Elsa Buttercream Cake

I've been looking forward to making this cake because it's the first time I'd be making a buttercream transfer! In the past, I've just free-handed drawing characters on cakes using buttercream or piping gel, but after watching this YouTube video, I really wanted to try this method out.

Elsa Buttercream Transfer Cake

First, the cake. The cake was a pretty hefty, (8" x 11.5") 3-layer strawberry cake, filled with two layers of fresh strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream and sliced strawberries. I frosted the sides with vanilla buttercream, in ombre teal colours to match the colours I used for Elsa. 

To make Elsa, I made a batch of vanilla buttercream and dyed it TEN different colours. The toughest to make was black. I can't believe how much Wilton coloured gel it took to make black, and that was after I had already added almost a cup of cocoa powder to the buttercream to get it a nice dark brown first. 

I printed out a reverse image of Elsa on a piece of paper, taped it to a cookie sheet, and then taped a piece of parchment paper over it. Using the black buttercream, I traced Elsa, using different piping tips to get lines of different widths. I put the outline of Elsa in the freezer to set for about 10 mins before piping on the other colours, placing Elsa back in the freezer after every section to keep the outline nice and hard.

For the background, I used a light teal as a border around Elsa, and white around that, making sure to have the same measurements as the cake. I took the remaining buttercream and spread it all over the back of the transfer to make it thicker. The colours didn't matter for this because it wouldn't show up once Elsa is flipped onto the cake.

After freezing the finished Elsa transfer for a good 30 mins, I flipped it onto the frosted cake. I tried to smooth out the transfer using a clean piece of wax paper, but it didn't work as well as I would've liked it to. I need to get my hands on some Viva paper towel, stat!! Not bad at all, for my first buttercream transfer!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Lauren!

To finish the cake, I piped on a dark teal border using a star tip, around the buttercream transfer and around the bottom of the cake. I added a few fondant snowflakes as accents, and sprinkled turquoise sugar crystals and sparkling luster dust on Elsa's dress to make it pop.