Here, you’ll find 22 vintage cake ideas to celebrate your birthday with a unique cake design. If you’re looking for inspiration to place an order with your local baker, or you want to recreate one of these cakes yourself thanks to the guidance I provide, you’re in the perfect place.
How to find a vintage cake idea suited to your cake-decorating level?
I’ve come up with a system. The cake ideas are presented to you according to their level of difficulty. There are three categories :
What Are Beginner Cake Ideas?
These are easy cake ideas. If you’ve never decorated a cake before (or only did it once or twice), these are the cakes that you should pay attention to.
- What you’ll find: Beautiful cake ideas that only require basic cake decorating techniques. This is a great place to start your journey.
What Are Intermediate Cake Ideas?
Low Intermediate Baker: If you are confident that you’ve mastered the cake decorating basics, such as how to smooth a cake, but feel like you still have a lot of techniques to learn apart from this foundation, this category is perfect for you.
- What you’ll find: Cake ideas that require both basic decorating skills and one or two techniques that are a little bit more advanced. This is a great place to grow your cake-decorating skills.
High Intermediate Baker: If you’ve mastered both basic techniques and several more advanced cake decorating techniques, these cake ideas are made for you.
- What you’ll find: Stunning cake ideas that can be fairly challenging, but are a great place to get even better than you already are.
What Are Advanced Cake Ideas?
If you consider yourself an experienced cake decorator and have mastered most of the decorating techniques, including the use of fondant, then this is the perfect place for you.
- What you’ll find: Showstopping and challenging cake ideas, perfect to sharpen and maintain your skills.
The Grading System
Finally, I’ve also assigned a grade of difficulty to each cake inspiration: 1/5 being the easiest design and 5/5 being the hardest. The goal is to make the ranking the most accurate possible. You will find this to be particularly helpful if you happen to fall in the Beginner or the Intermediate Cake Ideas categories.
Growth Tip : This list is great a place to set goals about your cake decorating skills. Pin this post and come back later to tell us how far you’ve come in your cake decorating journey !
How to follow the instructions of the designs.
For the cake designs in the beginner category: I’ll provide written instructions on how to recreate the cake idea presented to you. Don’t hesitate to watch video tutorials about basic techniques such as how to smooth a cake.
For the designs in the intermediate category: I’ll provide some guidance on how to perform the more complicated techniques.
For the advanced category: you are an experienced baker, at this point, and you will find great opportunities to put this experience to use. To be completely honest, I cannot make myself several cake ideas from the advanced category, so trust your abilities and go for it.
Find the perfect vintage cake idea for your baking skills.
Growth Tip : If you aim to get better at cake decorating, you should choose a cake idea that feels sligthly above your current cake decorating level. Get out of your comfort zone !
Vintage Cake Ideas For Beginner Bakers
Here, you’ll find 2 easy Vintage cake decorating ideas perfect for beginner bakers.
Easy Vintage Heart Cake
Difficulty Level: 1,75/5.
Let’s be honest vintage cakes are not the most beginner-friendly cake designs, but simple cake ideas like this one can be achievable.
What you will need :
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- A piping bag + an open star piping tip (as the 6B by Wilton).
- Cocktail cherries.
- White chocolate + a silicon alphabet mold.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, you must crumb-coat the cake to avoid any crumbs in your final design. Apply a thin and even coat of frosting with your offset spatula all around your cake.
- Smooth it with your bench scraper, holding it at a 45-degree angle on the cake while spinning your turntable. Your bench scraper isn’t supposed to move, only turn the table.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect as it only is the first coat. Chill the cake 20 to 30 minutes in the fridge (until your frosting sets).
- Then, apply a thicker coat of frosting and repeat the smoothing operation. Fill in any gaps and smooth the cake again. Repeat this operation until the cake looks smooth enough for you. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the covering process, if needed.
- Next, chill your cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or until your buttercream cover sets.
- Use a knife warmed with water if you want sharp edges on your cake.
- Check out the second design to learn how to recreate the buttercream border and the chocolate letters.
What you’ve learned :
As a cake decorator, the very first technique you have to master is how to frost a cake properly.
Simple Vintage Cake
Difficulty Level: 1,75/5.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover and decorate your cake.
- A piping bag + 2 open star piping tips (a big one and a smaller one like the 6B and the 4B by Wilton).
- White chocolate + a silicon alphabet mold.
