Way to Go Grad Cake Stencils and Cookie Stencils (Cake Stenciling) from Confection Couture

Celebrate the upcoming Graduations from home with Confection Couture’s Way to Go Grad Cake and Cookie Stencils! Use your airbrush or buttercream through the stencil to decorate your cake in designs that would be impossible any other way. Below are the tools we used in this tutorial:

• Air Genie Airbrush
• Tapered Bakers Spatula
• Way to Go Grad Cake Stencil
• Way to Go Grad Cookie Stencil
• DecoPac Airbrush Food Coloring
• Plastic Bottle with Dropper Tip
• Cookie Magnets
• Vegetable Shortening
• Sewing Pins
• Chopstick

You’ll want to start by spreading vegetable shortening on the back of your cake stencil. This is an important step as it ensures the stencil details will be held flat against the side of your cake.

As you wrap the stencil around the edges of your cake make sure it is in full contact with the smoothed fondant surface. While holding your stencil in position, push sewing pins through each of the four corners of the stencil design. Make sure the stencil is held right up against the side of the cake by the pins. The stencil details should lay flat with the vegetable shortening.

Before you get to airbrushing you will want to test the air flow rate of the Air Genie airbrush system on a piece of paper towel. Load the color well of the Air Genie Airbrush and test it out on a piece of paper towel. Once you check to make sure the spray is coming out smoothly you are ready to begin!

Don’t forget! When airbrushing a cake stencil you should always cover the rest of the cake in saran wrap to protect from overspray onto the rest of the design. Even if you are being really careful, one false move and you could get a misting of airbrush food coloring outside of the stencil boundaries.

To start you will want to make sure you have your airbrush in one hand and a disposable chopstick in the other. You can use any long stick-like implement such as a skewer or even the end of a clean candy thermometer if that’s what you have on hand! Use the chopstick to hold any details of the stencil flat that may pop up due to the curve of the design. Hold the airbrush 6- 8 inches away from the surface and lightly apply the food coloring in circular motions across the design, starting with one coat.

Stencil the first coat of food coloring, then get started on the second coat. Work your way back in the other direction making sure to completely color the stencil design. A word of warning though! Do not overdo it on the airbrushing because too much food color will begin to bead up in liquid form on the cake surface. This will bleed beneath the stencil design. You don’t want the design to come out blurry because of too much food coloring. Stop as soon as you have complete coverage!

Now to remove the stencil, start by removing the saran wrap and set it to the side for later. Place one hand on the stencil while you remove the sewing pins from the other side. Peel the stencil off around the edge of the cake towards the other side. Pull out the sewing pins then lift the stencil completely off! You can now see the design for yourself without the stencil. Give the airbrushed food coloring 5-10 minutes to dry before applying the stencil to the other side! While you wait, rinse off the cake stencil for the next repeat.

Line the stencil up just as before using sewing pins to hold each corner of the stencil flat to the cake surface, then airbrush away. After stenciling both sides of your cake, use the tapered baker’s spatula to patch up the holes left over by the sewing pins. Then voila, a perfect cake to match your cookies!

Airbrushing cookies is a breeze after stenciling a cake. Simply place the cookie beneath the stencil genie with the stencil design lined up at the center. Put cookie magnets around the outer edges of the cookie to hold the stencil flat to the surface. Use the airbrush just as before to color the design in 2-3 light coats of food coloring. Always remove the cookie magnets before moving onto the next cookie!

With just a few coats of Airbrushed food coloring through your stencils you can get perfect cookies for your graduates. Be sure to check out https://www.confectioncouturestencils.com/ for more information and check out the video below!