Looking for ideas for Easter cake and cupcake ideas? This tutorial shows you exactly how to decorate 7 designs, step by step. From a cute bunny cake to a speckled egg cake, carrot cake decorations, lots of flowers, and stunning cupcakes, these techniques are all achievable with basic tools.
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0:00
These Easter cake and cupcake ideas are cute, colourful, and surprisingly simple to decorate.
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I'm going to show you seven Easter cake and cupcake decorating ideas using buttercream,
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including homemade stencil designs, speckled egg cakes, piped roses, carved buttercream,
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and a really fun technique that reveals a hidden design inside the frosting. Most of these use
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basic tools and simple techniques for impressive results. The first technique uses homemade
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stencils. Start by drawing or tracing your design. I'm tracing a bunny face from my computer screen
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onto a piece of paper. Now, place parchment paper or wax paper over your sketch. Trace around the
0:35
background shape first, which will be your first stencil and your first colour. Then, trace the
0:39
details using a separate piece of parchment or wax paper for each colour. Once everything is drawn,
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cut out the shapes. When you layer the pieces together, you should see how they combine to
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create the full design. Chill your cake after frosting it so the buttercream is firm. Next,
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mix the buttercream colours you'll need. A really handy tip is to use a cupcake pan as your colour
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palette. Just put a spoonful of buttercream into each hole. They're the perfect size and you only
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have one thing to wash at the end. And then start with the background stencil, pressing it onto the
1:07
cake. Spread buttercream over the top. Smooth over it a few times to leave just a thin layer and then
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carefully peel the stencil off. If there are any smudges, you can tidy them up with a toothpick.
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Put the cake back into the fridge or the freezer for about 10 minutes to set that buttercream
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before adding the next stencil. Continue layering the stencils from the back of the design to the
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front. And at the end, optionally, you can pipe around the coloured sections to make the design
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really pop. I'm piping the eyes instead of using a tiny stencil. And I'm scoring the mouth with a
1:37
toothpick. And there's a buttercream stencil Easter bunny cake! The next cake is inspired
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by speckled chocolate eggs. After assembling your cake layers with filling and frosting,
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take your time smoothing the frosting for this design because there won't be many decorations
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covering up the sides of the cake. While the frosting is still soft and sticky, press
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colourful mini eggs onto the top in a ring. Now for the speckled effect, mix one teaspoon of cocoa
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powder with one and a half teaspoon of hot water. Before splattering it onto the cake, I recommend
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protecting your work surfaces with cloths or towels because this can get a bit messy. Dip
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a paintbrush into the cocoa powder mixture, pull the bristles back with your finger, and then let
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go so they snap forwards and the cocoa splatters onto the cake. This creates a speckled egg effect.
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It's fine if the speckles land on the eggs, too. It actually helps bring everything together.
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Next is a carrot cake, which feels perfect for Easter. Starting with the decorations, before
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you add cream cheese to the frosting, set aside a few spoonfuls of the buttercream base, which is
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stiffer and easier to pipe with. Tint most of it orange and pipe zigzag shapes onto parchment paper
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to create the carrots. Add green food colouring to the rest of the buttercream, and the leftover
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orange in the bowl will make the green slightly muted, which actually works well for the carrot
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tops. Put this into a piping bag with the same small round piping tip - this is a number
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four - and pipe three little spikes at the top of each carrot. Freeze these for about 10 minutes
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so they firm up. While they chill, assemble your carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. The full
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recipe is on www.britishgirlbakes.com. Smooth the frosting or add texture using the back of a spoon
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or an offset spatula or palette knife and then lift the frozen carrots off the parchment and
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arrange them on the cake. I like placing them where I'll cut the cake later so that they mark
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out the portions. This is a simple decoration and it only takes a few minutes, but it looks
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so pretty! The next cake is a carved buttercream design. Start by crumb coating your cake and then
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spread on a smooth layer of frosting and freeze it for about 15 minutes. Then add another final
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layer of frosting, but a different colour. Both layers of frosting should be neat and smooth. And
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the second layer should be as thin as possible without exposing the colour underneath. Chill
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the cake again until the buttercream is firm. And now dip a clay modeling tool into warm water and
3:44
start carving into the frosting. This hook-shaped tool works well for things like dandelion seeds,
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and a round tool can carve larger circular shapes. A pointed tool is great for stems, for leaves,
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or for the outline of flower petals. After each time you carve, dip the tool back into warm water
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to remove the buttercream and keep it warm so it glides through the frosting. You can combine
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colours and designs to create really striking carved buttercream cakes. You can carve cupcakes,
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too. Pipe two blobs of different coloured buttercream onto a cupcake using a large
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round piping tip. This is a 1A. Then flip it over and press down onto a piece of parchment
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or wax paper and put this into the freezer for 30 minutes to chill and set the buttercream. Now, use
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clay modeling tools or the pointed end of a petal piping tip will work instead on cakes or cupcakes.
