You can easily make your own cake stencil to use with buttercream, as long as the design isn’t too complicated.
I simply measured out a long piece of parchment paper to fit the outside of my cake, then drew a design and used an xacto knife to cut out my stencil. Read on for more instructions or watch the video below!
To Make the Stencil:
To get the right sized paper, you’ll need to do a tiny bit of math. The height of the paper is easy, that’s just the same as the height of your cake. For the length, simply multiply the diameter of your cake by 3.14. So for a cake that was baked in six inch pans, I did 6×3.14= 18.85 inches long. You don’t need to worry about getting it exactly right, but it is nice to have the paper match up with your cake so that you know where to draw the design.
Next, I sketched some very simple leaves with a sharpie marker. You don’t want to make anything too complicated or it will take forever to cut out the design.
Finally, use a nice sharp xacto knife to cut the design out. I did this over top a piece of cardboard so as not to scratch my counter.
To Use the Stencil:
The stencil must be used with a cake that is already frosted and chilled. The chilled frosting will act as a canvas for your stencil, and because it is firm the paper wont mess up the base frosting as you pull away.
I found that my cold buttercream was just tacky enough for the paper to stick to the cake, so I didn’t use anything else to attach it. You could use some clean pins though if you needed extra help holding it in place.
Once you have your stencil in place, use a small spatula to spread colored frosting over the holes in the stencil. Try to spread from the edges towards the center to avoid pushing any frosting underneath the stencil.
I left a bit of a rough finish on my buttercream leaves rather than smoothing them out. With a sturdier stencil you can really scrape the frosting to get a smooth finish, but I think the parchment paper is a bit too delicate to do that.
After coloring in the stencil, gently peel away and enjoy your artwork!
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