Tutorial

Bake with Us! How to Make a Summer Themed Traybake

We're embracing the fruit design trend with this adorable summer themed traybake - get ready to bake with us!

Welcome to another edition of Bake with Us! In this instalment, we're sharing how to make this adorable summer themed traybake. The trend for fruity designs is showing no signs of stopping, and we couldn't resist bringing it into this bake. Get ready for the cutest fruit basket design ever!

As always, thanks has to go to our in-house baking queen, Holly, for putting together this tutorial! It has turned out so well and we can't wait to see you all recreating it. Remember, if you have an idea for a future tutorial you'd love to see, drop us a DM using the words "Bake with Us" and Holly can add it to our list!

What you'll need

Step-by-Step Guide to make a Summer Traybake

Step One: Bake your cake

Use your square baking tin and FunCakes cake mix (or your choice of recipe!) to create the cake for this design. Leave it to cool for at least half an hour before you begin decorating! Place your cooled cake on your square cake board.

Step Two: Colour and apply your top later of buttercream

Using your choice of colouring (we used the pretty pastel Peach from Colour Mill) to colour the bulk of your buttercream. Then, using a spatula, apply a generous layer to the top of your sponge.

Step Three: Pipe your basket lines

Take your basketweave piping nozzle and pop it into your piping bag. Fill the bag with buttercream (here we used a little more Peach Colour Mill to reach a deeper hue). Pipe a classic cross basket design, with two vertical lines, two horizontal lines and a border all the way around.

Step Four: Colour the buttercream for your fruit

Now for the fun part - choosing your fruit design! We opted for grapes, cherries, blueberries and lemons, so chose specific Colour Mill shades to help us create them. You'll also need a little green for any leaf detail! Be careful to ensure you match the buttercream shade to the right sized piping nozzle when adding them to your piping bags.

Step Five: Pipe your fruit design

Have fun with this bit, and add a fruit shape into each square of the basket design. Take your time with this bit to work on your shapes!

Step Six: Pipe your leaves and stalks

Once your fruit shapes are all laid out, go in with a little green buttercream (you can just snip the very end off this piping bag, no need for a specific piping tip) and create your leaves and stalks. This bit of detail takes your cake to the next level!

Step Seven: Add some summery sprinkles

For a real splash of summer, go in with a few colourful sprinkles! We used the beautiful white Daisies from the Purple Cupcakes Upsy-Daisy mix, as well as a handful of pastel nonpareils from FunCakes for added detail.

Step Eight: Cut and box up!

And finally, it's time for the presentation essentials! Place it on your party table as is, ready to be cut, OR, if you're handing it out, cut a slice and pop it in a cute bento box with some pretty greaseproof liner! We used our favourite Simply Making Gingham liners for the perfect touch of summer.

Ready for summer baking?

We hope this tutorial has inspired you to have some fun with your cake designs! This playful summer traybake is super cute and so easy to customise. Choose your own fruit shapes, or go for flowers or animals - the sky is the limit!