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.
Hi Katie-- You can use this method with any type of frosting . The only exception would be a frosting that is so soft that it cannot hold it's shape well when piped (for instance, whipped cream would be difficult.) -- Have fun! ;0)
Thank you soooo much!!!!!
It´s so beautiful and easy!!! Thank you for sharing ;)
Thank you!!! I'm going to use this for dino 'scales' for the 3D cake for my son Wolfgang's first birthday!!! Have a trial cake this week to practice on so YAY!
That will be so cute!
I just did tis technique for my nieces's wedding shower this week-end, and I got RAVE reviews! Everyone loved it. My only tip to watch is to make sure to keep your dots level as you go around the cake. At one point mine had gradually started to run down hill, so I gradually brought it back up. But few noticed it but me. We are often our own worse critic...
Sherri, so glad that you made the cake and it was a hit!
Good tip about keeping straight, & so funny, because I had the same issue. It wasn't until after I finished my cake above & took photos that I realized I switched from 5 petals deep to 4 petals deep on my top tier, lol. (Of course, front and center!) -- Haha, oh well...you are right--I'm sure that your guests did not notice one bit that yours dipped a little. Thanks for the feedback ;0)
Can you use regular buttercream icing? Medium consistency?
Hi Hope, yes- medium consistency buttercream frosting is great.
Hii just wanted to knw cn we use whipped cream instead of butter cream...will the same effect comi in whipped cream
Can you use this technique with cream cheese frosting?
Hi Natalie, Yes, you can as long as the cream cheese is piping consistency.