Betty White Cake

Shortly after Betty White died on New Year's Eve in 2021, countless tributes emerged online, and I began thinking about making my own. Because her 100th birthday was so close, a cake felt like a fitting tribute. The process wasn't exactly straightforward, and I experimented a lot. Over the course of developing this particular cake design, I decided to create a step-by-step cake tutorial. If you, too, would like to make a Betty White cake, all the details are here! This post is partly a buttercream transfer tutorial and also a guide to painting cakes. I give tips on making a buttercream transfer (sometimes referred to as "the buttercream transfer method") in the shape of Betty White before walking you through the details for painting her face. Here's a cake to honor Betty White for the 100th birthday she'd have celebrated on January 17, 2022.

Tools Required for this Betty White Cake

Bear with me; the list of tools is a bit long! However, I use nearly all of these items every time I make a cake. So If you're developing an interest in decorating cake, I recommend beginning to invest in tools. You'll find yourself returning to the ones here again and again.

Also worth noting is that I'm going to outline the process for making a buttercream transfer and painting cake. This Betty White cake is a combination of these two techniques for decorating cake. Some of the tools below are more specifically helpful for buttercream transfers and painted cakes.

Equipment:

• Food-safe paintbrushes
• Offset spatula
• Food gels (I use Chefmaster.)
• Toothpicks for your food gels
• Three small mixing bowls and spoons, plus the bowl of your stand-mixer
• Mirror image cartoon or clipart of Betty White, printed and fitted to cover about half of your cake
• Thumbtacks, T-pins, sewing needles, or another object with a very fine point to trace the details on Betty White's face
• Wax paper and pen or permanent marker for the buttercream transfer
• Small containers (like mugs, ramekins, or shot glasses) for mixing food gel colors
• Minimum of five piping bags, fitted with the piping tips below:
  • Three larger circular open tips (like Wilton 5 and 8), one small circular open tip (like Wilton 1 or 2), and a small open star tip (like Wilton 32) to create the cake's border.
    • Grab a grab a petal tip and piping bag for that, too, if you're comfortable piping roses!

Items that are optional but quite helpful:

• Stand mixer
• Cutting board and chip clip or clipboard (I've even used a magazine in a pinch) for the buttercream transfer
• Tape to hold the buttercream transfer in place
• A cake turntable
• Disposable or reusable cake circles

Additional items to make this Betty White Cake

You'll also of course need to make frosting and a cake! I created this particular cake tutorial with a 9-inch, heart-shaped cake. That said, if you have an 8 or 9-inch round pan (or even a square one), the same guidance would apply.

Because you may need more frosting than you might anticipate, I also recommend making a full batch of my vanilla buttercream. This might sound like overkill, but I used nearly all of mine. That's because I had to redo parts of my cake!

I wrote this cake tutorial with the steps I wish I had followed on my first attempt. That said, you may not have to do so much backtracking and will therefore have even more buttercream leftover than I did. However, if you're new to the buttercream transfer method or painting cake, make a full batch of the buttercream. Freeze any leftovers. You'll thank yourself later if you do make a mistake and need additional buttercream and already have it on hand.

Buttercream freezes great for a few months, so long as you store it in an airtight container. You can bring it out, let it reach room temperature, and rewhip it for your next cake project!

Lastly, at the end of this cake design, I had fun adding edible glitter and flakes by Bakell and Layer Cake Shop. Betty White was a Golden Girl, so a little gold sparkle felt right! I also enjoyed adding some jewelry to her with sprinkles, which I draped around her collar like a necklace. The big white circular sprinkles made for excellent earrings, too!

Creating a Buttercream Transfer

Buttercream transfers may sound intimidating, but the idea behind them is pretty simple. On wax paper, you pipe buttercream on the reverse or mirror image of a design, freeze that frosted design until it hardens, and then stick it to your cake. Let's use this cake as an example to break down those steps.

For my Betty White cake, I searched for clipart of her online and soon chose this one. I picked it because the lines of her face are simple, and she's recognizable. I wanted the buttercream transfer I made to very obviously be Betty White! But I didn't want to print a design that was overly complicated to trace.

So I then pasted that image into Microsoft Word and flipped it to its mirror image before printing it. This is important because you will use buttercream to trace the outline and fill in Betty White's features on wax paper, which goes in the freezer. Once it's hardened in the freezer, you'll put some buttercream on the spot on the cake where you'd like her to go. You will next put your Betty White design in that area and peel away the wax paper. That will leave the backside of your buttercream facing outward on display on your cake, hence the need to use a mirror image. Reading this step confused me so much the first time I made a buttercream transfer, but trust me! It works 100% of the time, I promise. And maybe you already understand the concept, so even better!

More Buttercream Transfer Method Details, Specific to this Betty White Cake Tribute

Backing up a bit here, once you've printed that mirror image of Betty White, place it on a clipboard or flat surface (like a cutting board or even magazine), that you can slide into your freezer. Then put a piece of wax paper over top of the image, and tape it in place so your design doesn't move while you trace it with pen or permanent marker.

