I'm going to show you step by step how to make and decorate a birthday cake so that you can surprise
someone with a beautiful and delicious cake even if you've never made a cake before! The first step
is to bake your cake. You can use any recipe you like - I'm using my Perfect Chocolate Cake
and the very detailed recipe and tutorial is on www.britishgirlbakes.com and I've put the link in
the video description. After baking, let the cake layers cool completely and then wrap them in cling
film or saran wrap and put them in the fridge for an hour or the freezer for 30 minutes so that they
firm up and become less crumbly. Meanwhile make your buttercream. For an 8 inch cake you'll need
500 grams of butter and 1 kilogram of icing sugar or if you're in the U.S. that's 5 sticks of butter
and a 2 lb bag of powdered sugar. Mix them on the lowest speed of your mixer for four minutes and
then add a teaspoon of vanilla and two to three tablespoons of milk to thin the buttercream out
so it's easy to stir and very smooth. I have a detailed recipe and tutorial for my 4 Minute
Buttercream on www.britishgirlbakes.com and the link is in the video description. Now that your
cake layers are chilled it's time to build your cake! Unwrap them and if you have a turntable,
great! But you don't need one for this. You'll need a ring of masking tape or a non-slip mat
(this is sold as a drawer liner on Amazon) and a cake board. This is a cardboard one by Wilton.
The tape or mat will stop the board from sliding around. You'll need an offset spatula or palette
knife for this next part. Spread a little bit of buttercream onto the middle of the cake board
and press your first cake layer down onto it. The buttercream will act as glue to hold the cake in
place securely. Spin the turntable to check it's lined up in the center of the cake board. Spread
buttercream on top or any other filling you want to use, going right up to the edges of the cake.
Place your next layer of cake on top, spinning the cake to check it's directly on top of the previous
layer so the cake is straight and adjust it if you need to. You can trim the tops of your cake
layers if they're domed so that they're flat but if they're just a bit uneven like mine are, it's
fine, just make sure you spread the filling on so it's level and that will even everything out.
Continue alternating filling and cake to finish building your cake. The sides should be fairly
straight but don't worry about any imperfections - we're going to completely cover this cake with
frosting to give it smooth, straight sides. Put it in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer
for 15 minutes to chill that dot of buttercream on the cake board to secure the cake firmly in place
and now we're going to give the cake a crumb coat. You'll need your offset spatula and a frosting
smoother - any kind is fine and I'll talk about how to choose one in a minute. Spread buttercream
onto the top of the cake using your offset spatula to spread it all the way over the edges of the
cake to prevent air gaps there and that will give you a nice flat surface on top of the cake instead
of a domed top. After covering the top, hold your offset spatula at a 45 degree angle and
press down slightly as you spin the turntable to flatten out the frosting on top of the cake.
Now spread buttercream onto the sides of the cake. I like to start at the top.
You might notice the cake wobbling a little bit, especially if your cake is small like this 4 inch
cake or if the cake is tall like this one is too, but that dot of buttercream on the cake board has
chilled in the fridge so it's sticking the cake to the cake board and as long as you're fairly
gentle as you spread the buttercream on, you shouldn't be able to detach the cake from that
dot of buttercream so you won't knock the cake over. Spread the buttercream all the way down to
the very bottom of the cake, right down to the cake board so there's no cake exposed anywhere.
The point of this layer of frosting, called a crumb coat, is to trap any crumbs that come off
the cake so that they don't get into your final coat of frosting. It doesn't need to be pretty so
the crumbs you can see stuck in this frosting are absolutely fine. Smooth the crumb coat by scraping
around it with a frosting smoother and I'll cover this in much more detail in the next step but
just remember that the crumb coat is going to be totally covered up by the final coat of frosting
so this really doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to be fairly smooth. The most important
thing is to cover up all of the cake to trap all of the crumbs. Put the cake in the fridge
for about 15 minutes to set the crumb coat so it's firm and next it's frosting time! While your cake
is in the fridge tint your buttercream whatever colour you like. I recommend using gel colors
because they're very concentrated so you can get bright and bold colors with just a few drops.
Take your cake out of the fridge and spoon buttercream on top and spread it around just like
you did with the crumb coat, spreading it over the edges of the cake and smoothing it by spinning the
cake while holding your offset spatula at a 45 degree angle and pressing down slightly.
Move down onto the sides of the cake, letting the frosting stick up above the top edge of the cake
so that you can make sharp edges later. Spread back and forth with your offset spatula,
scooping up more buttercream whenever you feel the frosting layer you're spreading getting thinner.
