Happy New Year! Let’s celebrate with this shimmery New Year cake tutorial. Nothing says “party” quite like a disco ball. So I’ll be showing you how to create fully edible disco ball cake toppers that look just like the real thing, but are 100% food safe and are a great alternative to glass decorations. I’m also sharing my favourite tips for using the Sweet Stamp letter sets to add custom messages easily onto your cakes.
In this tutorial:
Disco balls are the perfect celebration cake topper, they give the ultimate party vibe to your cakes. As well as a new year cake, you could also add them to a birthday cake or what about a 70s or 80s themed cake!
Watch the Tutorial: How to make edible disco ball cake toppers
Click below to watch my step by step tutorial showing you how to make these fun disco ball cake toppers or keep scrolling for a detailed look at the tools and methods used.
Tools you’ll need for Your New Year Cake
I’ve put together a list of everything I used to create this shimmering look. Don’t forget, you can use my discount codes below to save a little extra on your supplies!
For the Disco Balls
- Silicone Semi Sphere Moulds (set of 3)
- Sweet Stamp Fluffy Brushes – CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off
- Dipping Solution
- White Candy Melts – LYNZ10 for 10% off
- Polystyrene Balls
- Fondant – LYNZ10 for 10% off
- Edible Glue – LYNZ10 for 10% off
- Colour Mill Black oil based colour – LYNZ10 for 10% off
- Sugar Flaire Satin Silver Lustre Dust
- Sweet Sticks Lustre Dusts – Pearl white, Light Silver, Gun Metal Grey & Charcoal Grey
- Water Brush
For the Lettering
- Sweet Stamp Brush Set – CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off
- SweetStamp Large Pickup Pad – CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off
- Sweet Stamp Letter Sets – CAKESBYLYNZ for 10% off
~ Links within this post are affiliate links. If you click the links and purchase any item through that link, I will receive a small commission from the website but this does NOT add any additional costs to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog x ~
Step 1: Choosing a Base for Your Disco Ball Toppers
When creating the disco balls there are a few options. First you need to create a sphere for all the tiny squares to be stuck onto. This can be done either by creating an edible ball, using chocolate or candy melts or by covering a polystyrene ball in some grey fondant.
Method 1: Creating a 100% Edible Chocolate Ball
Both these options work well and have their advantages. Using chocolate or candy melts in a silicone mould is a great way to make balls or balloons to add onto your cakes and you may have seen me do this before in my chocolate balloon tutorial. The advantage of this method is it makes the disco ball completely edible.
Start by melting some white candy melts and colouring them in a light grey using a small amount of the black Colour Mill oil based food colour. You want to use a grey as you will see some of the ball through the little squares. Using a silicone mould create 2 half spheres and stick them together by running the edges over a warmed up metal smoothing tool or a baking tray. This will give a perfectly round ball as a base.
Method 2: Using Polystyrene Balls (The Quickest Option)
Alternatively you can use a polystyrene ball as your base. These are available in different sizes and the advantages of these are that it makes it so much quicker as you don’t need to be melting chocolate and filling moulds. They are also much easier to hold when adding on the squares as you can push in a cocktail stick as a little handle. The disadvantage is these do need to be removed from the cake before you cut it as they aren’t edible.
Here I’ve got a 5cm polystyrene ball and 20g of fondant which I’ve coloured in a light grey and rolled into a ball. To cover the ball, squish the fondant into a dish shape and cover the surface with edible glue. Place on your ball and using your fingers work the fondant over the ball. When you’re left with a small circle at the top I always like to add a little more edible glue, before joining the fondant up, and smoothing it between the palm of my hands to smooth it out.
Step 2: Creating Shimmering Fondant “Mirror” Squares
Once you have the base of your disco ball, you’re going to need a lot of fondant squares. Real disco balls are made of small squares of glass which reflect the light in all different directions. To recreate this you’re going to need to create your squares using different shades of grey / silver lustre dust.
To get the most amount of shimmer from lustre dust I like to mix this with dipping solution before painting it onto my fondant. Here I have used 5 different shades which I can then cut into small squares. I’ve used the Sugar Flaire Satin Silver Lustre Dust along with the Pearl white, Light Silver, Gun Metal Grey & Charcoal Grey all by Sweet Sticks. Check out that shine!!
Once the fondant has been cut into squares, they can then be glued onto the balls, using water for the polystyrene ball and edible glue for the chocolate ball. You want to start with a row around the center; getting this as straight as possible. Then work your way up to the top and then bottom of your ball.
You can then make the disco balls in different sizes to add onto your cakes. By having different sizes, this makes the toppers so interesting on the top of your cake.
Adding Professional Cake Lettering with Sweet Stamp
To finish off this cake I added ‘Happy New Year’ to the front using the Santa Baby Sweet Stamp letter set. I always love how easy these letter sets make it to add custom text onto your cakes. By combining the letters and the Sweet Stamp pickup pad, you’re able to create a stamp to push into your fondant covered cake, which can then be painted with some edible paint.
Sweet Stamp have kindly given me a 10% off voucher code for you to use. To receive the 10% off all you need to do is visit their website sweetstamp.online and enter the code CAKESBYLYNZ at the checkout!
I had so much fun creating these disco balls and I really hope you enjoy the tutorial and will be able to use some of these effects on your own cakes. If you haven’t already you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more FREE cake decorating video tutorials.
Plus why not save this tutorial for later and pin it to Pinterest
