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One trend that seems to be becoming a lot more popular at the moment is vintage inspired piped cakes. One of my favourite things about this technique is you can finally use the smaller piping tips you may have got in piping sets and you never really knew what to use them for as they are too small for cupcakes. These vintage inspired cakes also look so pretty and there are so many endless possibilities for the design.
I realise if you’re new to piping, it can be hard to know where to start or what piping tips you need to use, so this week I thought I would create my own vintage inspired cake and go through some different techniques you can use.
You can watch the step by step tutorial below ⇩
The Lambeth Technique
If you’ve started seeing this style of cake on social media you may have seen these vintage inspired cakes referred to as Lambeth cakes, so I thought I would just go through why they have been given this name. In 1934 Joseph Lambeth published a book called The Lambeth Method of Cake Decoration & Practical Pastries. In this book it looked at the different techniques for creating ornate cake designs with layers of over piping to create beautiful delicate designs. Traditionally this may have been done with Royal Icing and was highly popular on wedding cakes but this is where the name ‘Lambeth’ comes from.
It is these ornate cakes that have inspired this new trend, but rather than using Royal icing they are created using buttercream.
The Cake
The cake I’m using was a 6 inch sponge cake which measured 4 inches in height. I kept the height of the cake slightly shorter than I usually would to really get that vintage feel. Cakes were never as high as they are now, but this technique also looks great on taller cakes too, so just choose the height depending on how you want your cake to look. I mean the taller the cake the more piping you could add!
The cake was covered in a jade / blue buttercream as a base and I used acrylic discs to get a smooth covering with nice sharp edges. You can see how to use the acrylic discs in more detail here!
For the detail on the cake I used 4 different shades of buttercream. I really wanted these to stand out on the jade background, but you could also stick to one colour for your whole cake as this looks so pretty too (click here for my buttercream recipe). In the tutorial I go through all different piping tips you could use for different techniques, and show you how by choosing different sizes of the same style tip, you can still create the same effect but with a very different outcome.
I love that once you know the techniques you can change up the design, creating layers and layers of piped designs.
Template to practice piping techniques
I think one of the most important things to do when creating a cake like this is to practice the different techniques before adding them onto your cake. The last thing you want to do having piped layers and layers of buttercream is to go wrong and have to scrape it off. That’s why I have created a simple template to allow you to do just that. There are semi circles to practice swags, lines to practice your shells and a circle to practice going around the side of a cake, joining your buttercream shapes together.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE PRACTICE TEMPLATE GUIDE HERE
I actually laminated mine, this way I could easily scrape off any buttercream I had piped and have another go. You could also lay the practice guide under some parchment paper or slip it into a plastic document wallet. The plastic coating will make it easier to scrape the buttercream off without the paper soaking it up.
You can then practice each technique and test out different sized piping tips to see the effects they create before adding them onto your cakes.
In the tutorial I go through so many different techniques and I really hope you might find these useful for adding on the side of your own cakes. If you haven’t already and you’re new to my tutorials you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more Free cake decorating video tutorials.
Tools I used
I have put a list below showing all the tools that I used throughout this video or if you would like to see all my favourite cake decorating tools just click here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/cakesbylynz
Piping bags I use: http://amzn.to/2xqeDlM
Alternative piping bags: https://amzn.to/2WdT5dt
Raspberry Colour Splash: https://amzn.to/2XSvYF2
Leaf Green Colour Splash: https://tidd.ly/3AbxroK
Jade Colour Splash: https://tidd.ly/3AbxroK
Blue Colour Splash: https://tidd.ly/3AbxroK
Wilton Coupler (for smaller nozzles): https://amzn.to/3kMKdpi
Large Coupler (similar): https://amzn.to/3Bw9SbR
Turntable: https://amzn.to/35u3QJB
Metal Scrapper Tool: http://amzn.to/2BNjf7v
Acrylic Discs: https://tidd.ly/3ysf5j7
Round Cookie Cutters: https://amzn.to/3pa7Rwl
102 Piping Tip: https://amzn.to/3xuiUTx
103 piping tip: https://amzn.to/3jtYQvt
104 piping tip: https://amzn.to/37lXuNx
124 piping tip: https://tidd.ly/3fdiDhf
number 3 piping tip: https://amzn.to/2X5WFqB
352 piping tip: https://amzn.to/2TYgPkV
35 piping tip: https://amzn.to/3jvqkAY
16 piping tip: https://amzn.to/2VxXHeh
21 piping tip: https://amzn.to/2X139a6
1M piping tip: http://amzn.to/2zRsJyl
~ Please note that some of links above may be affiliate links. If you click the link and purchase any item through that link, I will receive a small commission from the website but this does NOT add any additional costs to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog x ~
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Ingredients
- 340 g Icing Sugar (12oz)
- 170 g Room Temperature Salted Butter (6oz)
- 1.5 tbsp Milk
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Favouring or favouring of your choice
Instructions
- Sift your icing sugar into your mixing bowl to get out any lumps. Then add your butter, milk and flavouring.
- Either using a hand mixer or stand mixer set your mixer onto a low speed until the ingredients start to combine. This will stop the icing sugar escaping from the bowl.
- Once the ingredients have started to combine turn your mixer up to a medium / high speed and let your buttercream mix for at least 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes you should have a smooth, creamy buttercream mixture. Using food gel colours you can now add a colour of your choice, before adding it onto your cakes.
Notes
Plus why not save this tutorial for later and pin it to Pinterest
