How To Make a Stencil & Butterfly Birthday Cake
Hi friends! It’s a new year which means I have some downtime to look through my cake archives to share with my readers. I’m sharing this gorgeous stenciled butterfly birthday cake I made for my mom last year! It is one of my favorite cakes to date. With this type of cake, you can decorate however you want in terms of color, design of stencil, cake accents, etc. The options are endless. Read on to read the supply list and instructions and view a couple of short videos.
Stencil & Butterfly Birthday Cake Tutorial
Tips for Cake Stenciling
Doing a stencil on cakes can be messy and frustrating. Here are some tips that may help. If you use American buttercream, which has some crusting properties, you will have more success. I used Italian Meringue Buttercream for this cake which is similar to Swiss Meringue Buttercream. There is some room for smudges with this type of buttercream. It will not be super clean. It is all about personal preference. I like the textures when I use the stencil with Italian Meringue Buttercream. If you look closely at the images, you will see them. I covered the cake with decorations which gave the cake an overall textured look. Make sure the cake is COLD. Use a toothpick to secure the stencil on the top edges. If the cake gets too warm, place it back in the fridge and restart the process. If you don’t like the stencil, you can always start over by using a cake comb to smooth them out.
What You will need to make Stencil & Butterfly Birthday Cake
- 6 inch cake pans
- Cake Turntable Stand
- Offset spatula
- Cake Comb
- Piping bags
- Stencil (It is the second stencil in this link. I purchased the stencil from a cake supply store, but I believe this one is the same,, but it comes in a package of stencils)
- Lilac Food Gel Color (I used The Sugar Art Master Elites in Lilac). I also added a tiny amount of purple to get a purple tone.
- Super White Chocolate Candy Melts (Sweet Tooth Fairy Meltables are another great option) (I added a drop of light pink gel color to the ganache)
- Heavy Cream
- Wafer Butterflies
- Edible Silver Leaf
- Edible Silver Dust (Add a tiny drop of vodka or lemon extract to create edible silver paint)
- Sprinkles with your preferred colors (This one is from Fancy Sprinkles)
- Flowers of your choice. I used pink roses with some baby breath flowers.
- Cake topper of your choice. (I used a floral cake topper. However, I do not remember where I got it from. See a similar one here.
Stencil & Butterfly Cake Design Instructions
- Bake a delicious cake recipe using a handheld or stand mixer and pour the cake batter into the 6-inch round cake pans.
- Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then take the cake layers out of the pans.
- Cut the top using a serrated knife or a cake lever if there is a significant dome.
- Make your favorite buttercream.
- Color the buttercream with the gel coloring.
- I used a small drop of purple to the buttercream to get a purple tone. You can adjust it to your liking.
- Crumb coat the cake with buttercream covering all naked spots using an offset spatula.
- Pipe on the second coat of buttercream.
- Use the cake comb to smooth the cake. Fill in the holes with buttercream until you get a smooth coat.
- Place the cake in the fridge until cold, approximately for an hour.
- Place the stencil on the cake using a toothpick to secure the stencil
- Quickly spread some buttercream on the stencil covering all of the spots.
- Repeat.
- Scrap off the excess buttercream with the edge of the spatula.
- Gently take off the stencil.
- Go to the end of the buttercream stencil and place the stencil to repeat the process.
- Place in the fridge to get the cake cold.
- Apply the ganache drip using the 3:1 oz ratio (3oz of chocolate melts to 1oz of heavy cream)
- Affix the butterflies on the cake.
- Place some of the silver leaves on the cake.
- Splatter some of the edible silver paint to give it a decorative touch.
- Sprinkle some fancy sugar (sanding sugar) on the top of the cake.
- Wrap the flower stems with floral tape and place them on the cake.
- Place the cake topper.
Videos
How To Apply The Stencil
How I Decorated the Cake
