Easy Birthday Cake Decorations!

Let’s decorate this cute and simple birthday cake featuring buttercream borders and, of course, SPRINKLES! Here is an easy way to decorate a birthday cake!

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Try these decorating techniques on your next cake!

BAKE CAKE LAYERS

Start by making your favorite cake of choice from box, mix, or scratch, and be sure to follow the baking directions as indicated for your batter. Allow your cakes to cool outside of the pan. Your cake layers should be at room temperature for the next step.

Always remember to remove your cake layers from the pan BEFORE they cool to room temperature!

LEVEL CAKE LAYERS & FROST CAKE

Remove any cake domes using a cake leveler or a serrated bread knife. Our next step is to ice our cake. I like to use the upside-down method of icing a cake to get nice, sharp cake edges. It's really easy to do, but this video may help you follow along. Once frosted, place the cake in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes.

Once the cake has hardened slightly, remove it from the refrigerator and use a piece of parchment paper to further smooth the top of the cake.

LEARN 3 EASY BUTTCREAM PIPING TECHNIQUES

To pipe buttercream decorations onto the cake, we need the following supplies:

• Disposable decorating bag

• #21 Decorating tip

• A pair of scissors

• Buttercream icing (approximately 1 cup)

To prepare our decorating bag, drop the #21 decorating tip into the bag. Note the location of the opening on the side of the tip. Score the bag slightly above these openings and cut the bag straight across our score mark.

Next, we'll fold the bag down halfway and spoon the buttercream into the bag. Fold the sides of the decorating bag back up, flatten and gather it.

Technique #1: Reverse Shell

Holding the bag at a 45-degree angle to the surface with the top of the bag facing me, squeeze and form a backward question mark. Follow the same steps for the next reverse shell, except reverse the direction of the question mark.

Reverse shells are piped on a 45-degree angle with the open end of the bag facing your body.

Technique #2: Shell

Hold the bag at the same angle with the same hand position, but this technique maintains a straight line.

Creating perfect buttercream shells take a lot of practice. Don't give up!

Technique #3: Star

Hold the bag completely vertical, touching the surface. Squeeze while keeping the tip down. We stop completely and then lift straight up.

All of these buttercream decorations are created with just a single piping tip!

After practicing on parchment paper, it’s time to add the top and bottom borders to your cake.

Use a cake turntable to get to every side of your cake while standing in one place.

CUSTOMIZE YOUR CAKE

Next, we are going to use some colorful sprinkles and a cookie cutter to customize our cake. I like to place my sprinkles into a decorating bag to have better control over them during the next step. Here, I have a metal cookie cutter of the number one. You may use a plastic or metal cutter in any number, letter or shape you choose.

Position the cutter in the center of the cake and press down slightly. This will help to contain the sprinkles. Next, fill our cutter with sprinkles and use a small metal spatula to press the sprinkles into the icing. Finally, we lift our cutter, leaving our sprinkled number or letter.

You can leave it as is, but to embellish the top a bit more, you can pipe a simple star border around the sprinkles.