Basic Cake Decorating - How To Make Your Icing Smooth And Even
Posted on 21 February 2008 under Cake Decorating, How To Articles
If you want to become an accomplished cake decorator, you will need to be trained and have some practice. Once you have perfected cake decorating you make a name for yourself in the cake making industry. If you are a creative person you could go far when it comes to cake decorating.
Even a person who is new to cake decorating would want their cake to look beautiful. My mother made cakes and frosted them, she may have added sprinkles, and she wrote a message with icing. Those were our cakes. They may not have been well decorated, but they were tasty. This article will give you ideas and tips to make your cake look much better than Mom used to make.
You can get a list of the equipment needed for cake decorating before you start. The list can be found in a craft store or pastry supply. The basics are several pastry bags, icing tips, and a coupler to hold the tips in the bag. You might find that a cake stand could help, as it swivels so you can frost all sides of the cake, and bring the cake up and closer to you. You should also have several sizes of cake dishes, a rubber spatula, a short and a long metal cake icing spatula, a sharp knife, and a baking tray. These are the basic supplies needed.
Icing is the most important ingredient in cake decorating. The icing should be quite stiff, and if it is too stiff to work with you can always thin it out. When you are making the frosting, make a large amount. You will need it for other decorations on the cake. Make sure you have plenty of food coloring, as you will need it to color the icing for different cake decorations.
When you make the cake, it is very important that the batter is level in the baking dish before you put it in the oven. Check the cake every 20 minutes to make sure the cake is baking evenly. If you see that one side of the cake is higher than the other, you should turn the dish around so it will rise evenly, or you could use a knife to even it. You should do this while the cake is still warm.
The cake should be cooled for at least a day before you decorate it. The outside of the cake may feel cool, but the middle of the cake may stay warm for hours. Frosting the cake before it is completely cool can ruin your decorating.
After the cake has cooled, turn it upside down on a cake board; you will have less crumbs this way. To avoid crumbs all together put a thin layer of icing on the cake. Once you have covered the cake with this thin layer of frosting, you can cover that layer with a normal layer of icing. Make sure the icing is smooth and even. You can dip your metal icing spatula in cold water and go over the icing, and this will make it smooth.
When you are ready to start decorating your cake you will need a few pieces of equipment. You will need more than one pastry bag, and the icing tips you will be using for the decorating you want to do. These you can buy at craft stores and cake decorating supply store. If you have the basic supplies listed at the beginning of this article, that should let you get started.
To start with, choose the tip you will be using first. Hold the pastry bag with the hole down and place the tip inside, as far as possible. You should use about a cup of icing in the bag at a time, and start it out in a bowl, that way you can thin the icing with a little milk if you need to, before you put it in the icing bag. The icing should be thin enough to go through the tip, but thick enough to make the designs you choose. If you are still new at cake decorating, you should practice making the decorations on waxed paper before you try to put them on the cake.
When you have the first layer of frosting completed and are ready to decorate the cake, you will need to hold the bag with both hands and apply steady pressure. Applying steady pressure makes sure that the icing will come out in an even strip. Unless you are making a long strip of piping, you should place the bag closely over the cake, start squeezing and count to three, then stop squeezing and lift the tip up and away from the cake. If this decoration looks the way you want it to, move on to the next one, and if it doesn’t look the way you want it to, keep practicing until you get it.
If the cake decoration stays in the shape you intended, then you have the frosting at the right consistency. If it does not hold together, the icing is too thin, and if it was hard to push it through the tip or the cake decoration cracks, the frosting is too thick.
Although cake decorating can be frustrating at times, it will pay off in the end when you realize the beautiful cake on that stand is something that you created. With a little bit of patience and a hopeful attitude, you will become an accomplished cake decorator.
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