How to hand-paint a cake

I like to think of cake as a blank canvas (but it’s so much better than an actual canvas because you can eat it afterwards).

There are so many techniques out there for decorating cakes, from sculpting fondant to mirror glazing. Hand painting is one that is not seen as often, but can result in a cake that’s (almost) as beautiful as you 😉 x

I’ve made a cheeky little video showing some hand painting in action but I’ll talk you through the technique in the method below.

Ingredients

Fondant icing – the rolly icing

vodka – about 2 doubles for painting, about 20 doubles for you x

food colouring – I use gel food colour but liquid would work as well

paint brush – preferably without paint still on it

edible glitter – this is optional but glitter makes everything better

Method

Firstly roll out your fondant and cover your cake
TOP TIP – roll the fondant back onto the rolling pin. Pick up and roll over the cake. This saves you ripping it trying to pick it up with your man hands – see pic below

once the fondant is on we can start painting wooooo
mix your first food colour with a tiny bit of vodka
STORY TIME – we use vodka because it quickly evaporates and leaves just the colour on the cake. Plus you can have a little sippy sippy. Water would make all your icing a soggy mess (and it’s not as fun to drink hehe) 😦
If you have a design in mind it is useful to mark it lightly on using a tool or a toothpick – you can see me doing this in the video
Another technique I use in the video is taking colour off the cake
I do this by painting vodka on the cake and using a tiny bit of kitchen roll to mop up the colour.
And that’s basically all there is to it. Go wild little Picasso.
P.s. your hands will get very stained so don’t have a nice manicure x x x

I used this hand painting technique to make a really cute northern lights picture for my sister Melissa, covering a salted caramel cake for her big bday – recipe pending x

If you’re fancying a new hair do (new year new you n all that jazz) then she’s the best place in Manchester (and possibly the world) – see https://www.melissa-salons.com/

Right before I go here’s this week’s kitchen goss:

Kitchen Goss

So normally people ask for the latest gadget or a puppy for Christmas. This year santa delivered me a milk frother. Now I used to be OBSESSED with frothing things (to the point where I’d froth my Ribena) and I’m so so so ready to be in this phase of my life again. Been enjoying so many hot milky drinks since the big day. 10/10 gift x