You're aiming for an approximately even thickness of frosting all over the cake but don't worry too
much about it because we're going to do lots of touch-ups to even it out and get smooth frosting.
When the cake is covered with frosting switch to a frosting smoother of any material: plastic,
metal or acrylic. I'll show you the difference in a moment. Hold the turntable with one hand
and rest the frosting smoother down on the cake board to line it up straight and then gently press
it against the side of the cake and spin the turntable, scraping around the cake with very
little pressure until you can't spin or reach any further and then swipe the frosting smoother off,
away from the cake. Each time you do this reach as far as you can with your hand that's spinning the
turntable so that you get the longest scrape. Hold the frosting smoother still and let the turntable
do the work for you. After each scrape use your offset spatula to wipe off any buttercream on your
frosting smoother and use that buttercream to fill in any air pockets in the cake,
which are indents or gaps where the frosting isn't as thick as it is on the rest of the cake. Spread
the buttercream over the gaps and then scrape around the cake again with your frosting smoother.
Now let's look at the difference between plastic, metal, and acrylic frosting smoothers. Plastic is
flexible and easy to wipe clean after each scrape but it has the least sharp and smooth edge because
plastic gets dented and damaged easily so it won't give you perfectly smooth frosting. Metal is a bit
heavier and sturdier so easy to line up straight against the cake by pressing it down on the cake
board and the edge is sharp so you'll get nice smooth frosting with it. Acrylic is also heavy
and sturdy and this beveled diagonal edge is super sharp so you'll get a beautifully smooth finish
on your frosting. This one's my favourite and i've put a discount code and a link in the video
description. Plastic would be my last choice of these three options but you can still get pretty
smooth frosting with it so don't panic if that's all you have. When you're happy with the sides,
use your offset spatula to tidy up the top edge by swiping from the outer edge of the cake towards
the middle and then continuing the motion to swipe off the cake, taking the excess frosting off the
cake on your offset spatula. Scrape the excess buttercream into a bowl and then wipe the offset
spatula clean on a paper towel so that you're not dragging buttercream back onto your neat edges.
Continue all the way around the cake and as you're tidying up this top edge, the pressure
you're applying down onto the cake will create a bulge around the top of the sides of the cake
so when you finish, switch back to your frosting smoother and scrape around the cake one more time.
Tidy up the top edge again, getting down to eye level to check that the edge is level
all the way around the cake. Wipe any smudges of buttercream off the cake board by wrapping your
finger in a paper towel and wiping around the cake and then it's time to add some finishing
touches. For a sprinkle border place your cake on its cake board on a baking tray and pour sprinkles
around the base of the cake onto the cake board. The baking tray will catch any falling sprinkles
so it's much easier to clean up afterwards. Push the sprinkles into the bottom inch or two
of the frosting on the cake using your hands or the back of a spoon or an offset spatula.
It's easier to do this now, straight after frosting the cake while the frosting is still
sticky so you don't need to use much pressure to push the sprinkles into the frosting.
I have a discount code for these fancy sprinkles and I've put it in the video description.
The final finishing touch for this cake is to add some frosting swirls on top of the cake.
You'll need a piping bag and a star-shaped tip like this 1M tip by Wilton. Drop the tip into the
piping bag and fold the end over and then scoop up all of the buttercream you scraped off the cake
while you were frosting it and spoon it into the bag. Folding the top of the bag over before doing
this means that the end of the bag will stay clean so you won't get buttercream all over your hands.
Push the buttercream down to the bottom of the piping bag and then hold the piping bag over
the cake and lower the tip down to the cake. Squeeze the bag to push the buttercream out
and spiral your wrist upwards to create a swirl like you'd pipe onto a cupcake.
Each spiral should get tighter to make the swirl narrower as it goes up and at the top,
release your pressure on the bag as you swipe away to leave a neat peak at the top of the swirl.
I like to pipe the swirls opposite each other to space them out evenly on the cake and then
fill in the gaps in between and that way there aren't any big spaces in between the swirls.
Tadaa! A beautiful birthday cake! I like to store my cakes in the fridge until
four hours before serving them. The fridge keeps the frosting and decorations stable
and then four hours is enough time to come to room temperature when the cake and frosting taste
best. Check out my online cake school for lots of online courses and classes on unique cake
designs and techniques with step-by-step instructions that anyone can follow.
Join my Club for access to every class as well as live online demonstrations and Q&A sessions!