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Betty White Cake

Up-close shot of buttercream transfer for my Betty White cake
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We're honoring a life well-lived with this Betty White cake. Check out all the steps below to create a Betty White buttercream transfer and learn how to paint her on a cake! 

Ingredients

Scale

Equipment:

  • Food-safe brushes for cake decorating
  • Offset spatula
  • Toothpicks for your food gels
  • Minimum of 3 small mixing bowls and 3 spoons, plus the bowl of your stand-mixer
  • Mirror image cartoon or clipart of Betty White
  • 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 or shot glasses) for mixing your food gels
  • Piping bags, reusable or disposable fitted with the piping tips below.
    • Open tips like Wilton 5 and 8, smaller ones like Wilton 1 or 2, and an open star tip like Wilton 32 for the border
      • If you're comfortable piping roses or other flowers, grab a petal tip and piping bag for that, too!
  • Optional: Cutting board and chip clip or clipboard (I've even used a magazine in a pinch) for the buttercream transfer
  • Optional but helpful: Tape to hold the buttercream transfer in place on the surface of your choosing
  • Optional but helpful: A cake turntable as well as disposable or reusable cake circles

Ingredients to make the Betty White buttercream transfer and painted design: 

  • A batch of my vanilla buttercream recipe to cover the cake, create Betty White’s image, and add the detailing and text
    • 2 sticks (227 grams) of room temperature butter
    • 1/3 cup (80 grams) of room temperature milk, heavy cream, or whipping cream
    • 6–7 cups (720 – 840 grams) of powdered sugar
    • 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
    • 1/4 tsp of salt
    • Optional but strongly recommended: A few drops of lemon juice or vinegar to cut the sweetness to your liking
  • A one-layer cake (this tutorial is based off of a 9" heart-shaped cake layer; I made mine from half of a red velvet box mix.)
  • Clear extract (like almond extract, peppermint, imitation vanilla, or another clear extract of your choosing) to mix with food gels
  • A few tablespoons of powdered sugar to create "paste" for painting your cake and thickening your food gel colors
  • Optional but fun: Round sprinkles for her necklace and earrings!
  • Optional but fun: Edible glitter and flakes for her blouse and pops of color and sparkle to add finishing touches to the cake design once you're done!

Food gel colors:

  • Red
  • White
  • Yellow or gold
  • Dark blue 
  • Black 
  • Optional but helpful for outlining: Brown 
  • Optional but helpful: Pink (can also just go gently with the red if you don’t have pink)

Instructions

Preparing your cake design:

  1. Print the mirror image of a Betty White cartoon or clipart. I'd recommend an image that's approximately 1/3 the size of the cake you're decorating.  
  2. After making one batch of my vanilla buttercream recipe (see notes below for portion suggestions*), remove approximately 2/3 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.

Creating the frosting and Betty White buttercream transfer:

  1. Dip a toothpick into a red food gel bottle, and swipe it into one of your smaller bowls of vanilla frosting. Take another toothpick and do the same to your yellow, adding that to your bowl. Mix with a spoon and add [very tiny*] incremental amounts of your red and yellow frosting until you have a light peach color.
  2. Add gold or yellow food gel to your second small bowl of vanilla frosting until you have a faint yellow or golden color for Betty White's hair.
  3. Use pink food gel (or a small amount of red) to make your pink frosting for Betty White's shirt as well as the cake border.
  4. Scoop your peach-colored frosting into one of your piping bags fitted with a large circular open tip, and put the yellow/gold frosting into another piping bag fitted with a large circular open tip.
  5. Scoop some of your white buttercream into the third piping bag fitted with a large circular open tip.
  6. Set your mirror image of Betty White on the clipboard or surface of your choosing and secure with tape. Place wax paper on top, and trace the outline of Betty White using pen or marker.
  7.  Make a buttercream transfer by piping one generous coat of yellow/gold frosting within your tracing of Betty White's hair. Do the same for the white of her blouse and outline in her face.
  8. Return your remaining white frosting to the bowl of your stand mixer with the rest of your un-dyed vanilla buttercream, and put your pink frosting into the white bag to fill in Betty's blouse before placing the wax paper with piped buttercream into the freezer to harden.

Crumb coating your cake

  1. Use your offset spatula to crumb coat your cake layer.  
  2. Place cake in refrigerator for frosting to set for 15 mins before bringing it back out and applying a final smoother coat of frosting. 

Attaching your buttercream transfer:

  1. Once your transfer is firm to the touch (after about 30 minutes in the freezer), put a few dots of frosting on the side of your cake where you'll be placing your transfer. Press it to the cake and peel away the wax paper on top of the buttercream to reveal your buttercream transfer!
  2. Gently use the back of a warm spoon to smooth out any creases in your frosting. 

Details, details, details for painting Betty White's face:

  1. On your same piece of wax paper, trace the details of Betty White's face.
  2. Attach that to your buttercream transfer using thumbtacks or T-pins. Punch tiny holes through the wax paper to create faint outlines of her facial details. 
  3. Remove the wax paper, and carefully paint the whites of her eyes and mouth. For precision, very carefully trace, with black or brown gel, the remaining details with the smallest food-safe paintbrush you have.
  4. Add red for her lipstick and blue for her eyes, leaving some of the white in the center for detail.
  5. Faintly outline then fill in, "Thank you for being a friend," using pink buttercream and a smaller piping tip.
  6. If adding "jewelry," pipe a thin line of buttercream on Betty's neck and carefully place a row of "pearls" on top using sprinkles. Do the same on the sides of her face for earrings.
  7. Pipe a pink border around the cake using your pink frosting and open star tip. Add gold and pink glitter as desired for extra pops of color and sparkle!

Notes

  • I made this tutorial for a 9" heart-shaped cake that's only one layer tall. If you're creating this design on a layer cake, you may need additional frosting to cover the sides of your cake and between the layers.
  • If you haven't made detailed buttercream transfers before, I highly recommend making a full batch of my vanilla buttercream. You may have leftovers, but you can easily freeze any remaining buttercream. In an airtight container, it will remain quite fresh for a 3-4 months. It's much better to have excess frosting than to get halfway through a cake decorating project and realize you need a little (or a lot!) more frosting, so go ahead and make the whole batch. Even though I have previously made buttercream transfers, this one was a bit more challenging, so I used about 80% of my frosting!
  • To achieve smooth buttercream and a cleaner-looking cake and design, always spend a few minutes with a spatula or spoon, pushing air pockets out of your buttercream before putting it into your piping bags. To do this, take a spatula or spoon in circles around your bowl(s) of buttercream, pressing it against the sides of the bowl and smoothing it down. Keep doing this until your frosting looks smooth and not craggly. If your arm is a little tired afterward, you probably did it right! 🙂
  • American buttercream crusts when it is exposed to air, even for a period as brief as 15 minutes. I recommend covering your bowls of frosting with either plastic wrap, dampened paper towels, or even a plate to prevent air from hitting them. However, if your frosting has begun to crust, no problem: Simply use your spoon or spatula to re-whip and smooth it back to life before spreading it onto your cake or putting it in your piping bags.
  • If at any point you notice moisture or condensation forming on the surface of your buttercream transfer while you paint it, I recommend popping it back into the refrigerator or lowering the temperature of your room so that your cake stays cool. It'll make it much easier to paint without creating smudges!

Find it online: https://susanbringsdessert.com/betty-white-cake/