Brush Embroidery Cake Tutorial – Lace Effect
A brush embroidery cake can be so impressive for any celebration; even a wedding cake. It’s a simple, easy and effortless technique with dramatic results. On this cake I have shown you how to achieve a lace effect using the brush embroidery technique.

I have been very fascinated with piping and painting recently as you guys must have noticed.
I recently did some Brush Embroidery Cookies which were so pretty I could not wait to do that on a whole cake!!
This time I decided to give it that lacy look. I love lace but don’t always have the patience to do fine piping. Since I was in the mood to use both the piping bag and my paint brush. I thought….. Brush Embroidery Lace!!
First Cake Flavors, Frosting and Fondant.
This was my Red Velvet Cake recipe; layered with Chocolate buttercream and frosted with Vanilla Buttercream. Then covered in Burgundy color Homemade Fondant from Scratch. You can use my Marshmallow Fondant recipe as well.
The Icing Consistency
I personally use a soft peak icing, which is a drop thinner than the piping icing.
If you icing is stiff it will not spread and if it is too thin then you won’t achieve any stroke effect at all.
I first make my icing as per the recipe to stiff peaks, then I thin it using light corn syrup. It gives it more elasticity. If you want a more thicker icing strokes use a larger tip or pipe two lines at the same time.

Brush Movement
The Brush – you can actually use a round or flat brush,thick or thin. There is no right or wrong. The choice of brush you use will determine the stroke, effect and size you achieve.
The movement of your brush will also determine your design. If you pull the brush with nice long strokes you will see a very different design then small short strokes. Both are pretty so experiment on a piece of fondant and see which you really like first.

The brush embroidery – Lace effect
As you can see I used some of my flower cutter to emboss a pattern on my cake, as I wanted to create a symmetrical design which gives us the lace effect. It is very important that you emboss the design on softly covered fondant or else you will crack the fondant or have elephant skin later.
The Color – You see the color of my fondant? I covered my fondant the previous day. I embossed it and was planning to work on it the next day. But as you can see the color changed so much over the day!!! I was so surprised!! I used so pretty and bright the first day and then changed so much into a deep burgundy color. I do love how the color deepened.

This is a FMM five petal rose cutter. Working from the outside in… the leaves then the flower.

- Working on one petal at a time. You draw the outline then use a damp brush to put the icing in.
- The more stroke marks you get the more lacy the design looks
- Working one flower at a time. Star with the outer leaves first then the flowers.
- The process does go quite fast and is really fun so the whole cake does get gone pretty quick.

Here’s doing some more.. I did the board too! Just extended the design

And finally here the whole cake again and a slice of the inside as well.

Save this tutorial for later. You can also find a collection of my Recipes and Tutorials here on Pinterest

Hi Veena, thank you for sharing your beautiful cake decorating talents with us! Can brush embroidery be done on smooth buttercream? Thanks in advance!
You can definitely do it on buttercream, Joy. Make sure to chill the cake well so it’s almost hard like a canvas. Then use buttercream for the pattern and chill between steps if necessary so you always have a hard canvas. Hope this helps.
Thank you so much for this tutorial. You make it look so easy. I cannot wait to try this. Love the contrast in color. Can’t believe this is homemade fondant.
Thank you Natalie. This is really very easy. I think you will enjoy it.
Your brush embroidery cake is beautiful. Thanks for the tutorial. Question: can they be refrigerated prior to delivery? It is 106 degrees here
If you use royal icing you cannot put the cake in the fridge. If you use buttercream you can put the cake in the fridge. Thanks