Laziness is quite often the mother of invention over here at the lair. So when the ECG had to whip up a quick bridal shower cake, and didn't feel like hand-tinting fondant, she hit paydirt! The cake had been designed with two of the ECG's favorite mesh stencil patterns, but she was short on time, so she took a calculated risk. Frost the cake in Buttercream, and try to use the mesh stencil on it. If it didn't work, then she would cover it with fondant and stencil again. You see, the ECG had never tried to use a mesh stencil on Buttercream, despite tons of you minions doing it, so she gave it a whirl...and it works like a charm!
She's a little embarrased that she'd never tried it before, but she's always been a fondant girl. And this discovery knocked a good couple of hours off of production time! It's simple.
1) Frost the cake in Buttercream
The ECG used pure butter American Buttercream with Wickedly White Powdered Whitener for a bright white, then added a little Blue Food Color for a nice ombre effect. Get her super easy Recipe HERE
2) Let the cake set up until firm
This pure-butter buttercream sets up like a rock in the fridge, but if you're using a high ratio shortening, or a swiss meringue buttercream, you may want to put the cake in the freezer to firm up the frosting before stenciling.
3) Make Mesh Stenciling Buttercream
Mix a small amount of buttercream with Wickedly White Powdered Whitener, then tint to the desired color. The Wickedly White creates the opaque base necessary for the mesh stenciling to show up!
4) Stencil the cake
Stencil the cake the same way you would with an acrylic stencil. Be sure to remove any excess buttercream from the stencil, it should be scraped down to the level of the stencil. See our full Mesh Stenciling Tutorial HERE
5) Let out an evil cackle...you just created an intricately stenciled cake in no time!
Watch this!
Now check out how easy it was to make those edible Ball Decorations with our new Ball Molds!
We used Glitzy as Hell on the dark blue ones, but if you want a full-on shiny bubble look, use our Shiny as hell in the molds, or in a zip lock (see video where we did it with Whoppers HERE)
Here's Everything you need:
Now that you're a Mesh Stencil Genius, shop them all HERE
Want a little more inspiration? We got you, check out a few more new buttercream techniques HERE
Learn how to stabilize any buttercream for summer heat HERE!
