So you’re considering making your design for cakes more interesting. Perhaps you have done it before, or perhaps you have not. In any case, you are probably not an expert. Is that about right? Great! You’ve arrived at the proper location. We have compiled this basic guide for novice home bakers, focusing on 5 specific cake-decorating techniques.
Freeze Your Cakes
Since making and decorating a cake can be a considerable amount of labour, it is prudent to divide the process into phases. For example, bake it on Monday and freeze it, then remove it from the freezer on Friday and decorate it.
Additionally, baking and chilling cakes in advance make frosting them easier. Frozen cakes are less likely to disintegrate when you frost them, and it is much simpler to apply the crumb application (see below).
Similarly, frozen pastries make it simpler to level them. Cakes will remain fresh for up to one week in the freezer. In fact, you can create buttercream in advance and preserve it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Utilise a Cake Turner
A cake turntable is a rotating platter used to rotate the cake while levelling and frosting it. Turning the cake rather than walking all the way around it makes the entire operation much simpler.
Splitting (also known as porting) your cakes is an intermediate step that you would perform if you were applying filling between the layers. However, you will use your turntable for that when the time comes.
Sort Your Cakes
It is essential to level your cakes because the bottoms of the layers must be completely flat; otherwise, they may lean or wobble when stacked. Here comes your serrated knife into play. There are cake knives with serrations that work well, but any bread knife with serrations will suffice. Ensure that the length of your knife’s blade exceeds the diameter of your cake.
The objective is to level the cake’s dome-shaped top to be precisely flat. Start the blade at the edge and keep it level while rotating the cake on the turntable; instead of attempting to drive the blade through the cake, use a sawing motion. Don’t fret about the bases; they should already be flat from the cake pans’ bottoms.
In fact, you can turn your cakes upside down so that the bases are facing up. However, you should still level them so that the bases do not waver. And don’t neglect to consume the condiments.
Try a Crumb Coat
The following stage is to frost the cake, beginning with a crumb application. A crumb coat is an initial, light layer of frosting that encapsulates and suspends any fragments so that no crumbs will be visible when the final layer of frosting is applied.
If you are creating a layer cake, place the bottom layer on your turntable, apply a layer of buttercream to it, and then place the top layer (bottom side up) on top.
Apply the crumb glaze to the cake, then refrigerate it for 15 to 30 minutes. This enables the crumb coat to harden completely before applying the final frosting coat.
Practice Your Piping Skills
Making decorative blooms and other shapes requires practice using a piping bag with varying tips. Also applicable to writing with royal frosting. There is no substitute for an actual cake-decorating experience, but practising on a sheet of wax paper is a wonderful alternative.
Small individual flowers can sometimes be transferred from the wax paper to the cake, but writing and borders cannot be transferred. Nonetheless, it is an effective method of practice until you get a grasp of it.
