And just like that, I have a one year old (my blog baby, of course)! I can’t believe it’s only been a year since I launched Sugar & Sparrow, and I am so, so happy I pressed the publish button back then. It’s been such a joy to share my recipes and cake decorating tutorials with you, and I’m looking forward to all that’s to come! I’ve just got all the feels about this.
This was originally a guest post I wrote for SprinklePop’s blog. It’s too good not to re-share here, because the sprinkles on these cupcakes are the prettiest Valentine’s Day blend I’ve ever seen!
Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with your s/o or Galentine’s Day with your best gals, it’s the perfect reason to whip up something sweet, pretty, and made with love. If you’re looking for a dessert that’s quick and easy (but looks like you spent lots of time and effort!), this cupcake project is for you! All it takes is your favorite vanilla buttercream recipe, pink food color gel of your choice, and this stunning Romance sprinkle mix by SprinklePop. And if you’re looking for a great cupcake recipe for underneath all that magic, I’ve got some tasty suggestions below!
Decorating with the spatula painted technique has proven to be one of my very favorite ways to add color and texture to cakes. It’s one of the easiest techniques ever, and I’ve found it to be really therapeutic to put on a great album, mix up a fun buttercream color palette, and swipe away. Since it’s such great art therapy, I was pondering other ways to incorporate the technique into cake decorating when I realized – why not try it on cupcakes? I tested it out over the weekend and am so in love with how they turned out!
I did a thing, people. I made a 3D Christmas tree cake! Never before have I strayed from making a regular shaped cake, and I’m so glad I tried it because it was a jolly good time. Although it seems like there would be cake carving involved, there isn’t – all you need for this design is a handful of circular cake layers in increasingly smaller sizes, some green buttercream, your favorite piping tip, and of course, plenty of pretty holiday sprinkles for decorating!
How are the Holidays treating you? I’m in full on Christmas spirit mode over here, with so many ideas for festive Holiday cakes and no time to do them all! I like to really sink into this season because there are so many fun things to do with friends and family, and although I love decorating Holiday-themed cakes I try not to spend too much time in the kitchen this time of year because I don’t want to miss any festivities. This Merry & Bright cake was at the tippy top of the list though – it’s the second year in a row I’ve made this design, and I just had to share it with you because it’s so easy to recreate!
This was originally a guest post that I wrote for SprinklePop’s blog. It’s too good not to re-share over here, because this Halloween cake is such a fun and easy showstopper to create. Enjoy!
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I’m one of those people who starts making big plans for costume ideas months ahead of time and watches all the scary movies as soon as they hit Netflix. So when I saw some sneak peeks of SprinklePop’s Halloween sprinkle lineup, I couldn’t help my brain from bursting with spooky cake ideas! I got my hands on the Monster Mashup sprinkle mix as soon as it hit the shelves and got right to work on planning the ultimate Halloween cake.
If you’ve been following along on my Instagram, you know that I’ve been completely nerding out on my Americolor Nifty Fifty Kit. Having 50 beautiful food color gels in my collection has been a complete game changer when it comes to coloring buttercream (and all the edible things!) and I’ve gotten to create some really cool, colorful cakes since getting the kit. You can see a few of the cakes I’ve created, real life color swatches, and read more about the kit in this post, but today I want to talk about this gradient rainbow cake. Can you believe it features 20 different colors from the Nifty Fifty Kit? I am in love.
In all my years of caking, Americolor has been my favorite when it comes to food color gels. They make them in just about every color you can think of, and are constantly rolling out new additions to their soft gel paste offering. Whenever I’ve needed a super specific color and don’t want to spend a bunch of time custom mixing a shade of buttercream, I’d scroll through Americolor’s shop and order the perfect hue. And the soft gel pastes help color more than just buttercream – you can use them to tint fondant, royal icing, macarons, cookie dough, cake batter, gum paste, and so much more!
A few months ago, I got the opportunity to try this spatula painted buttercream technique on a wedding cake and it was so much fun! I had a beautiful buttercream color palette to work with (terracotta + blush + cream + burgundy) and wanted to create something eye-catching and different. Using this technique turned out to be so easy and beautiful and I couldn’t wait to try it again. So naturally, after getting my hands on this amazing AmeriColor Nifty Fifty color gel kit, the first thing I thought to do was create a spatula painted cake with another fun color palette!
