Buttercream, Filling Cream and Frosting - how do you know how much to use?! Well this depends on exactly how it's being used in your cake decorating! We sell a few different products that you can use to fill and frost a cake, below we'll give you a guide on the different ways to use them:

  • Filling - this is the filling you're putting between the layers of your cake. It's always better to not overfill your cake at this stage as once the cake settles, a thick layer of filling can bulge out the sides of your cake so always start with a small amount and try not to fill too close to the edges of your cake.
  • Crumb coating - this is what we call the fine layer of frosting that you use to cover a cake before you cover it with sugarpaste - It helps the sugarpaste stick to the cake and catches all those pesky crumbs on the outside of your cake. Try to avoid a thick layer of frosting on your cake as this can make your final sugarpaste layer a bit bumpy if you're too generous, so go sparingly!
  • Frosting - this is the thicker layer of frosting that you use when you want to hide the cake from showing through. You normally use 2 layers, a crumb coat and then a top coat to smooth finish once the bottom coat is set over. You may even use 3 coats if your cake is a dark colour and you don't want it to show through.
  • Decorating - as buttercream finished cakes remain on trend, we see more cakes finished with swirls and piping on the top and sides of the cake. The amount of frosting you need can vary greatly depending on the style you're after but always allow more than you think you'll need - especially if you're colouring your frosting as making another batch will inevitably be a different colour. You can freeze leftover frosting so it never hurt to have a little extra on stand by!

We've created a very rough guide below to help you work out how much frosting you'll need to order, this applies to our Frosting and Filling Cream as well as your own homemade buttercream. We'd always recommend ordering a little extra as it's better to have leftovers than to run out mid cake decorating.

How many cake layers*Cake SizeHow much frosting?
2 layers deep4" round200g
2 layers deep6" round400g
2 layers deep8" round600g
2 layers deep10" round800g
2 layers deep12" round1kg
CupcakesFrom 30g per cupcake
*Add 20% for square cakes and an additional 20% per extra layer of cake

When decorating a cake with swirls/piping work, we'd recommend doubling up the amount of frosting you know you'll need as piping can use a lot of product. You can also practice your piping onto a cake board or jam jar lid, then remove and place back into your piping bag to avoid waste whilst you're practicing!

Please keep in mind that everyone decorates their cakes differently so whilst we've done our best to give you a guide, these amounts are all approximates.