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Frosting cakes is one of those things that I would love to get better at. My mom would always decorate amazing cakes for our birthdays when I was a little girl and I loved them but I didn’t really inherit that cake-frosting-gene. When I am frosting a cake I usually choose a simple idea in my head how I want it to look but it it never quite seems right. I decided this year I wanted to try to get better at frosting cakes so I asked the talented pastry chef Hope Waggoner to give some easy tips on how to make cakes look perfectly frosted (ps: check out Hope’s awesome tattoo, so perfect-right?) Today’s post is on how to get that perfectly frosted and delicious messy look. Have you ever tried to frost a cake like this? It is harder than you think if you don’t know how. Today Hope is unveiling all the tricks on how to get it perfect.

Materials Needed: You can stock up on lots of cake decorating supplies but if you are going to put together a simple cake decorating kit all you really need to frost this cake is: A large Offset Spatula and a heavy duty pastry bag with large tip.

Step 1: Bake your cakes using your favorite recipe. (This is my favorite chocolate cake recipe.)
Step 2: After the cakes are baked and have cooled down, put them in saran wrap and put them in the freezer for a few hours. Cooling the cake will make the crumbs way more manageable. (As long as the cakes are wrapped, freezing it will not make a difference in the taste.)
Step 2: Remove the cakes from the freezer and trim off the top with a serrated bread knife (if needed) to create a perfectly flat layer. I prefer tall cakes which means I usually make 3-4 layers and sometimes I cut those in half to create even more layers.
Step 3: Put down the first layer of cake and taking a pastry bag of frosting create a nice even layer of frosting. Take an offset  spatula and spread out the frosting about 1″ before the edge. Repeat until all the layers are in place.
Step 4: Create a crumb layer. This layer will seal in all the crumbs before you are ready to decorate your cake. Using the large offset spatula tarting at the top of the cake and then working down the sides, create a thin and smooth layer of frosting over the entire cake. Put it in the refrigerator until the frosting sets. (About 30-60 minutes.)

Step 5: Now it’s time to frost! For best results it’s important to work with cold cake and room temperature frosting. To create that perfectly messy frosting look pile on a very very thick layer of frosting with your offset spatula. The secret to get it right is there must be a deep layer of frosting to create the texture and swirls that make it look so good. Once your thick layer of frosting is on, take the back of a spoon and begin making swirls and crests in the thick layer of frosting. Continue until the whole cake looks swoop-y and delicious.