We are pleased to share a new video tutorial showing how to create an elegant Watercolor Buttercream Cake.
This soft, watercolor-like buttercream finish resembles a painted canvas but is surprisingly simple to achieve—no actual painting skills required.
We love vibrant cakes, and this watercolor buttercream style relies on subtle transitions and blended shades where colors meet. It’s a beautiful choice for birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers, and other special occasions.
Table of Contents
Materials:
In this tutorial we frosted an 8-inch and a 6-inch tier using our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream recipe; Classic Vanilla Buttercream also works well. Any reliable buttercream is fine, though a crusting buttercream is helpful if you plan to use the Viva paper towel smoothing method. Each tier rested on its own cardboard circle, and four bubble tea straws supported the top tier.
- Buttercream (see note above)
- Gel food coloring: we used deep pink and teal
- Fondant (tylose added) for ribbon roses
- Gold luster dust (we used a rich edible gold)
- Wilton tip 3 for bead border
- Vodka or lemon extract (for thinning luster dust)
- Fondant rolling pin
- Small offset spatula, sharp knife or X‑Acto, shortening for prepping surfaces, plate or palette for mixing colors and frosting, and a turntable
If you prefer a less smooth finish, this design also suits textured buttercream techniques.
More Buttercream Techniques
We offer many favorite buttercream techniques and tutorials. A few highlights include:
- Layered Buttercream Technique
- Buttercream Palette Knife Painting
- Ranunculus Fields Buttercream Painting
- Elegant Loopy Buttercream Piping
Watch the full step-by-step tutorial in the embedded video below to see the techniques in action and follow along at your own pace.