Sculptural Buttercream Painting with Palette Knife - Tutorial

Sculptural painting with buttercream is quickly becoming a must-try technique in the world of cake decorating. 

I won’t lie—this technique is not the easiest to master, but with patience, practice, and the right tools, you can absolutely achieve beautiful results.

In this blog post, I’ll teach you a simple method to paint beautiful buttercream blooms 😃

Do watch the accompanying video tutorial to see each step in action 👇  

Materials You’ll Need:

• Palette knives

• Stable buttercream (cold)

• Food colouring (gel or oil-based)

• Cake (already covered in buttercream)

• Tray for painting

Step-by-Step Method:

1. Prepare Your Cake
   Start by covering your cake with a smooth layer of buttercream. This will serve as the canvas for your sculptural painting.

2. Set Up Your Palette
   Spread a thin layer of cold buttercream onto a clean tray. This surface will be used for painting your buttercream flowers. Return your buttercream to fridge if petals don't form nicely. Top Tip: You need a stable buttercream for this technique.

3. Create Petals with the Palette Knife
   Take a small palette knife and scrape off the thinly spread buttercream from the tray, ensuring that the buttercream flares out into a nice petal shape. You can alternate picking up buttercream from either side of the palette knife to form complete petals. This is the basic technique for painting flower petals.

4. Repeat the Process
   Continue the process of painting petals until you have a beautiful flower arrangement. This is where you can let your creativity shine by experimenting with different colours for your flowers.

5. Make Flower Center
   For realistic flower center, I demonstrate a simple trick using a strainer and buttercream in the video. This technique adds depth and texture to your blooms.

6. Add Small Blooms
   Once you’ve created your main flowers, paint additional small blooms near them to create a balanced composition.

7. Use a Round Palette Knife for Variety
   Using a round palette knife, paint more blooms of different shapes and sizes. This adds variety to your design.

8. Finish with Leaves
   Complete your sculptural painting by adding leaves around the flowers. Use a palette knife to create leaf shapes.

Final Thoughts:

Sculptural painting with buttercream is a wonderful way to elevate your cake decorating skills.

Ready to learn more? Our Online School opens for enrolment in Feb 2025 - Have you joined our waiting list yet?

Happy decorating!

Neetha