After tracing, you'll next need to fill in her features, so make the colors of her skin, blouse, and hair. Remove approximately ⅔ of the white, vanilla buttercream from the bowl of your mixer. Divide that into three smaller bowls to create Betty White's peach skin color, golden hair, and the pink border for this cake, as well as her blouse.

A peach-colored food gel could work for her face, but I mixed very small amounts of red and yellow frosting together. To do this, take the end of a toothpick and dip it into your food gel. Swipe that on your frosting to gradually create the colors. It's easier to start light and go dark, so be careful not to overdo it! Light yellow or gold food gel works to color her hair, and I dyed frosting pink for her blouse.

Once you have your frosting colors, put them into separate piping bags fitted with larger piping tips like Wilton 5 and 8. Apply a generous coat of frosting to fill in the details of Betty's face and hair. You want to make sure that all sections of the frosting touch and connect so that once it's frozen, it'll all hold together!

Once you've covered the outline with frosting, place it in the freezer.

While you wait on your buttercream transfer...

Crumb coat your cake layer with your offset spatula. You'll cover much of it with text, the buttercream transfer, and detailing on the borders, so the initial coat doesn’t have to be perfect.

Place the cake in the refrigerator for frosting to set for 15 mins before bringing it back out and applying a final smoother coat of frosting.

Attaching your Betty White buttercream transfer

Once your transfer is firm to the touch (after about 30 minutes in the freezer), pipe some "glue" for your transfer with additional buttercream. Put a few dots of frosting on the location on your cake where you'll be placing your transfer, and then press it to the cake and peel away the wax paper.

There are likely creases in your frosting, so gently use the back of a warm spoon to smooth them out. I also used the spoon to add texture to her hair.

Details, details, details for painting cake, the Betty White edition

Attach your wax paper with the outline of the details of Betty White's face to your buttercream transfer using a few sewing needles, thumbtacks, or T-pins. Punch tiny holes through the wax paper to her skin so when you remove the paper, you'll be able to trace and fill in those lines with a paint brush and brown or black food gel. This process is similar to stippling.

Remove the wax paper, and carefully paint the whites of her eyes and mouth. For precision, very carefully trace the lines you just made with the smallest food-safe paintbrush you have. I dipped the tip of my paintbrush into my bottles of black and brown food gels. I used black around her eyes and brown for the creases of her face and some streaks in her hair. It's also helpful to fill in the lightest sections first before following up with your darker colors.

Add red for her lipstick and blue for her eyes, leaving visible some of the white in the center for detail.

• If you are struggling with consistency of your gels, you can mix a few drops of them with clear extract and ¼ teaspoon of powdered sugar.

Tips for writing on cakes

We're making a nod to the Golden Girls theme song here with this Betty White cake. Use a toothpick to trace, "Thank you for being a friend," on the side of your cake opposite Betty White. Cover that with your pink buttercream using a smaller piping tip.

Also, writing on cake is probably one of my least favorite parts of decorating them. It's easy for a mistake with your writing to detract from the overall look of your cake, so I've included some tips I try to keep in mind.

• Lightly write the text on your cake with a toothpick first. This way, you can space out your words and easily redo your text if you make a mistake. You're not really committed to writing it yet, and if you mess up with the toothpick, fixing it is easy. Take the back of a warm spoon and smooth out the blemishes in your frosting.
• Use smaller piping tips. Unless you're writing a big word or two, it's generally easier to write a phrase with a finer piping tip, like Wilton tips 1-3.
• Add a little heavy cream to the frosting you're using to write your text before placing it in your piping bag. If your frosting is really thick, that is great for piping flowers and designs that need to hold a shape. However, it can be harder to push that thick frosting through a narrow piping tip. That's why I've recently begun adding a few drops of milk or heavy cream to my frosting before placing it in the piping bag. This makes it come out of the bag more easily, and I don't have to squeeze my hand to get the buttercream onto the cake.

Finishing Touches for this Betty White Cake Tribute

If adding "jewelry," pipe a thin line of frosting on Betty's neck to hold her "pearls" in place. And by "jewelry" and "pearls," I mean sprinkles. 🙂 Do the same on the sides of her face for earrings.

Lastly, pipe a pink border around your Betty White cake using your pink frosting and open star tip. Add gold and pink glitter as desired for extra pops of color and sparkle! If you have leftover frosting, you could add some roses or flowers to the cake. I did that with mine because it felt right for Betty White as Rose on the Golden Girls!

Also, go back and fill in any sections that could be darker or lighten them with white food gel. Or throw in glitter where you'd like. It's a work in progress, but don't get too nit-picky and hard on yourself. Have fun with the process!

Additional Caking Resources + More Fun Betty White Content

I enjoyed reading these articles from Southern Living and Kitchn about how Betty White's hometown is celebrating her 100th birthday. They also share insights into her favorite foods ahead of what they're calling "Betty White Day." I love everything about that last sentence.

And if you're looking for more tips and tricks for making cakes, check out the section of my website for cake decorating and tutorials!

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