Blue Buttercream Peony Wedding Cake tutorial for American Cake Decorating Magazine

buttercream peony bas-relief wedding cake tutorial for American Cake Decorating Magazine - ffeabysawsen

Watch a video showing how I created this 3 tiered blue peony buttercream wedding cake for American Cake Decorating Magazine. Learn how to pipe peonies using my free pictorial below, and assemble them in a bas-relief design using only buttercream. Combined with my perfect buttercream finish, perfect rose and tiered cake dowelling & stacking tutorials you have all the information you need to create your own version of this show-stopping beauty*.

On a side note, during filming I realised just how hard it is to decorate a cake at arm’s length so your head doesn’t obscure the camera.  Not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but I hope you appreciate the results!

You can relax and watch the video here, and all the other details you’ll need are in the blog post below.  Enjoy!

*Please note, this is not a tutorial aimed at beginners.  If you’ve never baked before or don’t have much practice making cakes, you might want to practice with several smaller projects before you attempt something like this – especially if you want to bake for a real wedding!

Piping tips: for each buttercream flower

Buttercream Peony Piping Tutorial (Scroll down to the very end to see full recipes & instructions for the cake)

buttercream peony piping tutorial - ffeabysawsen.com

  1. Angle your piping tip at 45 degrees from the flower nail, with the base (the widest end) of the tip facing downwards and the top pointing towards the centre of the flower nail.
  2. Apply even pressure as you rotate the flower nail in order to pipe a small dome of buttercream.  This will form the centre of your bud.
  3. Starting with the base of the piping tip touching the flower nail, pipe a slightly ruffled arc of buttercream towards the centre of the bud, then down to touch the flower nail on the opposing side.  This forms one petal of your peony.
  4. Repeat the previous step to pipe further petals, starting each with the nozzle base at the centre of the last petal, to achieve an overlapping effect.  This forms your peony bud.
  5. Pipe as many buds as required, if desired using varying colours. To pipe an open peony flower, continue piping further layers of petals around your bud as follows.
  6. With each subsequent layer of petals, angle the top of the piping tip outwards a little more to give the effect of an opening flower.  Continue overlapping petals as you work around.
  7. Pipe the final row of petals with the tip of the nozzle angled furthest away from the flower centre.  When finished, carefully transfer the flower to a work board using the parchment square.  Freeze solid before using on your cake.

 

Buttercream recipe:

If you’re a home baker or hobbyist, you can use my super easy & delicious Simple Buttercream recipe below. Serious foodies or pro’s should use my original SEBC buttercream recipe, beneath the simple version.

Sawsen’s Simple Buttercream recipe – smooth, easy, delicious & less sweet!

Sawsen’s Egg Free Swiss buttercream (SEBC) recipe – vanilla, chocolate, caffe latte, maple syrup, strawberry milk, cream cheese flavours & more!

 

Colourings:

Watch my natural DIY food colours video for more details.  You can also use any gel food colouring you wish.

  • Green:  Spirulina & matcha powder
  • Blue: gel colours
  • Silver: Edible silver lustre or paint

Take a look at my all new “recommended tools & products” list if you’d like to see exactly which colours & lustres I used.

Products I Recommend

 

Full Cake Instructions:

  1. Bake the following cakes using a recipe of your choice: 1x 4″ round, 2×6″ round and 1×8″ round cakes, all 3″ high.  If you need a recipe, follow the link below (you will need around 4 batches)

    Secrets of the perfect semi naked cake – start to finish


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  2. Prepare 3 batches of my buttercream, links above, and colour using natural or gel colours.  For pale colours you can use the powders dry, just make sure they are crushed/ sifted free of any lumps first.  Otherwise, you can mix powders with a tiny bit of warm water until you get a thick paste before use.
  3. Divide the buttercream into piping bags fitted with the appropriate tips.
  4. Pipe roses and peonies onto parchment paper and freeze solid.  My rose piping tutorial is here:
  5. Coat the cakes in buttercream as shown.  Treat the 6″ double-barrel tier as two tiers, stacked & dowelled one above the other, then coated as one.  Make sure you have a long cake scraper for this.  My tutorial for how to achieve a smooth buttercream finish is here:

    Secrets for a perfectly smooth buttercream finish on your cake


    .

  6. Stack the cakes on a 12″ board.  The tutorial for this process can be found here:
  7. Begin piping leaves as shown, then adding frozen buttercream peony and rose flowers, largest first.
  8. Pipe more leaves, vines & buds to fill the gaps and complete the cake.

That should be all you need to know to make your own 3 tiered buttercream peony wedding cake 🙂  Thank you for watching, subscribe & stay tuned for more tutorials to come!

 

*please note I get a little ad revenue if you click on any of the pictures of amazon products above, so if you’re going to buy anything I’d really appreciate you supporting my channel at the same time by using these links.  It doesn’t cost you any extra, and I only link to products I’ve used or close equivalents, and would recommend.  Thank you.

2 thoughts on “Blue Buttercream Peony Wedding Cake tutorial for American Cake Decorating Magazine

  1. Svetlana says:

    Hello, please tell me please, I can use your idea of this beautiful cake, for the wedding of my friends. Thank you.

    1. Fancy Favours & Edible Art says:

      Hi, of course you can, as long as beneath any photos you state the design was taken from this site ?

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