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Cake Decorating

Source of Recipe

Barbara Yost
Cake decorating can seem as intimidating as freeway construction: underpasses, overpasses, cloverleafs, offramps.

Maybe you fear your creation will look like Miss Havisham's sorry mountain of moldering confection in Great Expectations, an eternal reminder of her wedding that never happened.

But here's the truth: No matter how critical you are of your work, friends and family will think it's beautiful and love every loop of shell border, handcrafted rose and "Happy Birthday" squirted out in piping gel.

Don't picture the sagging tiers that Sleeping Beauty's fairy godmothers whipped up in mortal fashion. Picture how they looked after a wave of a magic wand.

With the right tools and some elementary skills, your cake can be magical, too.

To get a taste for basic cake decorating, we consulted Paulette Karras, a former lawyer and now an award-winning instructor in the Wilton method, who teaches at the Michael's store at Baseline and Gilbert roads in Mesa and at Kitchen Classics in Phoenix.

Video: http://www.azcentral.com/home/food/cooking201/lesson2.html

Paulette Karras shows how to:

Make a shell border
Make a drop flower
Make a rose
Make a ruffle border
Make stars
Smooth the frosting
Use stencils
Write on a cake
Fill the decorating bags



Although Karras has created many breathtaking masterpieces over the past 30 years, including a stained-glass window featuring St. Francis of Assisi surrounded by a menagerie of woodland animals, she says anyone can turn a plain cake into a fancy one.

The key, she says: "Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff."

Best of all, she adds, "Cake decorators eat their mistakes."

Begin with proper tools
Spatulas. Flat and offset, for spreading icing.

A cake leveler. This is a metal frame with a piece of thin wire stretched between posts for neatly slicing layers of cake or slicing off the "dome" or rounded top of a cake layer.

Metal decorating tips, available at such store as Michael's, Kitchen Classics, ABC Baking and Pretty Party Place. These attach with plastic couplers. A basic kit should contain round tips Nos. 3 and 12, star tips 16 and 21, rose 104, leaf 352.

Decorating bags. Either "featherweight" reusable plastic, cone-shape bags; disposable plastic bags; or 15-inch parchment paper triangles you fold into cones.

Flower "nails" for fashioning roses out of icing.

Cake insulators. Insulated strips of cloth that wrap around a cake pan to ensure even baking and prevent browning of sides.

Cardboard cake rounds to hold the layers.

Plastic turntable. An easy way to turn the cake while decorating.

Paper or glassine doilies. Slip one on top of the cake round before placing layer for a pretty, finished look.

Toothpicks for dabbing on bits of icing, removing mistakes and for dying icing.

Paste colors. Pots of thick dye that won't dilute the consistency of icing as liquid food coloring will.

Paintbrushes for bag striping techniques.

Baking a cake for decorating
Brush the bottom and sides of clean cake pans (dark, well-used pans will bake faster than new, light-color ones) with Karras' recommended mixture of equal parts flour, vegetable oil and shortening.

For an angel food cake, follow recipe directions on preparing pans.

Experienced cooks wrap each pan in an insulated strip, moistened and held fast with a pin to ensure even baking. These are available at decorating supply stores.

Tap pan lightly on countertop a few times to release air pockets.

After baking, level each layer with a cake leveler or long thin knife to remove the dome. Cool cakes 10 to 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edges of the pan and turn the layers onto a cooling rack. If you remove the cake from the pan too soon, you risk breakage. Leave it too long, and it will stick.

Place bottom layer upside down on a cardboard round 1 or 2 inches larger than the layer. Top layer also will be inverted so you are decorating the "bottom," which is flatter and less crumbly than the top.

To "torte" a cake, which makes a four-layer cake, slice each layer in half with a cake leveler or a knife. If using a knife, lightly score the cake evenly around the circumference of the layer and then slice all the way through.

Or the cake can be marked with toothpicks. Insert toothpicks into the cake at intervals, making sure they are all placed exactly midway around the circumference, then slice at the toothpicks.

Brush away and discard crumbs.

For tidier decorating, freeze layers overnight. Frozen layers are easier to handle and generally free of crumbs.

For filling, first pipe a ring of prepared icing around the top edge of the bottom layer with a No. 12 round tip. This ring prevents the filling from squirting out between layers. Inside the ring, spread a layer of pudding, preserves, fruit curds or pie filling.

Fillings can be made or purchased and should be spread no higher than the well made by the icing.

To ice the cake, first cover sides, then the top with a generous amount of icing (see recipe) using a long, wide spatula. Don't skimp; the excess will be removed in the leveling process. When the whole cake has been iced, finish by evening sides and smoothing the top until sides are straight and top is flat.

Cake can also be iced using a broad, flat icing tip and evened with a spatula.

For a smoother look, mist the cake lightly with water from a spray bottle. Or heat a metal spatula in hot water, wipe dry and gently glide the spatula over the surface of the icing to slightly melt the sugar and form a glossy seal.

Your cake is ready for its transformation.


