In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to create camouflage buttercream and
how to make camouflage cake toppers with chocolate! To tint buttercream for
camouflage you'll need more than just green food colouring because that will
only make bright shades of green. To create duller shades of green, add a bit
of orange or red or brown and you can see how this changes the colour from
grass or leaf green to more of an olive or khaki colour. Frost your cake with any
of the colours you're going to use for the camouflage design but I recommend
choosing one of the lighter colours because if you use a darker colour
you'll need very thick frosting for the lighter colours to cover up that dark
base color of frosting underneath. You're going to cover all of this base frosting
with patches of different shades of green and brown so it's okay if you have
a few irregularities in it but this coat of frosting gives the cake its final
shape so you want the sides to be straight and the top edge to be sharp.
When you're happy with the frosting, put the cake in the fridge to chill the
frosting so that it hardens for the next step.
Meanwhile I'm preparing the rest of my colours. To make brown I'm using melted
chocolate, which I've let cool for a few minutes before mixing it into my
buttercream so that it doesn't melt the buttercream.
The more chocolate you add, the darker the colour and if you find that the chocolate
makes the buttercream too stiff, just add a bit of milk or cream to thin
out the consistency. You could of course use brown food colouring instead of this.
For my greens I'm setting aside some of the frosting that I used for my base
frosting on the cake and adding more leaf green and orange gel colours to the
rest to make another two shades of darker green. I'm putting my first colour,
a medium shade of green buttercream, into a piping bag with the end snipped off so
there's a small hole for it to come out of. You'll need an offset spatula and a
frosting smoother for this and once your cake is cold and the frosting is firm,
create the first patch of colour on your cake. If you're using a piping bag it's
easiest to pipe the outline first and then fill in the middle but if you don't
have a piping bag or don't want to use one, you can spread the coloured
buttercream straight onto the cake. You'll have a bit less control over the
shape of your patches of colour if you use the spreading technique and they'll
be more rugged and uneven around the edges, which might be what you're looking
for anyway. After covering the area you want with
buttercream, use your offset spatula to scrape off any excess so that it's not
too thick and then use your frosting smoother to scrape over it a few times
to smooth it out and also make the frosting thinner so that it doesn't
stick out so much from the frosting on the cake. If you alternate the direction
you scrape, pulling the frosting smoother towards you once and then pushing it
away from you the next time, you'll keep the patch of buttercream closer to the
original shape you piped or spread. If you pull the frosting smoother towards
you every time, you'll drag the buttercream closer to you and make the
patch wider. You can pipe or spread several patches at a time and then
switch to your frosting smoother to scrape all of them to be more efficient
as you decorate, but keep in mind that the longer you leave the piped or
spread buttercream sitting on top of the cold frosting on the cake, the colder it
will get as it starts to stick to the cold frosting on the cake and then it
won't spread as easily when you use your frosting smoother so your patches will
end up very similar to the original shape you piped or spread, which makes
the splotches of colour look more intentional compared to this first patch
here, which I smoothed straight after spreading it on so it made the patch a
little less neat and more smudged. If you scrape too much buttercream off,
revealing the frosting underneath, just spread or pipe a bit more on and scrape
over it again with your frosting smoother. If you're enjoying this
tutorial please click the thumbs up button to like it and subscribe to my
channel for a new cake decorating tutorial every week! You don't have to stick to the
sides of your cake, you can do the top as well. Wipe your frosting smoother off
after each time you use it so that you don't drag buttercream back onto the
cake, which will mess up any smoothing you've already done. To make a patch go
over the top of the cake and down onto the sides, follow exactly the same
technique of spreading or piping the buttercream, then scraping off any excess
with your offset spatula and then smoothing it with your frosting smoother
on both the sides and the top of the cake and by alternating smoothing the
side and the top you'll get a nice sharp edge at the top.
Chill the cake when you finish the first colour and when the frosting has set you
can do the next colour. I'm switching to my chocolate buttercream to make the
brown patches next, piping them all and then spreading them and scraping off the
excess with my offset spatula and then smoothing them with my frosting smoother.
You don't have to do this one colour at a time - you can switch back and forth
between colours if you like but you should space the patches out around the
cake so that they don't touch each other until you've chilled the cake to set the
patches because if you make two patches of different colours right next to each
other, the buttercream will blend together where it meets as you scrape to
smooth one of the colours, instead of being distinct coloured patches. I'm doing
my lightest colour next, which is the buttercream left over from frosting my
cake. You could just leave some areas without frosting to leave the base coat
exposed but I want the frosting to be smooth so I'm covering up the base coat
with a bit of that colour of frosting so that it's sitting level with the rest of
the patches of frosting on the cake.
Finally, my darkest colour of buttercream and you can imagine that if I'd chosen
this colour for the base frosting on the cake, since it's such a dark colour when I
spread the lightest colour of buttercream over it to make light green patches I'd
have to spread it really thick to cover up this dark colour and that's why it's
best to use the lightest colour for the base frosting. When you've covered the
whole cake with buttercream patches, put it back in the fridge to set the
frosting and meanwhile make some camouflage decorations. I'm melting dark
and light green candy melts and some chocolate chips in the microwave at 50%
power for a minute at a time so that they don't burn and seize. This is
parchment paper or you can use wax paper and I'm spooning the melted chocolate
onto the paper and then using the back of the spoon to swipe it upwards to make
some chocolate foliage for the cake. After making as many as you need and
maybe a few extra just in case some break, put them in the fridge to set,
which will take about 30 minutes or you can leave them at room temperature for
about an hour. Since the cake has been chilled in between colours of patches to
set the buttercream, these won't stick to the frosting on the cake but I'll show
you how to attach them in a minute. You can use melted chocolate to decorate
anything you want to use on top of the cake like these macarons. Candy melts are
easy to use because they're already coloured and they melt easily but if you
prefer you can use white chocolate and after melting it, add a drop of gel colour.
I'm shaking my spoon back and forth over these macarons to drizzle them with the
colours. Once your chocolate foliage has set, lift the pieces up from the paper
and to attach them to the top of the cake I'm using a piping bag fitted with
a 1M star tip to pipe some swirls of buttercream and I've just used the
leftovers from the frosting on my cake for this. Immediately after you pipe the
swirls, while the buttercream is still soft and sticky, push the foliage into
them. I'll chill this cake again when I'm finished and that will set the
buttercream swirls and hold the foliage securely in place. For the sides of the
cake I'm piping a little dots of buttercream against the side of the cake
and then pushing the foliage into them to attach them to the side of the cake.
This fresh buttercream is acting as glue and it will take a few minutes to set
but once it does it should stop the foliage from moving around.
If you want to overlap the foliage, pipe buttercream onto the chocolate and then
press another piece firmly against it. I'm piping some more swirls on top to
attach the macarons but you could use lollipops or candy in different shades
of green and brown or macarons in those colors instead of drizzling them with
green and brown chocolate. I'm attaching some more foliage to the side of the
cake to finish it and there it is! Thanks for watching! Please click the thumbs up
button to like this video and subscribe to my channel for a new cake decorating
tutorial every week!