Buttercream Petal Cake Tutorial
Today, I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful buttercream petal cake!
I love cake designs that incorporate lots of piping or texture. Buttercream petal cakes are a perfect example, and this pretty "Petal Effect" around the sides is one of the easiest techniques there is.
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Easy, Beautiful Buttercream Technique
I absolutely love working with buttercream. Whether piping, or applying simple texture with a spatula, the decorating options are endless.
We have done countless tutorials on piped and textured methods of decorating, and today's technique is one of my favorites!
In today's tutorial, I am demonstrating a technique that not only looks like beautiful buttercream petals, but it is SO easy to create.
Your friends and family will be so impressed with this petal cake design, and the simplicity of the method will be our little secret. Enjoy!!
Petal Cake Video
How to Make a Petal Cake
Below is our original petal cake tutorial that we published to the site years ago. Sometimes it's helpful to see still shots as well!
I am working with Vanilla Buttercream, a smallish angled spatula with a rounded edge, and a piping bag fitted with a medium sized round tip (I used a Wilton Tip 12). First, pipe a vertical row of dots...
Next, spread the buttercream dots with a spatula as you see in the picture. I used a small offset spatula with a rounded edge (but you can use a spoon if you'd rather!). This creates the look of petals!
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat... one vertical row at a time. 
You can experiment with your spacing..
or you can even stagger if you'd like (This looks like fish or dragon scales!)
There are so many fun ways to change up this buttercream petal effect- you could use multicolored petals, create the design on top of a sheet cake, use it as a bottom border, etc.
Love, love, love this! I will definitely be trying this soon!
Did you do the whole top tier and then put it on the cake? Or did you finish the rows once it's assembled?
Jesus!!!! Marvelous!!!! LIKE!!!!!!!!
This technique is so simple, elegant and beautiful!!! Can it be done using cream cheese icing? Thanks.
Hi Josie--I think that most cream cheese frostings are a little too soft. If you really want cream cheese flavor, I would mix a little cream cheese frosting that you are using for your filling into regular vanilla buttercream. Either that, or you could check out Cakecentral.com's crusting cream cheese frosting (which contains shortening). --
I did this on my son's cake yesterday using a cream cheese/buttercream mix and it turned out beautifully. The only small bit of trouble I had was that the circles wanted to run down the cake if I worked too slowly in smearing them. It helped when the frosting was chilled.
Thanks for this! It's awesome!
Hi Mandi-- Good thinking to chill the frosting a bit! I'm glad that it worked well for you :0)
Hi Melissa,
I absolutely lovvveeeeee your site...could you do a video tutorial on how to do tiered cakes....I'm going to try the petal effect on my cake today:))) will let you know how it turned out!
Help!! I want to make a cake like this one for my twin girls in pinks and purples that fade towards the top but I only have one size 12 tip. Can you do this without a tip just by snipping the end of the pastry bag??
Hi Louise-- This sounds pretty! I think that you should be fine to just snip the ends of the bags. I've never tried it without a piping tip, but as long as your snip is nice and straight (and the same size from bag to bag) I don't see why it wouldn't work. Just do a practice run on some waxed paper first to make sure that you are happy with it.
Hi,
This is great! I just want to ask if I could use whipped cream frosting for this?
Thanks so much!
Hi Eirene, I haven't tried it with whipped cream so I am not sure, maybe it if was stabilized. Let is know if you decide to give it a try.