Oh January, perhaps the worst time of year for cake decorating. People are either still recovering from their holiday over-indulgences or flinging full speed into Valentines Day.
I spent early January working on a Buttercream Basics series, but I’m not quite ready for the V-day extravaganza yet 🙂
So instead I thought some simple buttercream snowflakes would be a perfect design for this weird time of year. I made snowflakes by piping a series of small dots, which are a bit easier to keep even than lines. AND I went super colorful with the base layer of frosting, because I really need some color to get me through winter!

How to Pipe Simple Buttercream Snowflakes
- Start with a frosted cake. I did a sort of watercolor effect, but a solid color would work as well. Chill the frosted cake for a few minutes before starting the snowflakes.

- For the snowflakes, use plain white buttercream and smaller sized piping tips. I used a #16 open star tip and #4 and #6 round tips.


- The basic structure for the snowflakes is 6 lines or points, made up of a series of small dots. Start with a central dot, then pipe 6 lines of dots branching out from it.
- To keep all the lines even, count so that each line is the same number of dots.

- To add a little variety, you can pipe extra dots at the ends or in between lines.
- You can also vary the size and number of dots to get different effects.


While I did play around and try lots of different designs, I thought the best looking ones were the simple ones!
If you make a buttercream snowflake cake, tag me @bakingbutterlylove on Instagram!
No Comments