How do you make a cake look pretty?

What is the secret to making a cake look pretty?

Mine always look awful, as if a five year old made it. The frosting is never smooth, nor is the piping artfully piped.

Is it all in the tools? Is there any way I can pull it off using the plastic tips bought from the grocery store kit, and a butter knife?


thanks!!

I am also cake-decorating impaired, and can't help you there - but I've found that if I glaze a cake with a relatively runny ganache and top it with some kind of sprinkles or decorative sugar it comes out looking "professional." For Sparky's cakes, though, I kind of like that they look like a kid made them - shows I didn't go the bakery route (never forget the year I tried a pirate ship cake and it dramatically collapsed into crumbs... )

OTOH, My sister-in-law who makes gorgeous cakes took one of those Wilton classes. She did get a whole cake decorating kitas well...and they do have quite a few cheats on the website.

I took an all day Wilton cake decorating class last summer at JoAnn. Classes are typically taught in 4 sessions of 2 hours each. I think having it condensed into an 8 hour Saturday kind of hurt my ability to retain much. Oh well! Anyway, one of the tips for having smooth frosting is to lay a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper over your frosted cake and then using an offset spatula run it over the cake smoothing out the frosting. My friend also advises refrigerating the cake ahead of time to minimize crumbs in your frosting. I have made a couple of smash cakes for my nieces and nephew, and I feel like using the Wilton tips helps make it look a little more finished. I am a big fan of their disposable bags - makes life so much easier. Their tips are nice and cheap. I am definitely going to get the big tip w/3 stars next time I need to cover a cake w/stars!

Any tips on good homemade frosting recipes? One particular frosting that appeals to me is the chocolate frosting Mrs Field's uses on their cookie cakes. It tastes so fudgey and creamy.

Well, yes and no. Having the proper tools can help a lot, but you can make a very attractive cake without anything "fancy."

Some basic tips:

Make sure your cake is level. If you're doing a layer cake, use a long serrated knife and slice the domed part off (it's good for snacking!) so that everything is flat.

Put your cake on appropriately-sized cake board. You can get these at craft stores like Michael's. For a two-layer cake, place the first layer cut side down on the plate. Add your filling. Piping a "dam" of icing along the outside edge of the bottom layer if you're using a fruit filling will keep it from leaking out). Place the second layer cut side down on top of the bottom one and even up the sides. This will ensure that the top and sides of your cake (provided it came out of the pan clean!) will be nice and smooth.

Before icing/finishing the cake, put it in the fridge or freezer. NEVER try to frost a warm/hot cake...it will melt the frosting. The fridge/freezer will help firm it up.

Always do a "crumb coat." This is the secret. Dust off as many crumbs/loose pieces as possible. Just gently use your hand. Then ice the cake with a THIN layer of THIN frosting. Thin out part of your frosting with some milk. Then thin that part a bit more. It shouldn't be watery, but it should be smooth and very spreadable. No one is ever going to see it, so don't worry. The biggest mistake I see is people using icing that is WAY TOO stiff. You're just asking for it to rip up the cake as you spread it if you use thick/stiff frosting.

Ice the cake all over and don't worry if it looks bad and is shows crumbs. After you've iced the whole cake, put it BACK in the fridge to set up for a while. Once it's set, THEN you can use the [b]slightly[/b] stiffer frosting to icing the cake. The "crumb coat" basically seals in the crumbs and then you won't have those problems of seeing them in your finished cake.

Use way more frosting than you think you need. Trying to do it too thinly can peel the cake. Do the top and then the sides. Use long strokes with the spatula...don't lift up in the middle of the cake, because it'll take the frosting with it.

Use a LONG spatula for smoothness. If you have a turntable, great. If not, put the cake on top of something you can turn, so you can move the spatula around easily.

Toasted coconut, cake crumbs, nuts or sprinkles can cover up a multitude of sins! Press any of them into the sides of the still un-set icing on the cake and it can make it look very professional.

Hope some of these tips help you out!

I'm about to start work on an internet/web cooking/pastry show and we'll be covering stuff like this. I'm not a pro, but I've been doing this for a while and have a good sense of what home bakers like and want to be able to do.[/i]

Thanks for the lesson, tgoddess! Now, do you have a good buttercream frosting recipe??

Yes...but not here at the office. :D

I'll try to find time to dig it up this week and post it.

One thing I did forget to mention (about piping), is that THIS just takes practice.

Practice, practice, practice!

You can pretty much use those plastic tips, but if they're the kind meant to be screwed onto tubes, they really won't work with anything else. I always found those tube icings REALLY stiff, too. Invest in a few metal tips and some disposable plastic bags. You can get away with a medium shell tip and a medium writing tip to start.

My suggestion is to make a practice batch of shortening (Crisco) based "butter" cream and divide it up, so you've got it in 2 or 3 consistencies. Keep it sealed up tight and in the fridge and it keeps a really long time. just practice on wax paper doing shells and writing. You can do a basic, still pretty cake, just learning how to do a shell border and writing on it. You can just keep scooping up the frosting and using it over and over until you have the hang of it. Don't overfill the bag and practice getting consistent pressure when you squeeze. (Don't keep squeezing when your hand gets tired...that's when you'll start making mistakes). Do small sections at a time.

Cake decorating isn't a speed contest! (Unless you're on one of those Food Network Challenge shows! ) :-)

If you want to write something on the cake, try "etching" it in lightly with a toothpick first, then just trace it with the piping bag and that makes it a bit easier. (Wilton even makes little stamp things in case your penmanship is really bad!)

