Happy New Year!! I want to wish you a very happy 2024. Are you ever looking for the perfect cake toppers to add to your celebration cake? With the New Year upon us I thought it would be fun to create a New Year inspired cake tutorial showing you how I made these disco ball cake toppers. I also show you how easy it is to add text onto your cakes using the Sweet Stamp letter sets.
Disco balls are the perfect celebration cake topper, they give the ultimate party vibe to your cakes. As well as a new year cake, you could also add them to a birthday cake or what about a 70s or 80s themed cake!
Click below to watch my step by step tutorial showing you how to make these fun disco ball cake toppers ⇩
Tools I used
Silicone Semi Sphere Moulds (set of 3)
Sweet Stamp Fluffy Brushes (use code CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off)
Sweet Stamp Brush Set (use code CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off)
SweetStamp Large Pickup Pad (use code CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off)
Sweet Stamp Letter Sets (use code CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off)
Dipping Solution
White Candy Melts (use code LYNZ10 for 10% off)
Polystyrene Balls
Fondant (use code LYNZ10 for 10% off)
Edible Glue (use code LYNZ10 for 10% off)
Colour Mill Black oil based colour (use code LYNZ10 for 10% off)
Sugar Flaire Satin Silver Lustre Dust
Sweet Sticks Lustre Dusts – Pearl white, Light Silver, Gun Metal Grey & Charcoal Grey (use code CAKESBYLYNZ15 for 15% off)
Water Brush
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Creating Cake Balls
When creating the disco balls there are a few options; first you need to create a sphere for all the tiny squares to be stuck onto. This can be done either by creating an edible ball, using chocolate or candy melts or by covering a polystyrene ball in some grey fondant.
Option 1: Both these options work well and have their advantages. Using chocolate or candy melts in a silicone mould is a great way to make balls or balloons to add onto your cakes and you may have seen me do this before in another tutorial. The advantage of this method is it makes the disco ball completely edible.
Here I have melted some white candy melts and coloured them in a light grey using a small amount of the black Colour Mill oil based food colour. You want to use a grey as you will see some of the ball through the little squares. Using a silicone mould I have then created 2 half spheres and stuck them together by heating up the edge, on a heated metal smoothing tool. This gave me this perfectly round ball as a base.
Option 2: Alternatively you can use a polystyrene ball as your base. These are available in different sizes and the advantages of these is it makes it so much quicker as you don’t need to be melting chocolate, filling moulds and creating your ball. They are also much easier to hold when adding on the squares as you can push in a cocktail stick (you’ll see in the tutorial). The disadvantage is these do need to be removed from the cake before you cut it as they aren’t edible.
Here I’ve got a 5cm polystyrene ball and 20g of fondant which I’ve coloured in a light grey and rolled into a ball. To cover the ball, squish the fondant into a dish shape and cover the surface with edible glue. Place on your ball and using your fingers work the fondant over the ball. When you’re left with a small circle at the top I always like to add a little more edible glue, before joining the fondant up, and smoothing it between the palm of my hands to smooth it out.
Adding all the Fondant Squares
Once you have the base of your disco ball, you’re going to need a lot of fondant squares. Real disco balls are made of small squares of glass which reflect the light in all different directions. To recreate this you’re going to need to create your squares using different shades of grey / silver lustre dust.
To get the most amount of shimmer from lustre dust I like to mix this with dipping solution before painting it onto my fondant. Here I have used 5 different shades which I can then cut into small squares. I’ve used the Sugar Flaire Satin Silver Lustre Dust along with the Pearl white, Light Silver, Gun Metal Grey & Charcoal Grey all by Sweet Sticks. Check out that shine!!
After the fondant has been cut into squares, this can then be glued onto the balls, using water for the polystyrene ball and edible glue for the chocolate ball. You want to start with a row around the center; getting this as straight as possible. Before working your way up to the top and then bottom of your ball.
The disco balls can then be made in any size to add onto your cakes. Here are the ones I made for the New Year cake!
Cake Lettering and 10% off Sweet Stamps
To finish off this cake I added ‘Happy New Year’ to the front using the Santa Baby Sweet Stamp letter set. I love how easy these letter sets make it to add text onto your cakes. By combining the letters and the Sweet Stamp pickup pad, you’re able to create a stamp to push into your fondant covered cake.
Sweet Stamp have kindly given me a 10% off voucher code for you to use. This can be used on any purchases made on their website. To receive the 10% off all you need to do is visit their website sweetstamp.online and enter the code CAKESBYLYNZ at the checkout!
I had so much fun creating these disco balls and I really hope you enjoy the tutorial and will be able to use some of these effects on your own cakes. If you haven’t already you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more FREE cake decorating video tutorials.
Plus why not save this tutorial for later and pin it to Pinterest
