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In this tutorial I'll show you how to assemble, frost and decorate a half birthday cake using the trending cartoon style!
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0:00
If you're celebrating a half birthday, this is the most fun cake you can make
0:08
You'll need two layers of cake if you want to make a four layer cake. And just cut each one down the middle and attach the first one to a cakeboard using a bit of buttercream that you can spread or pipe onto the cakeboard
0:19
When you push the first layer of cake down onto it, you'll attach it like glue. Spread or pipe your filling onto that layer and then place the next layer on top
0:26
and continue alternating cake and filling to assemble your half cake. I definitely recommend chilling this before frosting it
0:33
firstly because room temperature cake layers are very crumbly, and secondly because they're very soft
0:37
so the cake will wobble a lot if you try to frost it now. Put it into the freezer for 15 minutes or the fridge for half an hour
0:44
and then cover it in frosting, and this is a crumb coat, which is a very thin layer of frosting that traps any crumbs that come off the cake
0:51
so that they get stuck in this layer of frosting and they won't get into your final layer of frosting later
0:56
So spread the frosting all over the top and the sides of the cake all the way down to the cake board
1:01
so that you can't see any cake poking through, although being able to see shadowing underneath the frosting is absolutely fine
1:06
this really doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to trap the crumbs
1:10
Now put this back into the freezer for 15 minutes or in the fridge for half an hour to set the chrome coat
1:15
and meanwhile prepare your colours. I'm going to pipe very colourful layers onto the cut side of the cake
1:21
and the quickest way to do this is to put the frosting into piping bags with the ends cut off
1:25
but you don't actually need any piping tips for this. As you piping on the colourful frosting you be able to see the layers of cake underneath the crumb coat And if you follow those then when you cut into the cake the colorful layers that you created on the outside will match the actual cake layers on the inside
1:41
Smooth the piping with a cake comb, scraping from side to side to take off the excess
1:46
and then tidy up the edges with your offset spatula or cake comb so that they're straight
1:50
Put the cake back into the freezer for a few minutes while you prepare the frosting for the rest of the cake
1:55
I recommend using gel colors because they're much more concentrated than liquid colors
1:59
so you'll get really bold colors without needing to use much, and that means you won't affect the consistency of your butter cream
2:05
I like to start with the top, spooning some frosting on and spreading it around
2:08
so that it sticks out over the edges of the cake, and that will help you get really nice sharp edges later
2:14
After a few minutes in the freezer, the frosting on the cake will have chilled and set
2:18
and that means that you won't damage it when you add the rest of the frosting to the cake
2:21
This is my four minute buttercream, and the recipe is on British Girl Bakes.com
2:25
Don't worry about it being perfectly straight, because this is a cartoon style cake
2:29
so it's fine to have wavy lines and we're going to add an outline later so the edges don't need to be perfectly smooth and neat
2:36
Something a little bit tricky about half cakes is that you'll have to use your cake comb
2:39
in the opposite direction to the way that you're used to using it so that you can scrape from one side of the curve
2:45
to the other and then back. When you finish smoothing, you should have a nice lip of frosting sticking up
2:50
and that's perfect because now with your offset spatula you can push sideways across that top edge
2:55
and your offset spatula will push that sticking up buttercream across and lift it off the cake
3:01
leaving a nice sharp edge behind all the way around the top of the cake. I piping some swells onto the top of the cake and I just using a piping bag with the end cut off without a piping tip but if you have a 1A piping tip which is a large round piping tip that perfect and you get even neater results
3:17
I don't recommend using a star-shaped piping tip because the outline will be even trickier to do than with a round hole
3:24
To pipe the filling between the cake layers, I'm using a small round piping tip, a number 8, with some plain white butter cream in
3:31
and this is very straightforward, just pipe between the different colours, and
3:34
and you'll notice that there's a bit of blending between the colors from when you smoothed that frosting
3:39
And this piping should cover up any of that blending so that there's a clear divide between each of the colors
3:44
Now you could just leave the cake like this. I think it looks gorgeous, it's nice with pretty pastel colors
3:49
but if you want to create the iconic cartoon-style cake, you'll need to add an outline
3:54
Before doing the outline, I really recommend chilling your cake to set this frosting
3:58
so stick it back in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes while you tint your black frosting
4:02
People get so worked up about black buttercream because they think they can only make the frosting gray
4:06
but really you just need quite a lot of black gel. And then if you let the butter cream sit for about an hour, with plastic wrap over the top of the bowl to keep it soft
4:15
the gel will develop and the colour will darken all by itself. Put the butter cream into a piping bag fitted with a small round piping tip, like a number three or a number four
4:24
And now it's time to pipe the outlines. For me, this is probably the trickiest thing I've ever done with cake decorating because I have incredibly shaky hands
4:32
hands, but luckily because of this cartoon style, you don't need perfectly straight lines
4:38
so it okay for your lines to wobble and even better it even okay for them to break apart because the little gaps in between the lines are actually part of the style and the trend Work your way up or down or around the cake piping every line
4:50
which represents an edge or an outline. That means going above and below each layer of filling
4:56
around the edges of the sides of the cake and also the edges at the top, and then the most tricky
5:01
part outlining the piped swirls. If I did this again, I would do it a little bit differently
5:06
I would pipe these swirls onto a piece of parchment paper on top of a tray or
5:10
or a cutting board or a cake board. And after piping them, I would put that board
5:14
into the freezer to set the frosting of the piped swells. Then I would outline them there on that tray
5:20
because once that on the cake, it's quite difficult to angle your hand all the way around it
5:24
to follow the outline of the piping because other swells are going to get into the way
5:27
of your piping hand. But follow any edges or outlines you can see
5:32
including the little peak at the top of each of the swells. And then if you put this cake back into the freezer
5:36
for a few minutes to set the black frosting, it's very easy to scrape off any pieces you don't like, because once the frosting has set, you won't smudge it as you scrape it off
5:45
Now take a hundred photos of your cake. It's fun to try to angle it so that it really looks like a cartoon
5:50
and that will make people stop and look twice to figure out if it's actually a real cake or not
5:54
And of course, cutting into it is like an optical illusion. This cartoon style is so much fun
6:00
I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial. Visit my cake school on British Girlbakes.com to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs
6:07
and subscribe to my YouTube channel for a new cake decorator tutorial every Tuesday. Thank you for watching
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