Painted Cake

If you find cake decorating to be a bit intimidating then check out my How to Decorate a Cake post, it has lots of helpful tips and a full how to video.

How do you Paint with Buttercream?

First off gather the tools you’ll need. Food coloring, some clean brushes and/or a palette knife or two. Bake a cake and whip up some Swiss meringue buttercream. You can use other frostings but this one is the most forgiving. Smooth the cake and chill, you want a firm surface to work on. Sketch out your idea, mix some colors and get to work! It’s easiest to paint from back to front. Lay out your background, get it to a place you’re happy with then move to the mid ground and then the foreground. Use a toothpick or skewer to sketch details and remove buttercream. If things are getting too soft, chill the cake until firm.

Some Tips and Pointers for Making this Cake

If you’re not using 6-inch pans, double the recipe for 8-inch pans or triple the recipe for 9-inch pans. If you see little clumps of butter after you mix the wet ingredients don’t panic, it all works out by the time you mix in the dry ingredients. You can even use melted butter and warm the milk and sour cream up a bit if you like. You can substitute whole milk yogurt for the sour cream if desired, I do it all the time and can’t really tell the difference. To get FLAT layers that are moist inside and out try using cake strips! You can buy a set on the shop page or make your own from foil and paper towels at home. I made a whole blog post on it so check it out if you’re interested!

How to Make a Painted Cake

Start by sketching your idea out. I always measure the height of my cake as well as the length I expect the scene to be. The sketch can be really rough, it’s just a guide. You can also make notes for colors to help guide your palette.
Mix your colors up. For this cake I used several palettes and mixed a bunch of tones up. You can mix from primary colored dyes or get a big set of Americolor gel food coloring, which works great.
Start painting the background. You don’t have to worry about blending the colors at this point, just get color onto the cake. I used a small brush but a palette knife would work too.
Once your background is roughed out, start blending! I used a big brush but a pastry brush would work too. Try using long strokes from light to dark areas and clean your brush frequently by wiping off with a paper towel.
Now you can begin painting details in the background. In this case those are trees, which I am painting with a light green buttercream using a small brush.
Paint your middle ground objects. My barn has a fair amount of detail so I’m using a small brush as well as a tooth pick. The pick can help you sketch onto the buttercream and remove colors to help define lines.
I have some big trees to paint so I’m using a bolder green since their close to the viewer and a palette knife to really lay lots of color and texture down.
I’m defining the snowy foreground with VERY light grey-blue mounds and more white buttercream to create contrast. Using a palette knife allows you to lay big patches of color down and not worry about brush strokes.
Finish off by adding any remaining details to the foreground. I painted a fence and some bushes using smaller brushes and toothpicks to remove any errant buttercream. If you’ve tried this painted cake then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you! IF YOU LOVE THIS RECIPE TRY THESE OUT! Painted Cake Brown Butter Cake Lavender Cake Rainbow Swirl Cake

Painted Cake - 54 Painted Cake - 44 Painted Cake - 3 Painted Cake - 64

title: “Painted Cake” ShowToc: true date: “2024-11-08” author: “John Hansen”

Many, many, many years ago I was an art major at UCLA and after graduating painted for a good number of years; selling a few works here and there. Anyhow, this should be just my type of cake but it was a bit intimidating since I had high expectations of myself and no direct experience in the medium of buttercream!

I practiced a bit on a plate to get the feel for applying the petals with a palette knife, piping the stamens and leaves etc. After you get the hang of it the process is really not difficult. I ended up using a small petal tip (61) for the last few petals in the foreground of each flower. It was much easier than applying with only a palette knife although that is totally doable. Almost all of the flowers on the plate were done with a palette knife for all of the petals. The leaves were piped on with a 349 tip.

How to Make a Painted Cake

Preheat oven to 340F. Butter and flour three 6-inch cake pans. Soak baking strips in water. Strain the strawberry preserves. Sift dry ingredients (including sugar). Whisk to combine.
In another bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.
Combine wet and dry mixtures. Whisk until combined. Add a few drops of pink food coloring until a desired consistency is reached. If the batter is lumpy, it’s okay! Add damp baking strips to the cake pans. Evenly distribute batter into pans. I like to use a kitchen scale for precision. Bake for about 30- 35 minutes or until the centers are set and springy to the touch.
In a stand mixer, cream the butter until fluffy. Sift in half of the confectioners sugar. Mix, then add the rest. Squeeze lemon juice and combine. Reserve ¼ cup of the white buttercream to dye green for the stems and leaves. Transfer ½ the plain white buttercream from the standing mixer to a piping bag. Snip off the tip. Add in 1 tbsp of strained strawberry preserves to the remaining buttercream. Mix until combined. Save about 1-2 cups for the flowers in a separate bowl. Transfer the strawberry buttercream to a piping bag and snip off the tip. Use food coloring to dye the buttercream different shades of pink to orange for the flowers.
Pipe the strawberry buttercream between each layer.
Crumb coat the cake.
smooth with a scraper.
Pipe a thin layer of plain white buttercream on the outside of the cake. Even out with a hot scraper and offset spatula. Chill for about 30 minutes.
Using a palette knife, sculpt flowers from the pink and orange buttercream.
Add details.
Pipe on stems
Pipe on leaves. If you’ve tried this painted cake then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you!

Recipe Notes

I used an American buttercream for this cake but if you like things on the less sweet side then I would substitute an Italian meringue buttercream in, much less sweet but so creamy and silky. It really lets the cake shine through. I stuck with a traditional American buttercream because it’s more stable in warmer temperatures and thicker in consistency making it more forgiving to paint with. To achieve some extra depth you can mix up some batches or buttercream with more coloring, then use that for different parts of the flower. I often do this when piping roses and it really helps. I know this cake is decorated to heck and back, which isn’t always a feasible thing to do. Feel free to make this as a naked cake or to employ any decoration scheme you’d like!