Halloween Purple and Black Stripe Cake
Steps involved
Make cake layers
Make buttercream (no color)
Split and color buttercream
Frost and stripe the cake
Pipe rosettes
READ BEFORE CONTINUING: The following recipes are scaled to make the cake pictured above -- a 4 layer cake made with 6-inch round cake layers. If you wish to make a smaller cake, please scale down these recipes.
recipes used
1 vanilla cake recipe (If you'd like black cake layers, my chocolate cake recipe makes really dark chocolate cake which works well)
1 - 1.5 batches Italian meringue buttercream
I made this buttercream vanilla flavored by adding 1 tablespoon of vanilla to my 1.5x batch (can add less or more to taste)
Colors used
To get these colors, I used Wilton's Color Right Food Coloring System.*
For the cake layers: *for tips on how to get vibrant cake layers, click here.
Purple Cake Layer:
Blue: 2 drops
Pink: 4 drops
Green Cake Layer:
Yellow: 3 drops
Blue: 3 drops
Orange Cake Layer:
Orange: 6 drops
Black Cake Layer: *I recommend using chocolate cake for this layer or adding extra vanilla flavoring to help prevent tasting the food coloring*
Brown: 25-30 drops
Black: ~20 drops
For the icing:
The colors may differ depending on how much icing you're coloring and the starting color of your buttercream (certain butter brands are more white or yellow which can make the buttercream whiter or more yellow). These are the amounts I used and should get you close.
Purple Icing:
Blue: 27 drops
Red: 9 drops
Pink: 55 drops
Black Icing: *for in depth instructions on how to get deep black icing, click here.
Supplies/tools
To find the tools I use for almost every cake I make and decorate (including pans, cake boards, icing smoothers, etc.), click here.
The supplies/tools below are specifically for decorating this cake, which I used in addition to the ones in the link above.*
Evil Cake Genius 1/2 inch stripe icing comb (here's a similar one on amazon.com)
Optional: Thick-walled cake pans (to prevent the sides of the cake from browning too much and taking away from the color of the cake)
*Some of these links may be affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I earn a small amount from some purchases, however, this does not affect my recommendations.
Decorating the cake
After the cake has been assembled and crumb coated:
Ice the cake with the purple icing and smooth with an icing smoother or the smooth side of the icing comb.
Use the stripe side of the icing comb to create grooves in the icing, which will become the colored stripes. With the first pass of the icing comb, press lightly to remove a small amount of icing. Continue using the stripe comb, taking off more icing with each pass. You'll have to do several passes with the stripe comb until the "raised" buttercream is smooth.
Next, place the cake in the fridge until the icing is firm to the touch.
Using a piping bag, fill each of the grooves with the black buttercream.
Using the smooth side of the icing comb, smooth the cake. With the first pass of the comb, press lightly to remove a small amount of icing. Continue smoothing until the stripes start to "appear". Normally you would continue smoothing the cake with the stright side of the icing comb until you reveal clean stripes, but for this cake I chose to stop early to keep the "grungy" look.
Once you like the look of the stripes you've created, stop smoothing the cake. Optional: place the cake in the fridge until the icing is firm.
Taking a piping bag with the Wilton 1M tip and the black icing, pipe rosettes and dollops along the top edge of the cake. To pipe rosettes: (refer to the video below for a visualization of this process) start where you would like the middle of the rosette to be and place the tip close to the cake, squeeze the piping bag and while keeping pressure on the bag, turn your wrist counter-clockwise. Continue to pipe in a circular motion, making your counter-clockwise turns bigger each time to increase the size of the rosette. I usually do 1 or 2 wrist turns to create my rosettes. To pipe the dollops: With the tip close to the cake, squeeze the piping bag until you get a dollop of icing and release pressure on the bag as you pull the bag away from the cake.
Continue piping around the top edge of the cake until you've piped all the way around.
Slice and enjoy :)
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