How To Write On A Cake: Cake Writing Templates for DIY Compliment Cakes

It turns out learning how to write on a cake doesn’t have to be hard. It’s actually CRAZY EASY!! You just need a few simple tricks up your sleep, plus our free cake writing templates (or make your own)! Use these to write birthday or holiday messages, or give your friends a compliment cake for no reason other than just being awesome and deserving one…The best excuse for cake!

Making Royal Icing for Cake Writing

Royal icing is a great option for writing on cakes because it hardens, so you can easily transfer your words to the cake. Being able to write the words off the cake gives you much more room for trial and error and mistakes.

Royal Icing (Cake Writing Icing) Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons water

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat for 5 to 7 minutes till stiff peaks form. Add desired food coloring. Check for consistency at this point. For the dotted style, you want the icing on the thicker side. For thin detailed lettering like cursive, thin out the icing with a bit more water.
Fill your piping bag, fitted with the piping tip, with royal icing.

Cake Writing Font Templates: Choose Your Writing Style

Today, I’ll share three different writing styles to use with the royal icing: a dotted style, a script style and a handwritten style.

The dotted or script style can be done with any font you’d like! Simply choose a font from your computer and type out the message you want to say into a document. Be sure to adjust the size so that it will fit on the cake you are creating. Print out and follow the tutorials below.

If you want to create compliment cakes like the examples I’ve shown here, here are your handy dandy cake writing font templates. (You can download our unicorn one here and adulting one here, or type up your own in a text-editing program and print it out!)

Dotted Style Cake Lettering

Lay your printed word template on a hard surface and place a piece of wax paper over the top. Tape it in place on at least two sides. This will help it stay in place while you pipe!

Pipe small dots right next to each other, following the lines of the words you chose. Let the piping set completely, several hours or overnight.

Script Style Cake Lettering

Lay your printed word template on a hard surface and place a piece of wax paper over the top. Tape it in place on at least two sides. This will help it stay in place while you pipe!

Pipe in a continuous motion, following the letters, just as you would if you were writing with a pen or pencil. Let the piping set completely, several hours or overnight.

Handwriting Cake Lettering

For the writing seen on the “What Are You Wearing” cake, we used our handwriting instead of a font.

Write out what you want to say on a piece of paper. Place it under wax paper, just as stated above, and use that as your template! Pipe each letter, lifting your hand/piping as infrequently as possible for the smoothest look.

Let the piping set completely, several hours or overnight.

How to Transfer Writing Onto a Cake

After your letters are set, carefully peel the wax paper off of each letter. It’s best to peel the wax paper back (versus the trying to peel the letters up) to ensure they remains in tact*. Place the letters on your cake as desired!

NOTE: If you have a letter or two that breaks, they’ll fit right back together like puzzle pieces on the cake and you won’t even be able to tell! Just continue as planned placing letters on the cake.

Photos by Jeff Mindell

This post was created in partnership with Mentos, All content and opinions are that of my own! Thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep the Studio DIY party going! Read more about my editorial policies here.

DIY Cake Writing for a Compliment Cake

Total Time:

Supplies

For the Royal Icing:

1 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder
2 cups sifted powder sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons water

For the cakes:

Royal Icing
Piping bag (or resealable plastic bag)
Piping Tip
Wax Paper
Tape
Word Template (You can download our unicorn one here and adulting one here, or type up your own in a text-editing program and print it out!)

Directions

1. For the royal icing: Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat for 5 to 7 minutes till stiff peaks form. Add desired food coloring. Check for consistency at this point. For the dotted style, you want the icing on the thicker side. For thin detailed lettering like cursive, thin out the icing with a bit more water.
2. Lay your printed word template on a hard surface and place a piece of wax paper over the top. Tape it in place on at least two sides. This will help it stay in palce while you pipe!
3. Fill your piping bag, fitted with the piping tip, with royal icing.
4. Choose your writing style:

For the dotted style (as seen in the adulting cake): Pipe small dots right next to eachother, following the lines of the words you chose.

For the script style (as seen in the unicorn cake): Pipe in a continuous motion, following the letters, just as you would if you were writing with a pen or pencil.

For the sans serif (as seen on the "what are you wearing" cake): We used our handwriting for this one instead of a font. Write out what you want to say on a piece of paper. Place it under wax paper, just as stated above, and use that as your template!

5. Let the piping set completely, several hours or over night.
6. Then, carefully peel the wax paper off of each letter. It's best to peel the wax paper back (versus the trying to peel the letters up) to ensure they remains in tact*. Place the letters on your cake as desired!

*Note: If you have a letter or two that breaks, they'll fit right back together like puzzle pieces on the cake and you won't even be able to tell! Just continue as planned placing letters on the cake.

How To Write on a Cake (+DIY Compliment Cakes)