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Palette Knife Buttercream Tutorial

by Stacey 12 Comments

Palette Knife Buttercream Tutorial. Wondering how you can achieve these pretty swoops and shimmery detail? I'll show you how. #cakedecorating #buttercream

Palette Knife Buttercream Tutorial. Wondering how you can achieve these pretty swoops and shimmery detail? I’ll show you how.

I have been wanting to lean towards tutorials for a while now, video to be exact. When it comes to my blogging journey there is never an end to learning and it usually requires initial failures to get it right lol. Whether its a new recipe like these meringues, or photographing in artificial light for this Eggnog Latte Cake. There is always something to learn and of course drive me absolutely nuts in the process lol.

Palette Knife Buttercream Tutorial. Wondering how you can achieve these pretty swoops and shimmery detail? I'll show you how. #cakedecorating #buttercream

In this post is my first tutorial video. I’m going to warn you, its rough, good but rough. I had to film it five times (multiple videos in each session), make three cakes and I still could not figure out why I was so over exposed. Then on the 5th try, the last cake of this I swore I would make. I realized the problem. Total “user error”, in the IT world they would call this an I-D-10-T error… get it, it looks like idiot, lol, that nerdy one still makes me laugh. Anyways, when I finally figured it out I had one side of the last cake left that wasn’t decorated, so I thought its all or nothing. And so the video you see below is basically that last ditch effort. I promise they will get better from here 😉 .

Palette Knife Buttercream Tutorial. Wondering how you can achieve these pretty swoops and shimmery detail? I'll show you how. #cakedecorating #buttercream

What is a palette knife? Its a tool made out of plastic (like my white cheapie version in the photo below) or it can be metal with a wooden handle. It is used to mix paint colors on a painters palette, many painters/cake artists also create beautiful master pieces with them as well. I thought it would be fun to show you my rendition of the technique. I love the perfectly imperfect outcome of this cake.

lette Knife Buttercream Tutorial. Wondering how you can achieve these pretty swoops and shimmery detail? I'll show you how. #cakedecorating #buttercream

Along with the video I wanted to post some relevant tips to assist:

  1. For this cake I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream, it has a silky quality that was perfect for the texture and workability of this design. Recipe here, if filling a 4 layer cake like this one you will need to triple the recipe.
  2. Crumb coat, final coat and chill your cake completely. The buttercream should not be soft or tacky.
  3. I used two blue tones for this cake. Both used Wiltons “Blue” with a touch of Wilton “Black” to mute the shades slightly.
  4. When you are ready to begin palette knife painting your blue buttercream should be at room temp and creamy, it will paint, smear and blend better.
  5. When you put the buttercream on your palette knife, this is called “loading” the knife. You will put on a generous amount, press it against the cake pressing slightly so the buttercream builds a heavy cap on the top and then swipe downward so the buttercream gets thinner as you go down. I applied the buttercream at a slight angle. Think of it as a wave, heavier on top, thinner towards the bottom. You can apply as few or as many swoops as you wish, this is really up to your vision. As you can see I have a lot of swoops but you can still see the cake through in places which is fine.
  6. After this step chill the cake completely, at least an hour. The swoops should be completely chilled through for the next step or buttercream will get messy on your paint brush.
  7. Once ready each swoop will be dusted with luster dust. I used Wiltons “Blue” and CK Products “Super Pearl”.
  8. Starting with the darker blue swoops, use a flat 3/8 inch paint brush and dab it into the blue luster dust, tap off excess and gently dust onto the swoops making sure to get the tops as well. Repeat until all are finished.
  9. Check to see if your cake needs to be re-cooled for 30 minutes, if needed do so before proceeding to the light blue swoops.
  10. When ready to dust the lighter blue swoops repeat step 8 using the Super Pearl luster dust.
  11. Optional but really pretty, randomly place a blue sprinkle (aka dragee’) on the cap/top of each swoop. I had a multi color mix so I just picked out the blue ones.
  12. For the top I used meringues, recipe can be found here.

 

Enjoy!

Stacey

The following are Amazon Affiliate Links which means if you were to purchase from these links I get a small commission at no charge to you. But even if you dont purchase through Amazon the below will help give you visual of what to look for when you are shopping 🙂 . 

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Palette Knife Buttercream Tutorial. Wondering how you can achieve these pretty swoops and shimmery detail? I'll show you how. #cakedecorating #buttercream

Filed Under: Cakes/Cupcakes, Desserts, Uncategorized Tagged With: buttercream tutorial, cake, cake decorating, cake design, palette knife tutorial, recipe video, tutorial, wedding cakes

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Comments

  1. Karol says

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    FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! Loved the video!!! LOVE LOVE that beautiful cake.

    Reply
    • Stacey says

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      Thanks so much Karol 🙂 ! It was a fun cake to make. Take care.

      Reply
  2. Katherine | Love In My Oven says

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    We’re in this together, Stacey! I’ve been trying to do some videos too, but man they are SO tricky, and time consuming! I thought yours was great – really good tutorial!! Keep up the good work (and the beautiful cakes)!

    Reply
    • Stacey says

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      Hi Katherine! Agreed, glad I’m not alone. Thank you so much, I really liked yours as well, I favor the overhead videos 🙂 . Take care.

      Reply
  3. Karly says

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    Gorgeous!

    Reply
    • Stacey says

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      Thanks so much Karly 🙂 . Take care.

      Reply
  4. annie@ciaochowbambina says

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    Great video and gorgeous cake! I don’t know if I want to eat it or just look at it!

    Reply
    • Stacey says

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      Hi Annie, lol, I have to admit, it was hard to cut into this one. Thank you 🙂 . Take care.

      Reply
  5. Tash says

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    Hey,

    Love this! Do you think this effect would be possible with a cream cheese frosting?

    Reply
    • Stacey says

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      Hi Tash! Thanks so much. I can’t speak from experience as I haven’t tried this with cream cheese frosting. But thinking of how soft cream cheese frosting is my first response/thought would be no. I think Swiss Meringue Buttercream or American Buttercream would work best. Cream cheese frosting (though absolutely delicious) doesn’t hold piping well and this technique is kind of like an organic form of piping. If you still want to take the challenge I would recommend that your cake be really refrigerated well before you begin and then experiment with a small section and see how it holds up, maybe even work in small sections and refrigerate in between. Then when it comes to adding the luster dust again make sure the cake is completely chilled so your brush doesn’t get gooey from frosting. If you try it I’d love to hear how it turns out 😉 . Happy decorating. Take care.

      Reply
  6. Julie says

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    Thank for your your video!

    Just for practicing, is it ok to use the type of frosting you buy in a container at the grocery aisle by the boxed cake mixes?

    Reply
    • Stacey says

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      Hi Julie, I cannot speak from experience to fully answer this question as I have not tried this with container frosting. I do recall in the past when I have used container frosting that it is very soft and doesn’t hold piping well. You can always give it a try and see what happens. If you choose to make your own buttercream the recipe I used here was Swiss Meringue Buttercream and it worked perfectly. However, a simpler buttercream recipe is American Buttercream which can be found here, https://www.thesugarcoatedcottage.com/classic-vanilla-buttercream-frosting/. It holds a shape nicely and can be softened with more milk or stiffened with more powdered sugar until you get the right consistency. Thank you for your question. Take care 🙂

      Reply

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head-shot-100 I believe that you can create beautiful cakes from start to finish with the right process. Check out more under "About Me".

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