I always start with a really cold cake obviously can’t be warm anymore but I normally take them out of the pan let them cool completely and then I pop them in the refrigerator the colder your cake is easier it is to frost box cake mix is the hardest to frost I’m using box today I’ll show you how I’m gonna do it with it but it’s the crumbiest it falls apart it’s really sticky so sometimes if you think you’re having a really hard time frosting something it might be the cake itself and it’s not you so give yourself some grace instead of just like plopping on my frosting I always use an ice cream scoop because then I know exactly how much I’ve used and each layer can have the exact same amount of frosting I love a mini or a small offset spatula my favorite tool to frost with should be in a pretty even layer that way all of your layers are even a table like this that turns will be your best friend it makes life so much easier using a lot more frosting than you think you need is also really helpful if I would have put just a really thin layer of frosting on here and you can see the cake it also is just gonna tear it apart but when you have a lot on your spatula is only touching frosting instead of cake and so then it’s kind of like your frosting is only moving around on top of more frosting and it’s really helpful so this next layer is our crumb coat your crumb coat is going to collect all of your little crumbs so once the frosting goes on and kind of a thin layer around your cake and you put it in the refrigerator the butter and your frosting is going to re-harden and will be really stiff and so then when you take it out of the refrigerator and frost it again it’s gonna have that like really cold layer so when you add on more frosting won’t pick up all those crumbs because they’re trapped inside that little thin layer coating so now this goes into the fridge for honestly at least 30 minutes the longer you give it the better so now this is been in the refrigerator for a little bit of time so it is nice and firm when I touch it I can’t even like no finger dense get left in it it’s firm so when I go to frost it now no crumbs so just like before you want to use more frosting than you think you need create those little swirls offset or spoon works really well for this and you just kind of work it in you know like that right there’s a cake