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Shag Cake

Steps involved

  • Make cake layers

  • Make buttercream (no color)

  • Put some buttercream aside for shag colors

  • Assemble and crumb coat cake

  • Separate buttercream into 6 parts, with one smaller than the rest for the words

  • Color all buttercream

  • Pipe shag design

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

  • 1.5 - 2 batches Italian meringue buttercream

  • I made this buttercream vanilla flavored by adding 1.5 tablespoons of vanilla to my 2x batch (can add less or more to taste)

  • I always like to have extra buttercream rather than not enough, so if you're not sure how much to use, I would recommend 2

Colors used

To get these colors, I used Wilton's Color Right Food Coloring System.*


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

Yellow Layer:

Yellow: 1 drop


Pink layer:

Pink: 2 drops


Blue layer:

Blue: 7 drops


Bright Pink layer:

Pink: 20 drops

Red: 8 drops


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.


Pink Icing:

Pink: 1 drop


Yellow Icing:

Yellow: 5 drops


Green Icing:

Blue: 16 drops

Yellow: 4 drops


Blue Icing:

Blue: 29 drops

Yellow: 3 drops


Bright Pink Icing:

Blue: 1 drop

Red: 7 drops

Pink: 70 drops


Navy Icing (for letters):

Red: 2 drops

Pink: 10 drops

Black: 7 drops

Blue: 60 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 the crumb coat is added:


  1. Using a toothpick write "Spring" or any word of your choice on the crumb coat to use as a template.

  2. Set up 5 piping bags with Wilton tip #233 and one with a small round tip (Ateco 4) and fill with each of the icing colors, using the navy color in the bag with the round tip.

  3. Pipe shag onto the cake, alternating colors frequently. Make sure to use the navy color when you reach any part of the cake where you wrote out your word.

  4. Continue piping and alternating colors around the whole cake until it is all covered.

  5. Slice and enjoy :)


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