How to Frost a Three-Dimensional Cake

Frosting a multidimensional cake is a dedicated undertaking, but it is not without benefits. When you decorate a shaped cake, it is like an outline of your intended decoration is permanently in the cake. All you have to do is pipe beads of frosting to fill in the lines. Filling multiple piping bag liners with each color of frosting allows you to switch frosting colors seamlessly and fill the varied sections of the cake in record time.

Things You'll Need

• Piping bags
• Scissors
• Coupler
• Decorative piping tips, various shapes
• Piping bag liners
• Assembled, undecorated multidimensional cake

Instructions

1. Trim 1 inch off the narrow end of a piping bag, using scissors.

2. Unscrew and remove the ring from a coupler. Push the coupler, narrow end first, into the piping bag until 3/4 inch of the coupler is sticking out of the trimmed end of the bag.

3. Place the wide end of a decorative piping tip on the protruding coupler. Put the tip you are using on the majority of the cake onto the coupler. Slide the coupler ring over the decorative tip. Screw the coupler pieces together to secure the tip onto the bag.

4. Place each color of frosting you are using into separate piping bag liners. Ensure that each liner contains only one color. Twist the top of each liner to contain the frosting.

5. Hold the liner filled with the frosting color you are using to cover the majority of the cake. Trim the closed tip off the liner. Insert the liner into the piping bag. Twist the piping bag in the same position as the liner.

6. Hold the piping bag at a 45-degree angle to the surface you are decorating. Position the tip 1/8 inch away from the cake.

7. Squeeze the full, top end of the bag to release the frosting. Pull the bag directly away from the cake as you pipe a bead onto the surface. Stop squeezing the bag as you pull back to create a shaped bead of frosting that is about 1/4 inch thick.

8. Repeat the bead of frosting across every section of the cake for that particular color and shape. Fill each section entirely, leaving no exposed cake between the frosting beads. Follow the lines and edges of the raised cake shape as a guide to determine where to apply frosting.

9. Remove the liner from the piping bag when you need to change colors. Trim the closed tip off the liner of the next frosting color. Insert the liner into the piping bag.

10. Remove the coupler ring and decorative tip when you need to change the piped shape of the frosting beads. Place the second decorative tip on the protruding coupler. Screw the ring onto the bag.

11. Apply frosting beads to the areas of the cake with the new color.

12. Change the frosting-filled liners and decorative tips until you pipe a bead of frosting onto every part of the cake.

Tips & Warnings

• Fill the broadest sections of the cake first and outfit the bag accordingly. For example, to decorate a teddy bear cake, cover the majority of the body in large, dark-brown, star-shaped beads of frosting. Cover the midsection, paws and face in small, light-brown. star-shaped beads of frosting. Add the facial details with small, black, round beads of frosting. Change the liner and tip each time you begin working on a section with a new color or piped shape.