Superman-themed Buttercream Cake Tutorial

Hope all you bakers and bakerettes are doing well and are busy baking ^_^

I was recently baking a birthday for a very adorable 5 year old boy and I decided to do a Superman-themed cake. Since fondant really isn’t a favorite with his family – I was left with Buttercream frosting as my medium. I decided to take on the challenge!

I decided to share this tutorial since I’ve been getting quite some requests for cake decoration tutorials from bakers and bakerettes that aren’t very experienced with fondant and still want to impress their clients. This one is quite easy to do if you have experience with frosting using  buttercream and I kept the piping quite simple. I hope this helps ^_^

Requirements:

• 2 Cakes (flavor is your choice) 1 pce – 7 inch love-heart cake (mine was 1 kg) and 1 pce 10 inch square cake (I used a 2 Kg cake). Recipe option below
• Buttercream frosting to cover the total weight of your corresponding cakes (I used enough to cover 3 Kgs). Recipe option below
• Food colors: Red, Blue & Yellow. (You can use powder food color or gel colors) I used deep versions of the color (4R Red & Golden Yellow) – I would suggest a deeper blue for authenticity (e.g. Navy blue)
• 1 medium sized Icing Spatula (Palette Knife)
• Icing/Piping Bag – small size bag is alright (for bigger borders, you can use a medium size) P/S: I had three piping bags, this made work very easy. But if you have one set, that’s alright, you can alternate the colors. It’ll be some work – but it’s doable ^_^
• Nozzles (small-size): Star tip no. 18 and Round tip no. 3
• Large Bread Knife (for leveling your cakes)
• 1 pce – Cake board 14 inch

Directions:

1. After you bake your cakes, make sure you cool them completely before starting to frost them. Take your buttercream and divide it into three bowls. I used a 1/2, 1/4 & 1/4 ratio to color it: 1/2 for blue (since blue will be used the most), 1/4 for red and 1/4 for yellow frosting. Mix in your food color and make sure your buttercream has a uniform creamy consistency on all the colors.

   

2. Start with the square cake; level it, then place on the cake board and apply a crumb coat.

   

3. Take your love-heart shaped cake and shape it into the Superman shield outline. I used a logo I downloaded online, like the one shown below, as a guide.

   

   

4. Place the shield-shaped cake on top of the square in the middle. Apply a crumb coat on the cake.

   

5. Using your Superman shield logo download; use a toothpick and draw the outline of the S of the superman logo and the frame on the shield-shaped cake. Then fill your icing bag with red buttercream (if you have 3 icing bags, fill them with the three colors of buttercream, ready to use). Using a simple star border (use your star tip), fill your S with the red buttercream and the outline of your shield. Then take your yellow buttercream and fill in the leftover spaces with the yellow stars as well.
6. Apply the side of the shield cake with blue buttercream frosting and then pipe the side of the shield cake using the star tip as well all round to create a nice, neat edge. On the bottom cake where the shield cake edge is; pipe another round of the stars using the blue buttercream as well.
7. Take your yellow buttercream in the icing bag, still using the star tip, and make three neat lines diagonally from the shield cake to the edge of the bottom square cake on each side. Then pipe red buttercream on each side of the yellow lines; one line only, towards the edge of the square cake as shown below. Fill in the left over spaces with the blue buttercream, also using the star border. P/S: You can choose not to do the yellow and red lines; for simplicity, you can just do the top part of the square cake with just the blue star borders. I just wanted to keep the theme colors going ^_^
8. Apply the sides of the bottom square cake with the red buttercream and smooth it out really nicely. Pipe a yellow buttercream border using the star tip on the top edge of the square bottom cake for a nice finish. Then take the red buttercream and pipe the side edges and bottom of the square cake, still using the star tip as well.
9. Since the recipient of the cake was turning 5 years, I went ahead and, using the small round tip with red buttercream – piped the number 5 on the two yellow star borders on the bottom part of the cake. I also piped small red dots as well, around the base of the shield cake, on top of the blue star border. It gave it a nice finish – this is optional. As for the writing, I didn’t want to do it on the cake, so I just used some blue buttercream to create a small canvas on the side of the board. Let it dry, then use the red buttercream with the round tip to write your message.

And that’s it ladies and gentlemen – that’s how you decorate a cake with the Superman theme using buttercream frosting!

For your cake bases; try out this Vanilla cake recipe – it’s a 1/2 Kg recipe but you can double it for a one kg cake or quadruple it for a 2 Kg cake. Another option is this chocolate cake.

For buttercream frosting; try this recipe link (Double this recipe for a 1 Kg cake)

Do try it out and share your results with me by commenting below ^_^

To learn how to decorate cakes with different types of icings, take a class with us. Click here to see our available courses and book your spot.

Happy caking & decorating ^_^