DIY Drip Cake

Included:

Cake board

Vanilla buttercream frosting

Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

Salted caramel sauce

3 layers of pumpkin cake

Prep work:

• Leave all buttercream and caramel topping at room temperature, you don’t want this to be cold

• Keep the cake in the fridge or freezer for at least an hour before you plan to start decorating

• Read through the instructions

Let’s Begin…

Start by gathering all the items you need and getting your decorating space organized. If it’s cold in your home and the buttercream is still a little stiff, pop it in the microwave for 4 or 5 seconds. This should be all it takes. You don’t want to melt it, but decorating a cake is much easier with a warm to room-temp frosting. The cream cheese frosting will naturally be a little looser than the vanilla buttercream.

1

Using your scissors, cut off about 1” of the tip of the cream cheese frosting. Take your cake board out and put it in front of you to begin decorating. Put a dollop of frosting on the middle of the board. this will be used to secure your first layer of cake to the board.

TIP: The cake in front of you is pre-cut into three layers. In order to get the best looking cake you will want to follow the order of cake layers instructed.

2

Identify where each layer is and remove the top layer of the cake, setting it aside on the clean plate. Take the middle layer of the cake and put it on your cake board. Make sure it is centered and push it down in the middle a little to make sure it is stuck with the buttercream dollop to the board.

3

For your first layer of frosting, start from the middle of your cake, and make a swirl toward the outer edge.

Then use your offset spatula or the back (straight, flat side) of your butter knife to smooth out the frosting and fill any gaps. The frosting between layers does not need to be very thick.

If you find that the frosting is too thick on this first try, don’t worry just use the knife to evenly scrape some off and save that excess frosting in your bowl.

For the final layer of cake, I find it best to flip the layer upside down so what was once the bottom of your cake in the package becomes the top, this will help keep your corners sharp and not too rounded when you do your final layer of frosting later on. 

Again I would recommend getting down so the cake is at eye level and checking to make sure the top is flat and not leaning.

Congrats! You’ve now finished layering your cake. Now take a break, hit pause and put the cake in the fridge to chill for 10-15 minutes so the filling sets up….

7

After the cake is chilled, bring it back to your work station and cut the tip of the vanilla buttercream. Only cut about ¾’’ from the bottom. Start small since you can always cut off more. I like my final buttercream for the outside to be nice and soft because it will make smoothing out the cake easier. So if you need to, warm it up in the microwave for 5 seconds then knead the bag.

Starting from the bottom, pipe the frosting in rings around the cake until you reach the top.

8

Using your spatula or the flat side of your butter knife, smooth out the rings of frosting and save any excess you scrape off in your bowl. There may be small uncovered patches, for now that is okay.

When you smooth the cake be sure to keep the spatula or knife straight up so that the sides of your cake are straight. If you accidentally scrape off too much that’s okay! Just use the tip of your spatula or knife to fill in the patch and try again

9

Starting from the center of the top of the cake, create a swirl pattern outwards toward the edge of the cake then smooth the top of the cake using your spatula or butter knife.

10

Now is the time to use the excess buttercream to fill in the patches on the sides or top, and smooth out your cake. 

Tip: Once any bald patches are filled with buttercream, run your knife under HOT water and use the hot knife to smooth the cake. The water on the knife will repel the fats in the buttercream and the heat will help smooth things out.

Once your cake sides are smooth you’re ready for the caramel drip!

Cut the smallest tip off of your caramel bag. Again, start small, you can always go bigger later.

11

There are two different techniques that work well for me, give both a try and see which you prefer:

1. Holding the caramel on the top edge of the cake begin to squeeze as you slowly trace the outside edge of the cake, varying your speed and pausing occasionally to get different sized drips. 

2. Using the caramel bag, make lines on the side of the cake to mark where the drips are, then trace the outside edge of the top of the cake pausing to add more where you marked out your drips.

TIPS: Either method you use, don’t put too much caramel in one spot or it may drip too much down and puddle at the bottom, or worse all the caramel is too heavy and drips completely off the cake. 

Be patient with the drips, they take time and you have to wait to see how they fall naturally.

Use as much caramel as you like until you think it looks best, you can keep going around and adding more caramel to the drips until they are the length and frequency that you like

12

Once the drips are to your liking create a swirl from the outer edge of the cake to the center covering the top of the cake with caramel. Use the back of your knife or your offset spatula to smooth out the swirl a little bit but if you let the cake sit for a few minutes the caramel will smooth out for you. 

13

Keep in the fridge until 2-5 hours before serving then enjoy!

We’d love to see your creation! Tag @CakTheBakery to show us