Cake Decorating Tips For Beginners
If cake decorating is a new hobby for you, you probably want to shorten your learning curve and avoid the disappointment of not having a cake look the way you imagined it would. Take heart because there are some cake decorating tips that will help make sure that your next cakes will be nicely put together.
Starting Things Right
The first thing you need to do to come up with a pretty cake is to plan your cake well. Figure out how you want your cake to look when it is done. Consider the type of frosting you will use and the adornment you want to include. If you are working with fondant, you will need a base cake strong enough to hold the fondant’s weight so if you were going to bake coffee chiffon you need to think about using royal icing or butter cream instead.
Get Your Materials Together
Make sure you have everything you need. This especially holds true for little things like color, toothpicks, gel. If you need to use wax or parchment paper, check the roll to see if you have enough. Get your pans ready and give your oven a quick inspection. If you are using a book, you might want to get an enlarged copy of the recipe you will be following.
Getting the Cake Ready
Before you frost your cake, make sure that it has a level top. If not, you will have to level it by carefully cutting off the excess. You can use a either a wire cake leveler or a traditional knife to do this. The important thing is to cut enough off the top so that you have a perfectly flat top without removing so much that you will unnecessarily shorten your cake.
The next thing you need to make sure of is that you brush off all the loose crumbs from the surface of your cake. Once you have done this, apply a preliminary layer of frosting to keep the crumbs from getting into your coat. While applying this coat of frosting, make sure your spatula does not come into contact with the cake because this will cause crumbs to come to the surface. This is where a little patience can go a long, long way. Wait for this first coat to dry before applying the second, final frosting. When you do this, put a large blob onto the cake and smooth it towards the edges; this too will help prevent crumbs.
One of the many cake decorating tips that you might want to try when you cover the cake is to use an icing tip such as tip number 789 instead of a spatula. You can just use the spatula for smoothing everything out later.
The Embellishments
To decorate your cake you will probably use flowers, leaves and piped edges. One of the most difficult things for a beginner to do is transfer flowers onto a cake. Many a perfect rose ended up lopsided because this transfer was not done well. A quick solution would be to chill the flowers before setting them on the cake. Stars, shells and vines can be piped onto parchment paper and transferred when you apply your final touches. Piped trim can also be chilled but this won’t work if you want to make a scalloped edge running through the side of your cake. Generally, anything that needs to be fitted to the curve of your cake will just have to be done on the spot after the cake has been covered.
Putting Tips to Work
There are countless cake decorating tips available for the beginner today. There are blogs, interactive websites hosted by school decorating schools, journals and books that can help you gain the expertise you crave for. However, no matter how plentiful the words of advice, they only have value when put them into practice.
As a beginner, you will probably be wondering when you will be as good as the celebrities and artisans you see on television. The only way to get to that level of expertise is to practice. Others might say decorating a cake is all in the wrist. The truth is, it is all in the very, very, well practiced wrist.
