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Spatula Painted Cake – A Galaxy Birthday Cake

Spatula Painted Cake – The easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake for your little one. This painted technique looks like an oil painting.

Spatula Painted Cake - The easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake for your little one. This painted technique looks like an oil painting.

Tips for good results

I picked a few shades of her favorite color – blue – and just went for it. I used the Wilton Color Right gels to get the perfect colors of buttercream and I love how vibrant the blues, teals, and purple turned out. For a little added bling, I also added some edible silver leaf. The girls were so intrigued with the silver on the cake.

When all was done, I was torn between it looking like a Mermaid Cake and looking like a Galaxy Cake. My daughter solved that issue by announcing that it looked like the galaxy. I had some fun star toothpick accessories, and so the Milky Way was born!

Spatula Painted Cake - The easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake for your little one. This painted technique looks like an oil painting.

Spatula Painting Technique

To decorate this cake, I started off with a crumb coated cake. That’s simply a two layer cake that has frosting in the center and a thin layer of frosting on the outside. It gets to chill out in the fridge for an hour to firm up so that the magic of painting can begin.

I made an extra batch of vanilla frosting and added a cup of it into 4 bowls. I then colored the frosting – light blue, dark blue, teal, and purple, leaving the remaining frosting white.

Spatula Painted Cake - The easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake for your little one. This painted technique looks like an oil painting.

Using the back of a spatula, butter knife or spoon, start adding smears of the frosting around the cake. I started about a third of the way up the cake, but you can start wherever you like. You want to leave fat swatches of buttercream behind. Don’t skimp. The more the better.

Start blending in the colors, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Just keep going around the cake layering colors. Once the cake was painted, I went through my sprinkle supply cabinet and found some little stars, fun sprinkles and edible silver leaf. Again, there was no plan or pattern, I simply looked at my canvas and added some bling.

Spatula Painted Cake - The easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake for your little one. This painted technique looks like an oil painting.

Here are a few more birthday cakes that I’ve made for my daughter over the years.

She loved this Petal Cake for her 7th Birthday. And this Butter Cake with Chocolate Frosting was in celebration of my 40th Birthday!

Yield: 16

Spatula Painted Cake - A Galaxy Birthday Cake

Spatula Painted Cake - The easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake for your little one. This painted technique looks like an oil painting.

This spatula painted cake is the easiest way to decorate a Galaxy Birthday Cake. This painted technique looks like an oil painting, and it's so simple!

Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Take your buttercream frosting and divide it into 4 bowls. I then colored my frosting – light blue, dark blue, teal, and purple, leaving the remaining frosting white.
  2. Using the back of a spatula, butter knife, or spoon, start adding smears of the frosting around the cake. I started about a third of the way up the cake, but you can start wherever you like. You want to leave fat swatches of buttercream behind. Don’t skimp. The more the better.
  3. Start blending in the colors, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Just keep going around the cake layering colors. 
  4. Decorate with other sprinkles, glitter, whatever you'd like!

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Images, text and all other content Copyrighted©Karyn Granrud, Susanne Queck and Wunderlander Verlag LLC, or ©Pro Stock Media via Canva.com. Unlicensed republishing permitted. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn on qualified purchases.

Karyn Granrud

Karyn Granrud

I'm Karyn, a mom and wife, and I founded this little baking blog. Baking and making desserts have been my passion since I was a kid. I love experimenting with different flavors and sharing delicious recipes with all of you. Read more.

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