Despite the fact that I am a cooking editor, I don't have much experience in the cake decoration. I'm getting better, definitely, but I usually take my cakes first with whipped cream dollops and sliced strawberries or a waterfer of chocolate ganache and call it a day. The more profit I have made unknown uneven grabs of cupcakes served with family and friends. I used to crumb a cake and make something beautiful when I returned to school; Results can reach me a period of It's nailed!.
But I'm always interested in beautiful ways a cake finish. I love watching panic competitions where cakes are targeted with hyperrealistic sculptures, or impressive ribbons in buttontoncream. The fact that a small butter and sugar sugar can morph a perfect rose as incomprehensible, but that is the magic of the cake decoration.
So if I get a chance to attend a cake decorating in Los Angeles class Sweet Spot Workshop and learn from mia starr – the host to taste the taste Cooking the holidaysa competitor in The Magic But-Off to Disneyand a popular cake decorating in the room in the room – I jumped in the event.
For the Starr and his sweet Points Cofounder Susan Gires, the decoration of teaching allowed them to witness victories – and struggles! – to come to do something chronically. “It is very cold to see the pride that people themselves can do something with their hands,” as they struggle with corrections. “
Here are all the tips that Starr shares me, and what I learned through my own experience in the cake decoration.
Focus on basics
Before you can focus on the intricies of a lambeth style cake, you need nail on the basics to make a cake together. “Learn the basics of stacking, gathering, and freezing a cake (with a crumb coat) very important,” Starr. Practice healing cake edges with an offset spatula and comfortable with a rotating cake turntable, which you need when you start the tube.
Before you pipe directly on a cake, you can do Laminated Sheets Printed on Cake Designsor map the design of a sketch first. “Once you have built basic skills and learn some basic ways, then there are many different skills to put different cake plans,” Starr. “Know the rules so that you can break them and become creative.”
Make sure everyone will stay cold
The cakes for workshop are already covered with a smooth layer of freezing and preparing for an improvement. But if you start from getting home, one of the most important things to know about the cake decoration is that everything is supposed to be cold. “If you hurry it and you're healing a hot cake, or even a hot cake, then your buttercream will improve all smooth,” Starr. To go for the first coat coat, but also for any additional layer of freezing; Make sure your crumb coat has time to chill the fridge before real decorations happen. If the icing of your piping bags is so hot, you can't get real meaning, no matter what frosting tips you use. So the first – and maybe the most important rule – is to keep everything, cakes and buttercreams, cold.
Use the correct freezing
If you try to decorate with whipped cream, you will know how important it is to use the right frosting. The whipped cream is unstable and quickly prevented, so it does not prevent its appearance. Buttercream is a better choice.
If you start to feel confident in making and squeeze your own buttercream, you can start experimenting with different types of frozen. In the workshop, we use American Buttercreammade from butter and sugar with sugar (you can also add extracts to taste buttercream). It holds Contents with different star tips that are good and never traveling or melting, even when we started it for an hour. . “Then the Swiss Meringue Buttercream” – which includes attached egg whites and granulated sugars beside butter – “is the next level.”
Experimenting with angles
My biggest takeaway from the cake decoration course is how important angles are to perfect the detailed boundaries of shells, ruffles, and rosette. If your piping tip is more stealthily on the cake, your shells make a sperical and bulbous look. If the angle is so intense, your ruffles can fall flat. Practice on a flat, laminated sheet helps for searching rhythm and think how much pressure a simez on a piping cake in a three-dimensional cake. It is important to rotate your wrist as you pipe and find the full angle; Almost as a lesson in architecture or engineering, but without the potentially harmful result of a failed engineering job. If your piping doesn't look good, you can always break freezing and try again.
Have confidence
My other main takeaway is the importance of trust and doing. If you are hesitating when the piping, it is shown in your work. Instead of smooth and liquid lines, you'll give up on something plotted or shaky. “It's almost like a dance; this is the greater number of actions you do with your hands when it comes to tube techniques,” Starr. “You need to release pressure and continuous action.”
Because the cake decorating class has more than 30 students, it's easy for my eyes to go around other cakes and compare my work. Instead, feeling that loses enthusiasm, does not fail to learn. “Your not like your neighbor, but that's okay,” Starr said. “As long as you agree with yourself, then there is a good cake.”
In fact, identity is important in developing personal style. Starr himself started making watercolor and ombre-ombre cakes and falling in love with the modern and minimalist styles. “It's good to be motivated by others and try and learn new ways, because your cake technique is expanded,” he said. “If you design a cake and you want to have something original, there are many different styles and tips and ways to get.”
If skeptical, use sprinkles
If the piping is disappointing or working on oozing frosting is more messy, you can still make a cake special in other decorations. The flowers are a choice; Starr and G Dumot Offers Workshops Cloral Cake Decoration. Cranberry crumbs and mixed rosemary other, and during the holiday, Pair hosts a class how to make the two. “I like the cake decorating style where you get a set of different elements and it's taking it together, like Macitons and fruits,” Starr. You can also add arrows, fancy pearls, modeling chocolate sculptures, and sprinkle. “Sprinkles,” Starr added, “fix everything.”
Remember, this is just a cake
Make the pursuit for perfection and remember, at the end of the day, it's just the cake – and the whole point of the cake is the association of something sweet. “I wonder how cute it is that people celebrate birthdays or milestones or cake achievements,” Starr. “It's a beautiful expression that unites people.”
The Popay 'Popay' Popay 'Pinyononetachet a New York photographer.
Drew Anchlele A food sock of food and master baker based in New York City.