Blow torching the sugared toppings of some cupcake flavours creates a delicious crunchy caramelised texture, but the buttercream underneath can be easily melted away by the heat. Our tip is to utilise your fridge or freezer to chill down the frosting.
“Before caramelising and blow torching the tops or toppings of cupcakes leave your cakes to sit in the fridge until chilled and firm. You don’t want your buttercream to melt so begin with cold frosting.”
Working with buttercream is great for beginner cake decorators and for the more experienced. It’s pretty quick, flexible and easy to work with. You can scrape and shape buttercream multiple times until it is pristine or create messy texture with various tools; both look great. You can also start again as many times as you like. They key is to keep experimenting!
“Buttercream is forgiving, fun & doesn’t have to be perfect. Play with creating textures by using different spatulas, spoons and scrapers to create swirls, pinwheels, lines, etc!”
Piping cupcakes takes a little time and practice to get just right. We get a lot of people commenting on our cupcakes and how we get the perfect swirl. There is no definite answer we can give except that you need to master speed, pressure and curve. If you pipe too fast you get a sloppy mess and if you pipe too slow and you get wonky frosting. If your pressure is off you’re left with uneven, scraggly swirls.
“To pipe beautiful cupcakes you need to get three things perfect… speed, pressure and curve! To help get a good curve pipe a small ‘blob’ in the centre of each cupcake and pipe around and on top.”
Cutters are a definite part of cake decorating whether small and intricate or large and simple. Using them can be a hassle and if you’re a novice sometimes the simplest tip can make the biggest difference!
“Using Tappits and other cutters to punch out shapes with fondant can be tricky. The key is to be liberal with dusting your pieces with icing sugar or cornstarch!”
Edible glue is great when affixing lighter or smaller elements together, especially when they don’t have gravity to compete with. For larger and heavier objects like attaching sugar roses to the sides of cakes etc candy melts are a cake decorator’s best tool! It’s strong, dried quickly and can be re-tempered when needed again.
“Use candy melts to attach heavier and larger edible decorations that need to defy gravity. Candy melts are strong, dry quickly and can be re-melted when needed!”
Working with eggs (specifically egg whites) when creating delicate buttercreams or meringues can be temperamental. Any grease or butter residue from past mixing can stick to your bowls even if they have been washed since. Using lemon or lime juice to cleanse them and then wiping with a clean towel gets rid of this grease! Also, always use metal or glass bowls when working with egg whites as plastic holds onto butter.
“Wipe down your bowls with lemon or lime juice if you’re going to be working with eggs (eg, for meringues etc) as any grease residue with ruin your work. Also, only use metal or glass bowls as these don’t hold grease!”
Fondant / sugarpaste pearls and beads are a simple way to add a border to cakes, but if you make all your pearls individually by hand getting them even can be a long and exhausting job. This weeks CAKE101 decorating / baking tip gives you a good way to ensure that every bead is as evenly sized as possible!
“To get even fondant / sugarpaste pearls and beads cut multiple rolled out fondant circles with your choosen circle cutter. Then roll each circle up into even pearls!”
Some fondant and sugarpaste accents only need a slight curve to them, for example daisies. Cake decorations like these would need something shallow to help form them and sometimes some unlikely items fit the bill. This weeks CAKE101 offers a tip that we use to set a little shape to more open flowers.
“To help form fondant flowers that only need a shallow curve to them the lids to miniature jam jars (the kind you find in hotels) are perfect! These are great for flowers that need a slight lift to the tips of the petals.”
Sometimes you don’t have to spend hours upon hours hunched over a desk or work top to make a cakes or cupcakes look striking. For cakes with a beautiful colour baked into them (like Red Velvet) the work is already half done! This weeks CAKE101 cake decorating / baking tip is all about adding simple decoration to you already beautiful baked treats!
“A quick and easy way to decorate cakes and cupcakes is to sprinkle cake crumbs on top! Crumble some of the spare bits of cake (after levelling or coring) and add atop your frosted cakes! This works great with coloured cake.”
Sometimes when you’re filling an order for 100 plus cupcakes that require softly curved fondant petals and leaves you’ll get to a point when you look around only to discover that you have no more room on your forming cups, waves or foam pads. This weeks CAKE101 offers a tip on some essential tools to keep in your tool kit for situations like this!
“To add shape to fondant petals or leaves why not sit them in the curves of paint palettes or even teaspoons. This is especially handy if you run out of space on forming cups, waves and foam pads!”