As someone else suggested, if you WANT to learn the "fancier" stuff (flowers and such), you'll need to invest in some special supplies and you're best off taking a class (like the Wilton one), because it's easier to learn the techniques (of say, doing roses) when someone is showing you, rather than just pictures from a book).

mhays, that is one cute Pirate cake... sorry it didn't work out for you!!

pucca, wax paper on top is genius. I'm going to try that for sure.

tgoddess, thanks for all of the great tips!

Thanks, everyone!

We have a family member who does this. She took the cake course, and has made a LOT of gorgeous cakes. Her most recent tip - if you want really strong colors in your frosting, then use a LOT (way more than they say) of the good paste colors. Then let the frosting sit for a day or two, it will darken up. Then frost the cake.

First, a recipe for butter cream. I always say that the way to get the best results is use the best product. If you're going to take the time to make really great buttercream, use best quality butter.

Vanilla Buttercream

Yield: 5 cups

1 ½ cups sugar
6 ounces pasteurized egg whites, preferably Organic Valley
2 cups unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Put sugar and egg whites into bowl of stand mixer. Set bowl over pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and mixture is very warm, approximately 5 minutes.
• Put the bowl on the stand mixer fitted with the whisk and beat on medium speed until stiff peaks form and the mixture is cool, approximately 10 minutes.
• While the mixer is running on medium, add butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Add vanilla. The mixture will look curdled; don’t worry, it will come together. Reduce speed to low and beat until smooth.
• Buttercream can be frozen for up to three months. Defrost in the fridge, bring to room temperature and beat on low for 10 minutes until smooth.

A note on refrigerated or frozen buttercream, if you happen to have a blowtorch, torch the bowl while mixing to get it to the right temperature.

On smooth sides, the secret is a bench scraper. Make it level with the surface of the cake and pull it slowly all the way around.

Another material to practice with is instant mashed potatoes.

Oh and on the crumb layer, make sure that you take a small amount of the icing and put it into a separate bowl - otherwise, you'll contaminate your larger bowl of icing with crumbs.

Is that regular granulated sugar or powdered sugar?

Granulated

I'm sure everybody knows this, but: ganache

I made the Watergate Cake with Cover Up frosting for my friend's birthday. It was made in a flat oblong pan and brought to the party that way. The cake turned out excellent. The frosting was a pale green. I bought a jar of colored pastel sprinkles and put it over the cake. Just the right touch to be festive and pretty but not over the top. I don' t have any particular cake decorating skills so I need to stick with something simple.

On Xmas, I made several bundt cakes and put icing on them so it was kind of dripping down the sides of the bundt. Again, used some Xmas sprinkles in red white and green with tiny gingerbread men in them. It looked nice.

Don't have to be a cake decorator necessarily to make a cake look nice and simple.

Hi,

I made a Southern jam cake recently. It was three layers of white cake. The seedless raspberry jam was mixed with confectioner's sugar until it was a medium to heavy syrup. Each layer received roughly 1/3 of the jam-syrup, which dripped over the edges. (I will edit in layer the proportions)

FYI - this cake once composed is not very suitable for travel. Instead I brought the cake layers to the event, made the jam syrup and assembled it. Unless they were being polite, everyone found the cake attractive and tasty. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures.

Regards,

MAG wrote:First, a recipe for butter cream. I always say that the way to get the best results is use the best product. If you're going to take the time to make really great buttercream, use best quality butter.

MAG's buttercream recipe is great on all counts, but if you want something with a little more stability, try Italian buttercream, and if you want something that is more stable and is so rich you'll want to beat people off with a stick before they dare taste it, try French.

For Italian, use the same ingredient measures as in MAG's recipe. Place the whites in a hands-free mixer bowl (or get a friend). Combine the sugar with enough water to dampen it and boil until it reaches soft ball stage (235 degrees). Beat the whites until foamy, then add the sugar in a slow, steady stream while the mixer is running. Continue beating until the bottom of the bowl is just slightly warmer than room temperature, then start tossing in a tablespoon of butter at a time.

For French, use the exact same procedure but use egg yolks instead of whites.

For either, after mixing, you can add booze, flavorings, chocolate, nuts, or whatever else floats your boat.

Never ever bring buttercream to an outdoor, warm-weather event.

MHays- OMG that Pirate Ship Cake
I made that Pirate Ship cake for my twin boys BD party, too,
and it turnout out OK, A little lopsided, but OK<
BUT the real disaster occurred when we
LIT the candles
and the lovely little sails
CAUGHT ON FIRE AND BURNED UP!

Did you ever try to extinguish a cake without ruining it?
and the ashes are falling on the cake?

sigh
At least the boys thought it was cool and
wanted me to do it over again and burn up some more things....

I had forgotten all about that burning Pirate cake....

LMAO!

I can attest to the quality of MAG's buttercream recipe, both from a flavor perspective and the ability of a relative novice to produce a nice-looking cake:

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=13787

My wife, who decorated the cake in the above thread, did take a class some years ago through Hobby Lobbby, probably the Wilton class, but learned most of what she knows through a combination of The Cake Bible, the King Arthur Flour Baking Companion, advice from MAG, Internet research (baking911.com is a good site, but may be a pay site now), and lots of practice between the engagement and the wedding.

tgoddess--heck of an informative first post, thank you!

I was going to urge my wife to finally register and post, but you really gave a thorough accounting. I'll have to wait another few years.