Easy Cake Rosette Frosting

I am not an avid baker but since we’ve moved into our new house, I’ve been compelled to really start using all of the kitchen equipment and cooking tools we received as wedding gifts. It’s been three and a half years since we were gifted with an aqua KitchenAid mixer and this past weekend was the first time I’ve taken it out of the box!

Since I’ve found myself getting lost on Instagram more than once exploring the hashtag “#cakedecorating,” I decided to make a multi-tiered cake with a rosette homemade frosting design.

To make the process a lot easier, I cheated and used boxed cake mixes (shhh!).

I bought enough cake mix to fill three 8-inch round pans. Instead of spraying the pan with cooking spray or greasing it, I used parchment paper liners, which were featured on “Shark Tank” and have tabs to make it easy to pull the cake out of the pan.

Once the cake batter has baked in the oven (follow directions on the box!), let the cakes fully cool down in the refrigerator before doing anything else to them. A chilled cake crumbles less and won’t cause the frosting to melt.

Slice off the rounded top of each cake (someone will eat it!) and place the first slice on a round piece of cardboard, which will make it easy for your to transfer the cake to your cake pedestal before you begin the exterior decorating.

The recipe for homemade buttercream frosting is super easy. To frost a three-layer cake, you’ll want to mix up four batches of this recipe so you have plenty of frosting:

4 cups of powdered sugar

2 sticks of softened salted butter (you can also use unsalted but I tried both and prefer salted)

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3-4 tablespoons of whole milk (add more milk to get a creamier consistency)

1 dash of pink food coloring

Tip: To soften the sticks of butter, put them in a bowl and pop them in the microwave for about 20 seconds. The butter cannot be too soft or liquefied at all – I learned this lesson the hard way! The frosting will end up too grainy and it won’t look good or spread correctly.

Spread a layer of frosting on top of each slice and layer them. For the top slice, flip it upside down so the browned pan side is facing up, making a nice flat surface for the frosting.

Using a serrated knife, trim the layers so they are even around the entire cake.

Now comes the (surprisingly) easiest part! Once you’ve moved the bare cake to your cake pedestal, use a star icing tip placed inside a disposable frosting bag (set can be found here) and pipe swirls all along the bottom of the cake. For the second row, swirl the rosettes in between each of the bottom rosettes so they overlap. Continue around the cake. For the top, start along the outside layers working towards the center until the entire cake is covered. That’s it!

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I used my Nora Fleming pearl pedestal from The Paper Store and a pink heart mini. Each of Nora Fleming’s pieces come with a little round hole, which can be decorated with interchangeable mini ornaments. The Paper Store sells an array of different designs for every holiday and season (Valentine’s Day, summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.), as well as evergreen designs that work for any time of the year.

Thank you, The Paper Store, for collaborating with me on this post.