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Next, let's make a buttercream rose cupcake. Use a petal-shaped piping tip - this is a number
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104 - and start by piping a blob of buttercream in the center of the cupcake to give the rose
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some height. Hold the petal tip with the narrow part pointing upwards and pipe a spiral around
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the blob while spinning the cupcake to form a rose bud. Next, pipe arcs around this. Each arc should
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overlap the previous one by about half. Angle the piping tip so that the top points slightly inward,
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which helps the petals wrap tightly around the center. And as you move outward, gradually angle
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the piping tip backwards so that the petals fan out from the rose. This is beautiful as a single
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cupcake, but it also looks amazing as part of a cupcake bouquet. Next, I'll show you how to
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stencil around the sides of a cake. Cut parchment or wax paper to the same height as your cake and
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draw or trace your design onto it. Cut out the shapes while leaving the surrounding paper intact
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so it works as a stencil. Wrap the stencil around the cake and spread buttercream over the cutouts.
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For these stems, I'm spreading the frosting up and down rather than sideways so I don't
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pull the stencil away from the cake. For larger shapes that are completely surrounded by paper,
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spread inwards towards the middle of the cutout for the same reason so that you don't lift the
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stencil away from the cake. Peel the stencil off and clean up any smudges with a toothpick. Chill
5:46
the cake before adding the next stencil so that the first parts set. Because the flowers in my
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design are close to the stems, I ended up making separate stencils so that the colors wouldn't
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smudge. Ideally, you'll leave about an inch around each shape on the stencil to prevent spreading
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frosting over the edges and onto your cake. Place each stencil onto your cold cake, spread frosting
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over it, scrape away the excess to leave a smooth, thin layer behind, and then peel the
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stencil off. As long as your cake is really cold, this technique is very forgiving. This final cake
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uses a technique I call facelift frosting. You pipe a design onto a cake and then turn it into
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a completely flat design. Start by piping your design onto the cake and freeze the cake for about
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20 minutes. Then pipe buttercream over the entire design to cover it completely. Freeze the cake
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again for another 20 minutes and now warm a cake scraper by dipping it into hot water or running it
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under a hot tap. You can also warm it with a hair dryer or a blowtorch. Then start scraping around
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the cake. At first it will feel like a terrible mistake because you're scraping away frosting
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you just piped. But as you continue, the hidden design underneath starts to reveal itself, and
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it's actually really exciting to watch. The final result is a perfectly flat cake with an embedded
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buttercream design. And one last quick tip before you take your Easter cakes outside: as the weather
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gets warmer, remember that butter melts and so does buttercream. So, if you're displaying
7:07
your cakes outside for an Easter party or a spring celebration, try to keep them in the shade instead
7:12
of placing them in direct sunlight. Otherwise, the buttercream can start melting very quickly.
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So, tell me in the comments which of these seven Easter cake and cupcake decorating ideas you're
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going to try next. And to learn hundreds more cake decorating techniques and designs, visit
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my cake school on www.britishgirlbakes.com. Join my channel membership on YouTube to get access to
7:30
my perfectly smooth frosting course, exclusive videos, and other perks. Thanks for watching!


