Happy Birthday to my wonderful, amazing baby sister. You are an incredible woman and I am lucky to have you in my family. I am so glad that my nephew is getting a baby sister, because really, a little sister is the best gift I have ever gotten.
How to make a ruffle cake:
This ruffle cake is really pretty easy. I made a 6 inch cake 3 layers high. A box of cake mix will make a 3 layer 6 inch cake. To make the ruffled sides, use a Wilton #104 tip and place the tip perpendicular to the cake with the fat end of the tip toward the cake. The trickiest bit is keeping your lines straight. As you can see, I did not do a killer job at that.
I put a crumb coat on the cake, but it wasn’t necessary. The ribbon frosting takes a lot of icing, so with the crumb coat there was too much frosting and I had to make more than my usual one batch of icing. The writing was done in a Wilton #3 tip and the swirls for the boarder were done with a Wilton #18 tip.
I used a buttercream that was part shortening because I wanted the frosting to hold up on a two hour car ride, plus is makes the piping a bit crisper. Why? Because shortening is 100% fat while butter contains some water and shortening does not melt at room temperature or even body temperature. I prefer the flavor of straight butter buttercream, so if you are keeping it local and making it on a cool day that is what I would recommend.
You want your frosting to be “piping” consistency, which means it needs to be thicker than you would typically make it for frosting the outside of the cake. Otherwise your “ribbons” will not be crisp.
American Buttercream with Shortening
Ingredients
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup butter softened
- 8 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 4-6 tablespoons water
Instructions
- If using a stand mixer, fit with paddle attachment. Cream together shortening and butter until light and fluffy and completely combined.
- Add in vanilla extract and beat to combine.
- Tun mixer down to “stir” and SLOWLY mix in powdered sugar one cup (or even 1/2 cup) at a time until combined.
- If your frosting is getting too thick while you are mixing in the powdered sugar, add 1-2 tablespoons of water.
- After you are done mixing in the powdered sugar, evaluate your frosting. If it is too thick, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.
