How I Transferred Artwork to Cake

To make Lucy’s birthday cake, I first gave her a piece of paper that was the same size as the top of the cake, then let her fill it up with her artwork. But how to then get that design onto the cake? Here’s what I did…

NOTE: This method will only work on “crusting” buttercream, i.e. frosting that doesn’t stay soft.

1) Put paper on something soft, like a towel.

2) Poke holes into the paper, on the lines. I used a pen tip. A toothpick might work well too.

Now your paper has lots of little tear-outs on the backside, like reverse Braille.

3) Lay the paper on the cake and gently press tear-outs into frosting. Ta da! Lots of dots to guide you!

4) Pipe frosting over the dots.

A few other thoughts:

I was trying this method for the first time and wasn’t sure how well it would work so didn’t want to waste my time doing the whole design right away. And if it did work, I was afraid all the dots from the whole design would be too confusing to follow. Hence, I started with just the “fairy.”

To do the rest of the image, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to perfectly line up the previous tear-outs with the dots already in the cake, I cut away smaller still-smooth sections from the paper, punched them, and pressed them into the cake one by one. (That also allowed me to pipe the dots that were there before adding more dots and confusing myself.)

Next time, I want to try just lightly tracing over the lines, again on something soft, instead of punching holes. Perhaps the indented lines would be enough to transfer the design. Would maybe be quicker and less confusing.

This might be great too for people who have trouble writing on cakes: write it on a piece of paper first—or even print it out! Then it’s just a matter of piping it accurately and neatly.  : )