In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to turn cupcakes into beautiful
little cakes! Bake your cupcakes as normal and if you like, after they cool
you can put them in a ziploc bag and freeze them for up to a month to save
time on the day you assemble and decorate your cake. If you do this, take
the cupcakes out of the freezer and leave them at room temperature for about
an hour to thaw before you start. You can do this with any flavour of cupcakes but
I'll be using vanilla and chocolate cupcakes for this tutorial. For each
little cake you'll need one or two cupcakes and some buttercream in a
piping bag or just in a bowl is fine. If you baked your cupcakes in wrappers,
peel those off now. This means that you can bake a batch of cupcakes and later
decide to turn some into cakes or you might choose to use wrappers so that the
cupcakes don't stick to the pan when you bake them. Use a serrated knife like a
bread knife to cut your cupcakes horizontally into two halves or you can
cut them into thirds. I'm going to use one and a half cupcakes for each of my
little cakes so I'm cutting my cupcakes into halves and I'll use three cupcakes
(so six layers) to make two cakes of three layers each. You can drizzle the cupcakes
with simple syrup if you like, which keeps them moist if you're not going to
eat the cake on the same day and you make simple syrup by simmering equal
parts of water and sugar together until the sugar dissolves. You'll notice that
the top halves of the cupcakes are wider than the bottom halves and this doesn't
matter after you frost the cake but if you want the layers to be perfectly
straight when you cut into the cake, you can trim the top halves with a knife or
use a round cookie cutter. To assemble your cake you'll need a cake board and I
like to do this on a non slip mat on a turntable. Pipe or spread a dollop of
buttercream onto the middle of the cake board to act as glue to attach the cake.
Push a cupcake layer into the buttercream, lining it up so that it's in
the center of the board and then pipe or spread a layer of filling on top. I'm
using my 4 Minute Buttercream for this and the link for the recipe and tutorial
is in the top of the screen and in the video description. Place the next cupcake
layer on top, add another layer of filling, and then another cupcake layer.
If you're enjoying this tutorial please click the thumbs up button to like it
and subscribe to my channel for new cake decorating tutorials every week! Spin the
cake around to check that it's straight and push down on one
side if you need to adjust it a bit. Now chill the cake for about an hour in the
fridge or thirty minutes in the freezer to set the filling and that dollop of
buttercream on the cake board so that the cake doesn't slide around as you
frost it. You can see that the sides of the cake aren't straight because
cupcakes are tapered but that's fine, we're going to cover this all up. Now
that the cake is cold, pipe or spread buttercream onto it for the crumb coat.
It's easiest to pipe it on since the cake is so small that spreading it
straight on is a bit tricky but you can do whatever you prefer. Cover the cake
completely with buttercream and then use a frosting smoother to scrape off the
excess buttercream, creating a cake with straight sides. You don't have to use
buttercream for this, you can use ganache or whipped cream instead. Tidy up the top
edge by scraping the frosting that's sticking up over onto the top of the
cake. Fill in any air pockets with more buttercream using your offset spatula
and then scrape again. This crumb coat doesn't need to be perfect because its
purpose is just to trap in any of the crumbs that come off the cake. You're
going to cover it up in a minute. Put the cake back in the fridge or
freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to set the crumb coat and then spread or pipe
on the final coat of frosting. You can frost and decorate these little cakes
made with cupcakes however you like and I'll show you two ideas now.
For this first cake I'm using chocolate cupcakes and chocolate buttercream. I'm smoothing
the frosting around the sides, not worrying about the top edge yet, and then
using a textured cake comb to imprint texture into the sides, tidying up the
top edge and then going around the sides again, filling in any parts I don't like
with more buttercream and then using the textured comb over that area again. I
have a tutorial on five tricks for textured cakes and if you'd like to
watch that, I've put the link on the top of the screen and in the video description
below. When I'm happy with the frosting, I'm putting the cake on a baking tray
and then pouring chocolate shavings around the cake board. I grated a bar of
chocolate against the fine side of a cheese grater to make these shavings. The
purpose of the baking tray is so that if any of them fall off the cake board, they
get caught by the tray instead of going all over the counter. I'm using the back
of my spoon to press the shavings into the sticky frosting on the cake.
To decorate this cake I'm going to make a chocolate sail with these chocolate
chips melted at 50% power in the microwave,
spreading the melted chocolate onto parchment paper or you can use wax paper,
and I'm aiming for an even thickness and getting it as smooth as possible and
then draping it over the top of a bottle to make an upside-down bowl shape. I have
a full tutorial on chocolate sails and I've put the link for that tutorial in the
top of the screen and in the video description. After an hour in the fridge
I'm peeling the chocolate away from the paper and then placing the sail on top
of my cake. If the frosting has set you can spread
some fresh buttercream onto the cake where you're going to place the sail to
act as glue. I've made this cake with vanilla cupcakes and I'm covering it
with pink buttercream and then chilling it in the fridge for 30 minutes to set
the frosting. I have a bowl of a few different shades of pink and purple
buttercream, stirred a little bit together but the colour is still very
marbled and I'm spooning this into a piping bag fitted with a petal tip and
you can see that this tip has a narrow end and a wider end and I'm holding it
facing downwards with the wider end pressed against the side of the chilled
cake. As I apply pressure to the bag I'm pulling the bag slowly upwards, moving my
hand from side to side to make the ribbons of buttercream wave back and
forth as they go up the side of the cake. I'm trying to space the ribbons evenly
apart around the cake. Because there are lots of colours of buttercream within the
piping bag, the ribbons have different shades of pink and purple within them,
which adds a bit of interest to the cake. I don't like this ribbon so I'm scraping
it off with my frosting smoother and this works because the frosting on the
cake has set because it's cold so the frosting isn't damaged by the pressure
of my frosting smoother as I scrape. I'm piping up above the top edges of the
cake and I can tidy those parts up later. After piping ribbons all the way around
the cake I'm using my offset spatula to swipe the tops of the ribbons, which are
sticking up over the top edge of the cake from the outside towards the middle
of the cake and then swiping them up with my offset spatula so that the
ruffles are level with the top of the cake. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial!
Please click the thumbs up button to like it and check out my online cake
school and the link for that is in the top of the screen and in the video
description. Subscribe to my channel for a new cake decorating
tutorial every week!