We’re going to be talking about cake decorating today. Our theme is, “How to do basic handwriting.” I’m going to tell you how.
Basically, you load your writing tip which is the one with the little open tip, very plain and you write in big letters. Try to write fat and not connected. When you write slanted in fancy handwriting, it’s harder to pick your letters off the cake if you make a mistake.
I’m just going to put my name here and if you notice, I’m writing in nice, big letters. The reason you want to write in nice big letters is because if you make a mistake, you can freeze the cake. Then take a toothpick and pull each one of those big pieces off the cake.
So let’s try that again, you use the big, big letters and I’m telling you this becomes invaluable when you make a mistake. A lot of times when you’re putting the cake together you misspell a name or put a wrong word and you need to take it off. So just remember that if that ever happens you can just take a small toothpick and go under those letters and pull them off once you put it in the refrigerator or freezer.
So that is basically how you write on a cake.
How to Put Icing on a Cake
Hi, I’m a master cake decorator, and I’m here to share with you my technique for smoothing most cakes.
First of all, I’m going to take this iced cake and set in on my nice foil-covered board, so that it’s ready to work with. I do that by taking a small amount of icing and spreading on my board. That works like glue. Now, I’m going to take my spatula and slide it underneath the bottom edge of the cardboard to lift it on to my fingers and move it over to the board.
Let’s take that messy turntable out of our way. Now I’ve got my cake on a nice foil board.
As I said, this is a fairly nice smooth cake but I like it even nicer than that . This is my favorite technique. This is just an ordinary paper towel with a little design in it. I like it best with a very small design. When you look at paper towels, you notice that they’re textured in many ways.
Let me tell you first how to know when your icing is ready to use this technique. Your icing should be dry to the touch so when you touch it, nothing comes off on your fingers. If that was moist and fresh, and I touched it, I would have icing on each of my finger tips.
Now I’m going to take my towel and lay it off across the top of the cake and gently rub it. As I do this, my fingers are levelling out the surface and the cake will pick up the texture of the paper towel. I have another paper towel that I use that has a very smooth texture. Now you see that pretty little texture on the cake? I like that design for the background of my birthday cakes and any special or all-occasion cake.
Now we are going to continue around the sides, because. of course, I want the sides of the cake to look as nice as the top of the cake. So, continuing, I just gently am rubbing my hands up and down and back and forth. When I run out of paper towel, I pull it off and reposition it and continue.
I should pull a cameraman over here and have him do this part. This is easy. I get all my students to do this and they are amazed at how simple this technique is.
All right. Now I’ve come back full circle to where I started and this is where I just take a moment and check to see if I missed any spots. Well, right here, I’ve got a little bit of an empty space where it’s got a kind of wrinkle, so to speak, in the icing. I’ll just go back with my paper towel one more time over that area and smooth it again, and it needs a touch more.
This is what happens when you work with a chocolate cake on camera. Chocolate cake always tends to still leave a little touch of a crumb underneath the icing or in the middle of the icing. You see here, I’ve got a couple more dips and divots in the cake and I’m just going to smooth them out a little bit more with that paper towel.
Ta-da! Ain’t that nice?
That’s my preferred method for giving a nice smooth professional look to a cake.
