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marble effect cake icing
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How To Achieve Stunning Marble Effect Cake Icing: Quick Recipe

Nowadays, we all use social media as an inspiration to create our own personal masterpieces at home. Although we may not be able to achieve every effect there is out there, there are definitely some we can make in our own kitchen that will surprise our family or guests. One of the last Instagram crazes has been marble cakes. We have tried several ways to make to it and today we bring you how to create a marble effect cake icing on your cakes.
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: how to achieve stunning marble effect cake icing: quick recipe
Author: cakedecorist.com

Equipment

Ingredients
  

  • Buttercream that firms up when cool
  • Crumb-coated cake
  • Food colors

Instructions 

How to Create Marble Effect Using Buttercream Frosting

  • Make sure your cake has been correctly crumb coated and chilled. You will also want to place it over some parchment paper so that if you spill some frosting, it will not go over the beautiful stand.
  • Measure the cake and make sure the acetate sheet you have is big enough to cover the entire surface of the cake. If it is not, then you can always tape two together to make it as tall and big as you need it.
  • Grab your plain buttercream and divide it into four batches. You will want to use food coloring in growing intervals, say 1 drop in the second bowl, 2 in the third and 3 in the last one. You should go from pure white to intense color.
  • Place the acetate sheet on your working surface (be careful to place the tape toward the table if you had to tape two sheets together). And then, the fun part begins!
  • Using the frosting, cover the whole surface area of the acetate (leaving some space on the sides for you to hold onto it and place it afterward). Place the frosting with an offset spatula for a better effect.
  • You can also mix -but not too much!- some of the shades to make it look like marble swirls. You should do this in a bowl before applying the mixture onto the acetate.
  • Grab the acetate by the sides you left without buttercream and wrap it around the crumb-coated cake.
  • To do this, you should start in the middle of the acetate and work your way through to the sides, wrapping it as you go with each end. If you measured correctly, the acetate should be able to cover the entire length of the cake.
  • Smooth it with your hands or a bench scraper to make sure the whole of the icing is touching the cake. If not it will not stick correctly.
  • Place your cake in the freezer for 20 minutes. This will allow the buttercream to harden so that you can scrape off the acetate.
  • Scrape off the acetate carefully. Once you are done, check if there are any holes in the cake. Make sure to patch them up using some extra buttercream. Use a hot spatula or bench scraper while the frosting is still cool to smooth everything out.
  • Afterward, you will want to trim away excess frosting that has gathered at the top of the cake and clean the underside if needed.
  • You can now decorate the top of the cake however you like it! One of our favorites is piping a french tip border all around in either white or the full-on color you chose for your marble effect. It looks so pretty and elegant!
  • You can also drizzle some ganache and add some sprinkles. Go nuts!

Free-handing Marble Effect Cake Icing

  • Starting off with a crumb coated, chilled cake, divide the rest of the buttercream into two parts. One will be white and the other will need to be colored in a vibrant tone of your choosing.
  • Cover your cake with a layer of white frosting and then start placing dots of colored buttercream in random spots on top.
  • Use the offset spatula to blend them into the white buttercream, by doing a back and forth motion. Be careful not to overdo it.
  • You can definitely also use some other tones, maybe doing a middle tone would be a good idea if you have the patience for it. Also, you can add some white frosting onto your spatula to continue blending everything together and achieve the final look.
  • Fill a bowl with warm water and place it near you. We will dip the spatula in it to melt the butter in the frosting and sear everything in. It will fix any little hole or crack and will make it look shinier.
  • Now you can get on to trimming and making everything appear neater so that you can decorate the top of your cake. As we said before, you can use whatever technique you like but we think marbled cakes are very elegant and should not be overcrowded.
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