect for either of these techniques, as it allows you to drag the buttercream in precise lines or dot the buttercream on for circular textures.

For the flower designs, pipe the outline of the flower before filling a little bit of buttercream inside the petals. Use a small icing spatula to swipe the buttercream inward and create the look of petals.

Repeat the process of piping and spatula painting until your entire cake is patterned with holiday florals.

Depending on the look you’re going for, you can have as many or as little designs as you’d like!

Step 5: Smooth With Paint Brushes

After all of your piping is complete, it’s time to do a tiny bit of finish work to make everything look smooth and uniform. It’s essential to have a few paintbrushes handy (I’m using Wilton’s 5 Piece Decorating Brush Set) and a small bowl of water for this part. 

Dip your paintbrush into a tiny bit of water and gently press down on any places on the cake where sharp peaks have formed. This technique helps flatten and smooth designs like branches, berries, and anywhere your piping is peaking.

I couldn’t be happier with how this Holiday Floral Cake turned out! Wilton had the perfect paint brushes and Icing Color Gels for this palette and I am so happy to add them to my already-vast collection of Wilton cake decorating products.

What kind of festive cakes are you planning this season? There are a TON of brilliant Holiday cake ideas like this one over on Wilton’s Christmas Ideas page, so be sure to check it out for some inspiration! And if you try this buttercream floral pattern technique, be sure to tag me on Instagram so I can see your creativity in action. Happy Holiday season to you and yours!

The post Holiday Floral Buttercream Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

I’ll walk you through the step by step below. First, here’s a quick video tutorial of how I created this gradient rainbow cake, from mixing the colors to applying them:

Disclaimer: this post does contain some affiliate links, meaning I may receive a small commission if you click them and purchase items I’ve recommended. Using these links won’t cost you any extra money, but they do help to keep Sugar & Sparrow up and running. Thank you for your support!

You Will Need:

• A cake that’s been frosted and chilled
• 1.5 batches of vanilla or other light colored buttercream
• Food color gels in rainbow shades. I used colors from The Nifty Fifty Kit (detailed below)
• Plates and spoons for color mixing
• Piping bags
• Scissors
• Ruler

Step 1: Mix Up Your Colors

Divide equal amounts of buttercream across a few plates or in separate mixing bowls. Like I said before, I got a little crazy and mixed up 20 different shades from my Nifty Fifty Kit. The colors I used (in rainbow order) are: Watermelon, Burgundy, Super Red, Soft Pint, Deep Pink, Orange, Peach, Electric Orange, Electric Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Egg Yellow, Electric Green, Leaf Green, Forest Green, Teal, Sky Blue, Navy Blue, Electric Purple, Regal Purple, and Eggplant.

The important thing with these colors is that you have a few different shades of each rainbow color, whether you use the same color in different intensities or more varied colors for each of the seven rainbow hues.

Step 2: Fill Your Piping Bags

Prepare several piping bags (enough for each shade you’ve created) by snipping off a ¼ inch opening off the tip with your scissors, then filling each bag with a different shade. It helps to have disposable piping bags for this step.

Once you’ve got your bags all filled, line them up in the order you want to pipe color-wise. Look at all those piping bags! I was swooning before I even started adding the colors to the cake.

Step 3: Measure Out Sections On The Cake

Using a ruler as your guide, mark off six equal sections with an icing spatula or other sharp object. It’s important that you start with a cake that’s been frosted and chilled so your marks are sharp and unwavering. Place marks horizontally all around the cake so you know where each color should end and a new one should begin. This way, you’ll have nice equal sections of color instead of getting towards the top of the cake and realizing you barely have room for the last few colors.

Note that you’ve marked six equal horizontal sections but have seven colors. This is because the top of the cake will act as its own (seventh) section.

Step 4: Apply The Colors

Now for the fun part! Starting at the bottom of the cake, pipe the purple hues within the bottom section you’ve marked off. I chose to start at the very bottom with the darker purples (Eggplant and Regal Purple) and saved the lighter purple (Electric Purple) for the top of the section. There’s no real pattern here other than that. The cake ends up looking really cool with the dots in a more random order rather than piping lines of the same color. In other words, it’s ok to have some of the darker purples toward the top of the section and put different colored dots next to each other.

Pipe a few stray purple dots into the section that should be blue to help with the gradient effect, then fill the rest of the next section in with the blue hues. Again, I’ve chosen to pipe the darker blue (Navy Blue) toward the bottom of the blue section and the lighter blues (Sky Blue and Teal) toward the top.

Repeat this process in reverse rainbow color order with the rest of your shades. When you get to the top of the cake, pipe all of the red shades. Remember to pipe a few stray red and pink dots down into the orange section to help with the gradient effect.

How cool is this gradient rainbow buttercream cake? I absolutely love color and having my Nifty Fifty Kit made all of my colorful cake dreams come true with this one! It’s well worth having the entire kit in your cake decorating collection. These gels last for ages and save tons of time you would have otherwise spent custom mixing different color gels to get just the right shade. Let me know if you end up making this cake and/or getting the Nifty Fifty Kit! I would love to nerd out on color with you.

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