I decorated this 2 layer 6″ (15cm) Victoria sponge (recipe here, I used a 3 eggs weight instead of 2 and split it between two 6″ cake tins) with my vanilla ‘buttercream’ (recipe here), first with a crumb coat, then the coloured ‘buttercream’, then topped it with chocolate ganache dripping down the sides (recipe here).
I applied a spot of buttercream to the centre of the cake board so that the bottom layer of cake wouldn’t move around. I then applied a generous layer of buttercream to the top of that layer using an offset spatula, making sure to keep the top of the buttercream level. I put the second layer on top, top side down.
I applied a thin layer of buttercream to the whole cake using an offset spatula and levelled it with a cake scraper. I put the cake in the fridge overnight to ensure the buttercream set firm.
After the crumb coat, about two thirds of the buttercream remained. I coloured the buttercream by folding in green and blue food colouring gel paste to achieve this teal colour – due to the super-concentrated nature of colouring gel paste, the gel from the point of a kebab stick dipped into the colouring paste was all that was needed.
To apply the coloured buttercream, I used the same technique as the crumb coat but applied it more thickly. I smoothed the buttercream with the cake scraper then put it back in the fridge overnight.
For the drips, I prepared a piping bag with a #2 tip and poured in the slightly-cooled ganache. With the cake on a turntable, I turned the cake and allowed the ganache to fall on the edge to drip over the side. Once the entire circumference was covered, I filled in the centre. Depending on how liquid your ganache is at this point, you may need to encourage it to smooth with a palette knife.
I popped the cake back in the fridge overnight for the ganache to set.
Enjoy!
P.S. Don’t have 3 days to decorate this cake? 2 hours in the fridge instead of overnight should be enough to firm up the buttercream and ganache layers, but you can’t skip the chilling completely.
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Ellebee's Bakes & Cakes 