All The Tools You Need To Master The Naked Cake Look At Home

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Even for the most confident home cooks, baking and frosting a cake can often feel like a daunting feat. Getting the layers even, a moist (but not too moist) crumb, and finagling a clean, aesthetically pleasing frost are not necessarily basic skills. There are expert tips for getting better at frosting cakes, and at-home hacks for crafting delicate cake designs, but sometimes the less-is-more approach really is the easiest.

Enter: the naked cake. It's not actually totally naked or totally effortless, but that barely-there frosting look is simple to accomplish and minimalist-chic. No jumble of piping bag tips or painstaking flourishes needed. For this, you almost leave the cake completely unfrosted, but there's a very thin layer of frosting on the outside — sort of like having exposed brick in your apartment. It's patchy enough to look cool without looking like you gave up.

This trend works best on a layer cake, and to pull it off, you only need a few tools. A small offset spatula or piping bag will get the frosting onto the cake in the first place. A turntable makes it easy to spin while you work; something like this rotating stand from Kootek does the job. And finally, a sturdy cake scraper like Enajucy's 12-inch stainless steel scraper from Amazon is key for dragging the frosting into that sheer, half-dressed finish. You can try it with a butter knife and a lazy Susan, but these three things really make the process smoother.

The beauty of the naked cake is in its undressed simplicity, but there are a few small mistakes that can make it go from effortlessly cool to unintentionally messy. First: trim for flat, even layers. Domed tops will make the whole cake wobbly, and since the outside is barely frosted, it'll be hard to hide uneven layers.

One of the most important steps comes before you frost anything: let your cake cool completely. Warm cake will cause frosting to melt and slide, and it'll pull up crumbs if you try to slather frosting over it. Spread frosting between cake layers once it's cool. You want enough in the middle to show between the edges, since that's where the visual impact comes from.

Then, it's time to pipe a bit of frosting on the outside. Whipped cream or a silky, homemade buttercream frosting both work beautifully since they're soft, fluffy, and easy to spread. A thin layer is the whole point, just enough to cover in spots while still letting the cake peek through. This is where the turntable and scraper come in. Turn the cake slowly while dragging the scraper gently along the sides. After, use an offset spatula to scrape and level off the top, smoothing off any excess. Don't leave it totally naked, though! A handful of berries, some citrus slices, or even a few edible flowers on top or along the sides will give your naked cake a truly cookbook-worthy presentation.