- Edible pearls.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, crumb coat, cover, chill, and cut the edges of your cake as explained in the previous cake design.
- For the buttercream border. Hold the piping bag at a 45-degree angle next to the cake’s bottom edge.
- Squeeze the piping bag to release the icing, and pull the bag away while releasing pressure forming a shell shape.
- Keep piping shells to form a border around the cake. Maintain a consistent angle and pressure for uniform shells.
- Remember, you can always practice on a sheet of parchment paper before piping on the actual cake. To get more clarity you can watch this quick shell border tutorial.
- For the chocolate letters. Melt the chocolate using a double boiler or microwave, stirring frequently to ensure a smooth consistency.
- Transfer the melted chocolate into a piping bag. and pipe it into the letter molds.
- Tap the molds gently on the counter to remove any air bubbles. Smooth the surface of the chocolate.
- Chill the chocolate in the refrigerator (30 minutes) or in the freezer (5-10 minutes) to allow the chocolate to set. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the process if needed.
- Finally, place your chocolate letters and your edible pearls using buttercream as glue.
What you’ve learned :
As a beginner cake decorator, keep to simple techniques like buttercream shell borders. You can use different types and sizes of nozzles to keep your cake design interesting.
Vintage Cake Ideas Perfect For Intermediate Bakers
Here, you’ll find 13 vintage cake ideas perfect for intermediate bakers.
Contrasted Vintage Cakes
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
An easy way to make your vintage cake even more unique is to use contrasting colors either in the same hue (#1 picture) or with completely different colors (#2 picture).
A little guidance
These cakes have a fuller look than the beginner vintage cake designs. To recreate it, you can follow this vintage cake piping tutorial that tackles most of the piping techniques used to create this kind of cake.
Vintage Mirror Cakes
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate).
This kind of mirror vintage cake is also another great way to personalize your vintage cake. It’s a very Instagrammable cake too.
A little guidance
Frost your cake as usual, then place a mirror the size of your cake or slightly smaller in the middle of your cake. Next, pipe as usual. Make sure to clean your mirror thoroughly and place a sheet of parchment paper of the shape and size of the mirror between the mirror and your cake.
Glittery Vintage Cake
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
You can also indulge in a birthday cake as bold as you, using one of these glittery vintage cake designs.
A little guidance
To recreate this kind of glittery cake, decorate your cake as usual, then use an airbrush to thoroughly cover you cake in edible glitter. Try to protect your kitchen beforehand as this technique tends to splash glitter absolutely everywhere.
Maximalist Vintage Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
You can also opt for vintage cakes with maximalist decorations by adding all kinds of buttercream flowers, bows, or edible pearls.
A little guidance
Check out this buttercream rose tutorial if you want to give it a try yourself.
Bridgerton-Style Vintage Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
What’s great with these cake ideas is you can adapt them to any theme you want: your favorite movie, your favorite brand, or your favorite show.
A little guidance
To recreate this kind of cake decoration, you don’t need to be an artist or even good at drawing. You only need to learn how to do a buttercream transfer.
Tiered Vintage Cakes
Difficulty Level: 4,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
If you’re hosting a lot of guests, you can easily turn your vintage cake into a tiered cake.
A little guidance
The single most important thing when baking a tiered cake is to make sure your cake is well-supported. ALWAYS use dowels or straws to help the bottom tier support the weight. Believe me when I tell you that you’d better use unnecessary support than see hours of work go to waste.
Vintage Cake Ideas For Advanced Bakers
These 3 vintage cake ideas will be perfectly suited to experienced cake decorators.
Zodiac Vintage Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
If you like maximalist cake designs, you can opt for a zodiac vintage cake
Square Vintage Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Another way to add a little bit of character and uniqueness is to choose a square vintage cake, which is as beautiful but less trendy than its round and heart-shaped counterparts.
Cute Vintage Cakes
Difficulty Level: 5/5
You could also embrace a more kawaii vibe with these vintage cakes and their super cute buttercream cake toppers.
Tall Vintage Cakes
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Finally, you could go for a more regal kind of look with a tall-tiered vintage cake or a vintage cake with a supercool cake stand.
If you’re looking for more cake ideas, check out one of my other birthday cake ideas for women.
Did you enjoy these vintage cake design inspirations? Sharing is caring! Pin this post to come back to it.
Please let me know in the comments if you’d like some specific cake ideas and/or tag me on Instagram @theperfectcakeidea. I’d also love to see your creations.
