Upside Down Frosting Technique

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At first this made NO sense to me until I saw an actual video tutorial by Jessiecakes (check her out if you want to see this in action it’s FABULOSO!). I made my own photo tutorial because I added a step (that made sense to me…maybe not you but, to each his own! :-) .

List of Materials

  • Tape
  • Wax paper or Baking Paper (I find baking paper works better as if it gets wet it won’t rip)
  • Wide Turntable (bought mine form IKEA for $8 bucks)
  • Leveler (Can find at any hardware store)
  • Bench Scraper ( or something with a long, flat, sharp edge for smoothing icing) Can find at most baking supply section in stores or go to Hobby Lobby or Michaels
  • Large or Small Offset Spatula (your preferrence)
  • Hot Water (For Spatulas and Bench Scraper)
  • Cake boards (the size of your cakes
  • Lots of Frosting

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Place a small piece of rolled tape under cake board that matches the size of your already crumb coated cake. Place in center of turntable.

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Cover that with a piece of Wax or Baking paper (I’m using baking paper in the photo but I used both just to see the difference).

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Tape all the edges down so they won’t get in your way as you smooth, turn your table once you put the frosting on. You can actully cut it the size of your turntable if you want.

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Put a good amount of frosting on, using your offset spatula smooth the frosting down (as level as you can get it) while using the underside cake board as a guide to how far out it needs to go. This was the extra step I added due to if you have more than one cake to frost, you won’t be able to sit your cake/turntable in the freezer and wait for the frosting to stiffen enough to take the cake off.

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At this point take your crumcoated cake from the freezer and with a gloved hand (or not, I just don’t like frosting all over my hands) place that hand on top of your cake and the other under the bottom. Carefully flip your cake over and center it on the frosted board/turntable.

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This is where you add a TON of frosting around your cake, fill it in really good (even over fill…your scrap off later).

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After that’s done I used the plastic scraper I had (metal would work better I’m sure). I put my scraper in warm water, wiped it dry and with my left hand slowly spinning the turntable while using my right, resting the scraper on my top and bottom boards (or just make sure it’s straight up and resting flat on the icing) only moving the turntable (not your right hand ) and take off the extra icing. I found with the additional step I only a few time had to smooth the paper down under my right hand because it is raise just a tiny bit with that extra board underneath) Hope that made sense :-) .

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Once that’s done, slip a knife (or anything long/flat) under the paper and go around the edges to free your paper from the turntable. (cut the paper down around your cake if you want). Then carefully lift up the paper so you can see the board underneath, slip a knife under that board, gently lift it up (helps if the object your using is long), slide the cake off the turntable (leave in the upside down position on the cakeboard) and freeze or refrigerate until icing is stiff enough to flip the cake over. With paper still on, smooth over it with your scraper gently (if needed) and slowly, remove your paper. If too much icing comes off, it’s not ready, put it back in the fridge/freezer for about 25-30 minutes (if you have an hour as Jessie said, that’s even better). You may find bubble holes on top but since your icing is hard just put your spatuala in really hot water, grab a dab of frosting, fill the holes and smooth with the hot spatula (dry the water off prior if you want, I rarely do I just tap off the water and use). For the edges (if the frosting is sticking up or out to far from being upside down) I use my hot spatula, lay it flat on the upper sides, turning my wrist toward the cake, while moving the spatuala up to the top of my cake and gently over the top and smooth out the frosting.

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Comments (22)

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Thank you!!! It mad no sense to me earlier too but seeing your pics made things clearer. I have one question - How does the top of the cake remain smooth because we are flipping the bottom right? The part where you first smeared icing on the paper becomes the top?

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fcakes,when you flip the cake over on the frosting/wax paper, after you take it out of the freezer that way and flip it over it should be smooth as long as it's sitting upside down on a flat/smooth surface. The only thing you'd want to do before flipping it into the frosting is work as many of those bubbles out of the frosting with your spatula. Hope that makes sense.

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fcakes...just read your question again. The "top" is always the top. You begin with a crumb coated cake sitting on a cake board, you flip that over onto your icing/wax paper then flip it back over after freezing and remover the paper.

on

Thanks for the tutorial! Have ssen something similar but your use of 2 cake circles was brilliant! You mentioned a video by Jessiecakes...where do I find that?

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Thanks so much for reposting this tutorial ! I love Jessicakesblog but it was a tad bit confusing you mad it very easy to understand. Ill definatley be trying this asap !!

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I am curious if this works with a large cake like a 14" or 16" - they are just so heavy. Can one that large be flipped over? The larger cake sizes are always the ones I have a hard time getting smooth buttercream with sharp corners.

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Thank you soo much. I can´t believe that something so simple needs so much smarts to figure out.

I love things that make my life easier

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Annavillatoro1, for this cake I used just a basic chocolate buttercream made with crisco and not butter. @Shamilton, just go to the Wilton website and you'll find the recipe for chocolate buttercream frosting. @ Alisa555, I'm not sure as this was the first cake I used this technique on, but I have some 14inch square cakes that I will need to frost, but not till later. I don't see why it wouldn't work. What I would do is use the same size cake board, put a piece of tape on it then lay the wax paper or baking paper over it, slap a thick coat of frosting on that (a little chilled might be best), sit that on top of the large cake and then flip it on the board and tape your wax paper to your turntable,frost and freeze, make sense?

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The cake looks great! Nice and level with beautiful sharp corners. You said you tried both baking paper and wax paper...which one did you find worked best?

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KSCakeCreations...I prefer the baking paper only because as I smooth I use water on my spatula and the water tends to eventually break down the wax paper (it tears as I'm smoothing)... so the baking paper is best for me.