Fun Ways to Use Sprinkles

All right, I absolutely love sprinkles. They're like the edible confetti of the world and they just bring so much fun to cakes. I'm Rachel Tuefel, and I want to share a few different ways to use the sprinkles on your designs in a few different, fun ways. First up, I'm gonna show you how to decorate your baseboard utilizing some sprinkles and just some fun, little sparkly effects that kind of brighten up your baseboard in a non-traditional way. Normally we would use fondant or foils or just present a cake on a platter, but this fun little trick is quick and easy and super simple to do. Next up, I'm gonna share some ways just to embellish on your piped decor. So maybe you have a beautiful design of piped rosettes and some stars and some little flourishes, whatever it might be. I want to show you just how I like to put a little added touch with some sprinkles to kind of make that process a little bit more fun. And lastly, and certainly my favorite way to use sprinkles, is in a pinata cake. So I will show you a little trick I have to make a super easy way to core out your cake, add some sprinkles so that when your client or family member or friend, whoever this cake is made for, when they cut into this cake, they're gonna have a really fun surprise on the inside. So one of the ways that I love using sprinkles is actually to cover the baseboard of a cake, and the easiest way to do that is to just grab a little bit of piping gel with a wide brush, so this is a fan brush, and you're literally just gonna set it down and spin the turntable. You just want to get a little bit of piping gel just around that bottom edge of the board. So this is an alternative to a decorative board that has foil on it or covering your board in fondant. I just think it's super cute and super fun, and it ties the entire cake together. Since we already have sprinkles on that top edge, it's just super fun to add a little flair to your cake board. So, I've got my gel on there, and I'm just gonna start sprinkling all of that beautiful sugar and glitter. And don't worry if you have a little excess, we're just gonna use a brush and kind of wipe any excess away. Try not to do what I did. Don't hit your cake. Sometimes I get a little rowdy with my sprinkles, but then I'm just gonna use a brush and kind of move the sprinkles into any open spaces that the gel is certainly sitting there, so it's gonna grab on, but if I poured, like, lot of sprinkle in one spot, then, you know, it won't adhere as nicely. So, like, I have a really thick spot of sugar here, and just moving it around kind of spreads that out and allows the board to be covered a little more fully. Just don't push too hard, 'cause otherwise you'll start taking that glitter right back off. You know, it'll come, it does start to come off at some point. And then once I finish that, I just sort of run my finger right along the edge, and that just takes away any excess piping gel that might be on the side of my cake or any sprinkles that might be on the side of the cake, and just kind of take that excess off and then kind of wipe your finger. And then you can cover the bottom edge of this with just a lovely ribbon. I usually just use a little hot glue and some ribbon to kind of finish off my cakes. Then what I'm gonna do is very strategically, I'm just gonna place a couple of, I was being sarcastic guys, if you didn't pick up on that, very strategic with my placement of some of these larger sprinkles. And, you know, you can decorate it however you'd like. I just, I sort of like that random, you know, feel to it. And then I have a slightly different color of sprinkle. These are nonpareils, some pearls, some little sequins, and I'm literally just going to place those right on top of that other decor, just like that. Nice and simple, easy. You don't have to overdo it when it comes to creating whatever look that you're going for. So one of the other things that I love doing with sprinkles is to actually make a confetti cake, and there are two ways that you can create a confetti cake. The first way is by stacking it individually. So you take your cake round, you put a hole in it, you set it down, you put a little bit of filling in. Then you take a cake and put another round in and continue stacking, and then your top tier doesn't have a hole in it, and you put your sprinkles in. But I find that to be very precarious and a little more challenging to do, so this is the way that I love doing a pinata cake. Basically what you're gonna do is fill and crumb coat your cake, just like you would any other cake. And then I have a super thick dowel here. This is just a support column, but I like it because it's kind of the perfect size for putting a column of sprinkles on the inside. So you just want to line up your column so that it's in the middle of your cake. Go ahead, apply some pressure downward, and then you kind of have to support your cake a little bit here to be able to work this dowel right back out, and that's why you do this during the crumb coat, not your final coat, okay? So then once you have the cake cored out, you can see all the way down to the bottom there, then you just want to put in whatever type of sprinkles you'd like. You can just spin them in the way that I am, just, you know, basically trying to keep the sprinkles going down the hole instead of all over the top of the cake. But again, this is just the crumb coat, so it doesn't really matter if we get other items on top of the cake. We're just gonna scrape them right back off. So no worries. And once you have the top of your cake clean, then you can move forward with just putting a little bit of icing on the top of the cake, and then you want to do your final coat of icing. So, I'm just gonna pull the excess away, I'll show you how to cover the top. So you just want to make sure you don't get any sprinkles, you know, anywhere else, so try to clean, just clean your surface and make sure that your tools are clean, as well, so that you don't have to deal with that. And then just a little bit of buttercream on the top and the sides for your final coat, and nobody will even know that there is a fun, little surprise on the inside. So again, just go ahead and final coat your cake, and then decorate it however you'd like, and then we'll cut into it and see what a lovely surprise we have. All right, so the best part about putting sprinkles in the center of a cake is being able to cut into it and watch that sprinkle explosion happen. So I'm gonna cut right into this cake and show you what that looks like. Let's do two slices. All right, look at all those sprinkles. Not quite the explosion, but it is so fun just to know that something else is inside of this pinata cake. All right, sprinkles are a ton of fun and there are lots of different ways to use sprinkles to create a really fun design. I encourage you to use your own creativity and find a fun way to use sprinkles on your next project.