How To Decorate A Cake With Sprinkles

Sprinkles these days aren't what they used to be (in the all-time way). I recollect swooning over the picayune vials of rainbow jimmies and carbohydrate sprinkles in the baking alley as a kid – little did I know that a few decades subsequently sprinkles would come in all shapes and sizes and colors and textures with names like Bombshell and Party Monster and Unicorn Barf. You tin detect a sprinkle blend to match any color scheme you lot could dream of, and I think dressing upwardly cakes with them is one of the easiest ways to add together intrigue.

I get questions quite often most calculation sprinkles to cake. Mainly: how do y'all become them to stick to the frosting? And how do you add them without indenting the buttercream? It's about time I dedicated an unabridged post to my get-to methods for decorating cakes with sprinkles, and while I already have this post on how to cover an entire block in sprinkles, this one will share all the little things I do to get the look pictured above. Here'southward a quick video to show you lot the techniques earlier I get into all the details beneath:

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What Kinds of Sprinkles Work with These Techniques?

The cool affair about these techniques is that whatsoever sprinkles will piece of work! Keep in heed that the smaller the sprinkles y'all're using, the more tedious it will exist to add together them if you're placing them 1-past-i (like in Stride 3). While information technology's non incommunicable to work with teeny tiny sprinkles, it'south just much easier to place the sprinkles when they're jimmy-size or bigger.

The sprinkles I'k using in my video (and throughout this mail) are the Hey Sugar mix by Sprinkle Popular, only because I love the color scheme and remember they go well with my turquoise + fuchsia buttercream. I also beloved using Fancy Sprinkles and have found plenty of pretty sprinkle mixes at my local JOANN store. They're everywhere these days, then take a look around on Google, Instagram, or even try your local craft shop or specialty baking aisle to notice a sprinkle mix you lot dearest.

How Many Sprinkles Do I Need?

Sprinkles typically come in a few different jar sizes: 2oz (sample size), 4oz, 8oz, and beyond. The cake I'g working with throughout this post is a triple layer half dozen-inch cake that is about 5 inches tall. To get the look pictured (a thicker ring of sprinkles around the base of the block + individually placed sprinkles around the top) with this size of cake, y'all'll need a 4oz canteen of sprinkles. In reality, you'll only utilise about 2-3oz of sprinkles, but in my opinion, it's always all-time to have more enough than to have just barely enough.

The good thing nigh this approach (buying a little more than than you need) is that sprinkles go along for a long time, so you tin can e'er employ the actress in future cake and cupcake projects.

When to Add Sprinkles to Your Block

I ever add together sprinkles right afterward I add the final layer of frosting to my cake, while the frosting is withal wet to the touch. Below that final frosting layer is a crumb coated cake that's been chilled, which gives the unabridged cake a sturdy foundation and makes the final layer of frosting semi-set (because of the common cold sublayers), yet still fresh enough for sprinkles to adhere hands.

how to ice a cake with buttercream frosting

In my experience, this timing is essential to decrease the chances of indenting the frosting finish while you're placing the sprinkles. If yous add the sprinkles without crumb blanket and spooky your cake before applying that final layer of frosting, you have an increased risk of the foundation (cake layers and filling) shifting around on yous as you decorate. On the other manus, if the concluding frosting layer is as well chilled (aka you placed your cake in the refrigerator after the terminal layer of frosting was added) before calculation the sprinkles, they may not adhere as easily.

While it's not impossible to place sprinkles on a cake that's not set enough and a block that's too chilled/set up, I recommend following the timeline laid out in this Cake Basics serial and adding the sprinkles right after that final layer of frosting.

Here's how:

Step i: Prepare Your Cake & Workspace

Once your cake has been frosted with the last layer of buttercream, you're prepare to prepare your workspace and first adding sprinkles. To make cleanup super easy and ensure that you don't waste product a ton of sprinkles in the process, I recommend placing a large sheet pan underneath your cake, which should nevertheless exist on its turntable.

I also recommend pouring the sprinkles out into a bowl and mixing them up, merely so you don't cease up with all of the larger sprinkles in only 1 expanse of the cake.

Footstep 2: Add the Full-bodied Sprinkles

To add a concentrated corporeality of sprinkles effectually the bottom of the cake, I find information technology easiest to cascade some sprinkles into the palm of my paw, then gently printing them by the palmful onto the side of the cake.

Proceed this process around the entire base of the block until yous're happy with the way it looks. I adopt an imperfect boundary line when it comes to this technique so I like to add a lot of highs and lows instead of trying to create a perfectly direct line here.

how to place sprinkles on buttercream cake

Feel complimentary to add together in larger sprinkles and make full in gaps as you run into them. In one case you lot feel satisfied with the sprinkle placement around the base, it's helpful to make clean upward the stray sprinkles on the turntable so yous can ensure that you lot've covered all the spaces you want to earlier moving on.

The easiest way to practise this is with a pastry brush, and since you've got your canvass pan underneath the turntable, all of those extras volition get swept away without covering your kitchen flooring.

Step 3: Add together the Individual Sprinkles

Once I've got the base of the cake covered with a more concentrated sprinkle placement, it'due south time to add individual sprinkles in what I like to call a "floating" pattern. I don't really know what else to call it, but the only style to get the look is to add each sprinkle one-by-i. To get started, I press a sprinkle onto the pad of my pointer finger, then quickly (and gently) press that sprinkle to the side of the cake.

In my opinion, pressing the sprinkles on with the pad of your finger is the best way to prevent indents, since your fingernails won't go in the mode. Adding sprinkles with tweezers, your fingertip, or by pinching the sprinkle between two fingers is totally possible, but you accept to be way more than careful in regards to the sharp points of the tweezers or your nails indenting the cake cease.

You will drop a lot of sprinkles forth the style whichever method yous choose, but as a tip for getting the sprinkles to stick to your finger easier, it's helpful to keep a damp newspaper towel handy. This style you can press your finger onto the paper towel earlier placing it onto a sprinkle – that trivial bit of moisture helps keep information technology stuck on for longer.

I like to place the individual sprinkles nearly an inch or so autonomously, always ensuring that no two colors or shapes are placed right side by side to one some other. This process in total tin take upwards of fifteen minutes, and then throw on some music and settle in for a tedious sprinkle sesh. Taking your time will be worth it in the finish!

Pace iv: Go along Decorating

For this particular design, I motility on to decorating the top of the cake one time I've got the sides sprinkled just the manner I want them. Side note worth mentioning: If I'yard calculation sprinkles to a cake that will have a ganache drip, I tend to practise Steps 1 and two, add the drip, and so complete Steps 3 and iv. Just thought I'd mention that in case anyone is wondering where a drip comes into play.

For this cake, I fitted a piping bag with Wilton Tip 4B and filled it with some buttercream frosting that I tinted with Americolor Fuchsia color gel. Then, I piped a series of swirls around the top border.

To cease the look, I added more than sprinkles onto each of the fuchsia swirls. Information technology's of import to exercise this immediately later on swirling, while the buttercream is still fresh. If the buttercream has set, the sprinkles volition only bounce off.

When y'all're happy with your beautiful smooth and sprinkled buttercream cake, step dorsum and marvel at your masterpiece! Yous did it!

birthday cake with sprinkles by sugar and sparrow

Did y'all brand this block? I desire to come across how it turned out! Be certain to let me know in the comments or tag @Sugarandsparrowco on Instagram to bear witness me. And if y'all want more Block Nuts, head here to see all of the posts and learn the methods of caking I've come to love over the years. I'm cheering you on every footstep of the way!