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Black and Neon Cake

Steps involved

  • Make cake layers

  • Make buttercream (no color)

  • Split and color buttercream

  • Assemble and ice cake

  • Decorate cake

READ BEFORE CONTINUING: The following recipes are scaled to make the cake pictured above -- a 4 layer cake made with 6-inch round cake layers. If you wish to make a smaller cake, please scale down these recipes. 

recipes used

  • vanilla cake recipe

  • 1 - 1.5 batches Italian meringue buttercream

  • I made this buttercream vanilla flavored by adding 1 tablespoon of vanilla to my 1.5x batch (can add less or more to taste)

  • I then took the majority of the icing and made it black using cocoa powder and food coloring *more information under the "colors used" section

Colors used

To get these colors, I used Wilton's Gel Icing Colors for the black icing and Wilton's Color Right Food Coloring System for the neon colors.*


For the cake layers: *for tips on how to get vibrant cake layers, click here.


Blue Cake Layer:

Blue: 2 drops


Pink Cake Layer:

Pink: 3 drops


Green Cake Layer:

Yellow: 6 drops

Blue: 1 drop


Purple Cake Layer:

Pink: 5 drops

Blue: 1 drop



For the icing:


The colors may differ depending on how much icing you're coloring and the starting color of your buttercream (certain butter brands are more white or yellow which can make the buttercream whiter or more yellow). These are the amounts I used and should get you close.


Black Icing: *for more in depth instructions on how to get deep black icing, click here.

- Cocoa Powder: I added Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder until I liked the taste and the color. This gives the icing a darker color to start, so you don't have to use as much food coloring to get to black.

- Wilton's Gel Icing Color in Black: 1-3 containers (1 oz. each) -- this depends on how much icing you're coloring and how dark your icing is to start

*TIP* - If you want your icing extra dark, color it the day before using; this will deepen the color without having to add any extra food coloring. Be sure to re-mix prior to icing the cake.


Blue Icing:

Blue: 20 drops


Pink Icing:

Pink: 15 drops


Green Icing:

Yellow: 30 drops

Blue: 5 drops


Purple Icing:

Pink: 15 drops

Blue: 5 drops

Supplies/tools

To find the tools I use for almost every cake I make and decorate (including pans, cake boards, icing smoothers, etc.), click here.


The supplies/tools below are specifically for decorating this cake, which I used in addition to the ones in the link above.*


*Some of these links may be affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I earn a small amount from some purchases, however, this does not affect my recommendations.

Decorating the cake

After the cake has been assembled and iced:


  1. Put each of the neon colors into its own piping bag with a small hole or a round piping tip.

  2. Using the video as a guide pipe small dots in a pattern around the top and bottom of the cake.

  3. Fill a piping bag with Wilton's 1M tip with black icing and pipe "swirly dollops" of icing on the top of the cake. I left space between each one for a macaron. (I used macarons I had saved in my freezer from the holidays. They were a special holiday macaron from Dana's Bakery. They no longer have these exact ones on their website, but I did see that they had chocolate covered ones listed as "Gender Reveal Macs". You can achieve a similar look to the ones I used on my cake by piping stripes on these macarons with the neon buttercream. You can also make your own macarons or use a different decoration such as more black swirly dollops, neon dollops, dollops of black and neon swirled buttercream, sprinkles, etc.)

  4. Slice and enjoy :)


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Watch the video:

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