The best cakes will steal a glance or two from you. Icing and decorating are essential to making sure that your creations look as good as they taste. Here are some quick tips to help you in this task.
Temperature Matters
- Use buttercream or icing that is the right temperature. Many homemade recipes will require you to place the mixture in the refrigerator or in a bowl over a basin of cold water to achieve this. If the icing is not the right consistency, it will not adhere to the surface of your cake, or the decorations will not hold.
- Make sure your cake is completely cool. Even the warmest mixture will make the icing melt. Remember that most of them have a high butter content, and butter softens very quickly.
- Work in a room that is cool. If you've been using the oven and the kitchen is too hot, open a window if it's cold outside, or work in another location.
- Make sure that your hands only handle the tip and the base of the piping bag, so that you transmit the least amount of heat into the mixture inside.
Choose the Right Icing
- This may sound obvious, but use an icing that works for your cake. Buttercreams are great in the cooler months and pair well with cakes that are high on the sweetness level. Meringues and icings using cream cheese will stand the summer heat better, and also work great with cakes that are not too sweet.
- Some icings are not great for making decorations. Some will hold small shapes, others will not. When I make a batch of icing, I try to make a decoration on another surface before working with the cake directly just to see if it has the right look and consistency.
Preparing the Cake Layers
- Even the sides of the cake so that you are working with straight edges.
The edges will also tend to be more dry, so you are left with the center part of the cake that is more moist.
- When you cut the cake layers in half, guide yourself with toothpicks inserted along the side, and use a long knife.
Placing the toothpicks at the same height helps control for an even cut.
- Brush off any excess crumbs.
- Place strips of parchment paper between the dish you'll use and the cake. These can be removed easily before you do your final decorations around the edges and keep your dish mostly clean.
Notice how the parchment paper strips pick up all that is falling off while you work your magic.
FIlling, Icing and Decorating
- When you fill a cake, make sure that you have a nice even layer of filling. Part of the experience in cutting the cake and serving it is to have that extra layer.
In this case, the layer is made from pralin and chocolate mousse.
- Do a primer coat for the icing, and place it in the fridge. This will make any loose crumbs stick to the cake and allow you to then ice the rest smoothly.
This looks rough and is far from done.
- Start with the sides, move on to the top, and leave the edges for the end. Most times I'll add some decorations to the edges or pipe some icing on them.
Notice how the second layer of icing will go on much smoother and easily than the first. After this we remove the parchment paper strips.
- Remove the parchment paper strips before doing any piping on the edge between the cake and the plate, or when you're done decorating.
Piping along the edge, or adding a decorative layer of almonds, candies, or other elements makes the plate look clean.
- When decorating a cake, think about it in advance. Do you want to have a classic and elegant dessert? Do you wan't to have a lot of movement? Should it be colourful and festive? It's often happened that I start putting things on a dessert and it ends up looking too heavily decorated. Often times, less is more. Here is the final result for this specific cake.
The cake was very rich in flavour, so I wanted to give it a simple and elegant feel.
I hope these tips and photos will help you find yourself when decorating a cake.
Enjoy!