Borders and bear in place, Karras demonstrates the zigzag technique as she decorates a cake.




Decorating
All decorations should be applied before the border is added. This prevents smearing the border as you work.

Choose your bag: plastic reusable, disposable or parchment triangles.

You also can use ready-made icing. Wilton makes tubes of icing that accommodate metal tips and couplers. Grocery store frosting is good for icing a cake, but it is too thick for decorating.

Karras is generous about recommending even tubes of store-bought decorator icing for the beginner. The store supplies the icing; you bring on the creativity.

To make a parchment bag, place the triangle in front of you on a flat surface with one corner pointing down. Fold each of the two top corners down, joining them with the bottom one. Pick up the folded triangle and form a cone by pulling the three peaks together until a tight point forms at the bottom.

Secure the three peaks with tape, or tear slightly in two places and fold down the notch.

Drop the large half of a plastic coupler well into the bottom of the bag and then screw the cap half over the paper point. Tear off the excess paper extending below the coupler. Remove the cap, affix a tip and screw the cap on tightly over the tip.

To fill a plastic featherweight or disposable bag, place it point-side down in a tall glass or cup. Fold the sides down to form a cuff, then fill halfway with icing. Fold the cuff up again and twist the top to close. For additional security, wrap a twist-tie around the top. Do not make a cuff on a parchment bag; simply twist or fold top to close.

Using stencils
One of the simplest ways to pretty up a cake is with stencils, available at supermarkets and craft stores. Use any stencil that won't absorb grease.

Let frosting set until it's dry to the touch before applying the stencil, then spray top surface of the stencil with cooking spray so sprinkled sugars will stick to it and not fall back onto the cake when the stencil is lifted.

Gently place stencil in the center of the cake and sprinkle evenly over openings with colored sugar, powdered sugar or powdered cocoa. Or ice over the openings with a contrasting color of frosting.

Carefully lift stencil away from the cake.

Flowers
For drop flowers - small, basic flowers - use a star tip. Lightly touch the tip to the cake surface, squeeze, stop pressure and lift straight up. For a swirled flower, give the bag a quarter twist as you squeeze, then lift up.

For flower centers, affix a round tip and drop a tiny dot of icing inside the center of the flower. Or do three dots, a tiny circle or a small mound.

"You can change your flower by changing the center," Karras says.

Roses are the piece de resistance of cake decorating. Perfect the rose, and your cakes will look like Monet's garden. As for lilies, well, they're for the graduate student.

Hold the flower nail by its stem in your left hand (lefties, reverse this) between thumb and fingertips. Using a No. 12 round tip, build a small mound of icing in the center of the nail. It should look like a Hershey's kiss.

Switch to a rose tip; your sales clerk will show you what this is. Begin applying petals to the rose. Touch the tip, wide end down, to the mound and squeeze out a small amount of icing to fashion an arch, looping up and around the side of the mound, turning the nail as you apply the icing. Apply two more slightly overlapping arches around the mound.

For the next row, tilt the tip out slightly, and this time apply five slightly overlapping petals. For the third row, tilt the tip a little more and apply seven overlapping petals.

"Cut" the rose from the nail with the tips of a pair of large scissors slid underneath the base and transfer to the cake surface.

For a tinted rose, dip a small paintbrush in paste color and draw one stripe up the inside of a decorating bag from the point to halfway from the top, then carefully fill with icing.

This is called bag striping or brush striping.

When you affix the rose tip to the bag, line up the narrow side with the stripe. As the petals are squeezed out, their edges will be tinted. It's easy and looks spectacular.

When you've applied all the flowers you want, add a leaf or two to each one, including drop flowers.

Karras' rule of thumb is "every flower needs a leaf. Leaves make the cake look finished."

Using a bag of green icing, affix a leaf tip and make small leaves with one of the pointy sides of the tip facing down. As you finish the leaf, lift up so the tip sticks up. This makes it look more realistic.

When mixing the green icing for leaves and stems, add a little corn syrup - about 1 teaspoon for every 1/2 cup of buttercream. This will ensure that the tip of the leaf comes to a nice point without breaking off. This same trick works for icing to be used in writing. The icing will flow more smoothly.

Writing
When writing a message on a cake, you can use thinned icing or store-bought piping gel. Using a round tip, make the letters, keeping your wrist stiff and using your whole arm, not just your hand.

"You're not writing, you're drawing the letters," Karras says.

Your first letter should be a pretty one, so practice your capitals. End the message with a flourish.

Borders
Try these three basic borders:

Using a No. 21 star tip, make a tight zigzag along the edge of the top of the cake. Always begin borders at the back, so seams don't show from the front. Repeat border around bottom of cake.

For a pretty ruffle border, do the same zigzag using a leaf tip No. 70 or rose tip No. 104.

The star tip is also used to make a classic shell border, "the most popular border in all of cakedom," Karras says.

To form a shell border, touch the tip to the cake surface, squeeze, lift up a little and let a short loop roll back down. Bring the tip down at a slight angle to form the tail of the shell. Repeat with connected shells evenly around the edge.