Stripes have been all the rage this year! The striped buttercream cake is definitely a new cake trend, and it’s a lot easier than you might think.

While you might be able to freehand thicker buttercream stripes (like I attempted on my s’mores cake), it’s a bit more challenging to make these thin, delicate lines.

With a few tips, you’ll learn that you can create your own striped buttercream cake in a jiff!

Using The Right Tools

To create these beautiful buttercream stripes, you need to have the right tool. People call them a lot of different things, but I usually refer to this tool as a cake decorating comb or a cake icing comb.

There are a ton of different types out there, made with different materials and different patterns.

You’ll see in my video that I’m using a wilton cake decorating comb that I ordered years ago!

I actually ordered them for the other patterns included in the cake comb kit, but one side had that little square pattern I needed to make stripes.

However, if you plan to order a set, I recommend trying out this set of cake icing combs. It comes with a pattern for both thick and thin stripes, which gives you more variety in the designs and patterns you make.

To make these thin stripes, you can use any brand of icing comb, as long is it has a small square pattern similar in size to the cake decorating comb shown above.

Getting Groovy

Now that you have the right tool, it’s time to talk about technique. For this design to work, you need to follow a few steps. The first is crumb coating and chilling your cake.

This helps lock in any potential crumbs, to ensure your striped layer of frosting turns out perfectly.

The second step is to add and smooth a generous second layer of frosting. I find that my American buttercream works great for this technique!

As soon as the frosting is smoothed, you should use your icing comb to start making some grooves!

I’ve found that holding the cake icing comb at a ninety degree angle against the cake works best. This helps you get the thickest grooves possible, which will make the smoothing process easier down the road.

Now that the icing comb is in the right position, it’s time to move it around the cake. You want to keep this angle with the icing comb, and gently move the icing comb around the cake.

It’s also important to keep the base of the icing comb remains flat against the cake board. This will ensure you’re consistently creating the same groves with each pass around the cake.

Your touch needs to be firm enough to remove frosting and create uniform grooves, but gentle enough not to scrape through the crumb coat.

It can be difficult to get a feel for this, so I recommend starting with a light amount of pressure. You can always add more pressure if needed!

Chilling the Cake Thoroughly

Once your frosting grooves are in place, you need to chill the cake again. This is SUPER important. It’s imperative (I mean it!!) that the frosting grooves are completely firm to the touch before you move onto the next step.

This will help the grooves keep their shape as you fill them with colorful frosting, and smooth the cake a final time.

To properly chill the cake, I recommend placing it in the freezer for 10 minutes. If you don’t have room in your freezer, you can place the cake in the fridge for 40 minutes.

Adding a Pop of Color

Now it’s time for the fun stuff. Using whatever color(s) of frosting you want, fill in each little groove with a piping bag.

I didn’t use a frosting tip to do this. I kept things simple by just cutting a small hole at the bottom of each of my piping bags.

For this cake, I used various shades of blue to create some ombre blue stripes. Just remember, more colors you chose, the more work and dishes you have to do!

Once the grooves are filled, use a bench scraper to smooth the frosting. You will need to make several passes around the cake to get clean stripes.

Don’t worry if your first couple passes look a little wonky. I promise with a few more those perfect stripes will come to life.

A Finishing Touch of Heat

For the last few passes around the cake, I like to heat up my bench scraper. I do this by running my bench scraper under some hot water and drying it with a paper towel.

This heats up the blade, which allows you to get a super smooth finish at the end of the process.

My stripes didn’t end up PERFECT, but you have to know when to stop. I knew I was planning to add snowflakes on top of this, so I stopped here.

This is a challenging technique, so don’t be too much of a perfectionist! If one area isn’t as perfect as you’d like, simply make that the back of the cake.

Don’t keep scraping off frosting, trying to get it just right. You can scrape off too much frosting, and you will kick yourself if you do!!

Let Me Know What You Think!

If you try making your own striped buttercream cake, I’d love to hear how it goes! Please leave a rating, and let me know your thoughts in the comments section