How to Make Fondant Ocean Waves for Cakes

Fondant ocean waves on cakes are a great decorating idea for beach themed cakes. Here is one such idea I used for a beach birthday cake I designed for an 18-year-old girl recently.

In fact, I used 2 different types of fondant ocean waves effect on the cake, one which is 2D (as can be seen in the image above and is also what this tutorial covers) and the other is a 3D effect (the swirls of fondant on both tiers) which is covered in a separate tutorial here.

I have also put together a full tutorial on how to assemble the beach birthday cake and you can see it here.

Now back to the 2d fondant ocean waves tutorial I am going to cover on this page. See below for the main supplies needed and how I put the waves up on the cake.

How to Create Ocean Waves on Cakes with Fondant:

These are the supplies needed :

Ocean Waves Cutter - I bought this cutter from an online shop. This is just one cutter and I used it to create 2 different types of sea waves on my cake.
Fondant - I used Satin Ice fondant in white and colored it blue with Wilton Royal Blue food color.
Wilton Royal Blue food color - I used this to tint my white fondant to make the ocean waves.
Sugarcraft knife - This is one of my favorite cake decorating tools. I used this handy tool for cutting off excess fondant ocean waves from my cake.
Shortening - I used shortening as the glue to put the waves up on the cake.
Ruler - this is to help guide me when trimming my fondant waves.

How to assemble the fondant waves:

The first task was to tint my fondant. I tinted it very lightly. For this purpose, I dipped a toothpick into the food color bottle and used only that to color my fondant.

Light blue fondant with a bottle of blue food coloring on the side

Waves for the top tier

Next was cutting out the waves. By positioning the cutter in different positions when I cut the fondant, I was able to make 2 different types of fondant ocean waves for my cake.

The first type I made was the rounded fondant waves. I used these for the first tier of the cake. To make these waves, I rolled a long thin piece of fondant and placed the cutter with its bottom side upwards. I made sure the width is as what I wanted it to be and the length was enough to cover the sides of the cake.

Pink fondant waves cutter on a strip of light blue fondant

And then I pressed it into my fondant strip. Since the cutter in open-ended and I wanted my ocean waves to be seamless, I simply lifted the cutter and placed it next to the cut pattern so that the waves are cut seamlessly.

Fondant waves cut out. Above the cut out is a pink waves cutter

And then, using my ruler, I trimmed the bottom to make it even.

To attach the fondant ocean waves on the cake, I brushed the cake with some shortening and then carefully rolled the ocean waves loosely and unrolled it as I attach it to the sides of my cake. To make sure the pattern appears even all around the cake, when unrolling the fondant waves towards the starting line, I adjust it so that the design overlaps consistently.

And then I used my sugar craft knife and cut the excess fondant waves off.

Using a sugar craft knife to cut off excess fondant waves border on a cake

Adjusting fondant waves border on a cake

See how the design appears continuous after joining:

Waves for the bottom tier

Next were the fondant ocean waves for the bottom tier. Again, I used the same cutter, but this time, with the pointed waves upwards and the rounded waves at the bottom (this essentially means placing the cutting in the opposite direction as compared to the earlier placement). And I used my ruler to guide the cutter so that I get the waves in a straight line and the width is consistent.