Introduction: Watercolor Cake

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Watercolor cakes are very popular now and for good reason! They are fun, fast and simple to make!

Supplies you'll need:

  • cake! I used two six inch rounds and two 4 inch rounds
  • cream cheese frosting, enough to covere whatever cake size you decide to use
  • liquid food coloring: blue, green, red, and yellow
  • piping bag and small round tip or plastic baggies

This tutorial focuses on making a waterlily themed cake that would make Monet proud. If you don't like waterlilies, simply skip Step 4 and make whichever icing colors you like!

Step 1: Step 1: Crumb Coat

Begin by putting a crumb coat on your cake!

A crumb coat is a light layers of frosting meant to keep the crumbs from showing through your top frosting layer.

Simply use a little frosting and smooth it all over the cake. Put the cake in the fridge for around half an hour to set the frosting. While this crumb coat is white, using light blue frosting would also be a good choice.

Step 2: Step 2: Blob!

Now is the time to mix up your colors!

For this cake you'll want to mix:

  • light blue
  • dark blue
  • purple (one drop of red, one of blue)
  • green
  • pink (one drop of red)
  • yellow

For this particular cake you need more of the blues and greens, and very little of the purple, pink and yellow, but you can use as much or any colors you want!

Blob on the blue, green and purple frosting. Focus the darker colors at the bottom, lighter at the top. Wherever you put green, put a little of the dark blue directly below it. That will create a lily pad and it's shadow!

Step 3: Step 3: Smooth

Smooth out your blobs. Smooth as much or as little as you like. Smoothing less will create a more rippled water like effect, while smoothing more will look more like watercolor paint.

Step 4: Step 4: Add Lilies and Pads

Put your pink frosting in a piping bag with a small round tip. Alternately, you can use a plastic zip top food storage bag and cut a corner off.

Put small pink squiggles intermittently across the cake. Then pipe a green line below the pink, and a dark blue line below the green. Gently smooth the blue and green edges into the background.

Pipe a small yellow dot at the top of the pink.

Step 5: Step 5: Clean Up!

Move your cake to a cake stand or plate, or clean up the edges of the stand you've used.

Your waterlily cake is done! Monet would be proud!