Birthday Cake Decorating

Friday, 12th March, 2010       Posted in Articles |No Comments »

Image courtesy of jessica.diamond

Complex and complicated tools are unnecessary for creating simple cakes. All you need are basic cake decorating tools that are useful for birthdays and special holidays. The following equipments will be required for children’s birthday cakes:

• Rubber Spatulas that are of a flexible material. These are needed when you want to start frosting the cake and scraping it.
• Two sizes of Metal Spatulas are needed. Small and large metal spatulas are required to smoothen and spread the cakes’ frostings. Use the small spatula to apply the thin layer of the cake’s frosting. After that, spread a layer of normal frosting.
• Reusable 18 inch, 12 inch and 8 inches piping bags, plastic disposable bags and Zip-locks are required for decorating cake.
• Couplers or coupling nozzles are required to equip the bags with icing tips. This also enables you to change the tips when you want to.
• Food coloring paste, gel or powder.

Important guidelines for cake decorating:

1. Make sure that your ingredients are at a room temperature so that they can mix better.
2. Use an electric beater so that your cake mixture will be smooth. If you were to beat your mixture manually with a spatula, you might have lumps in your mixture.
3. You will also need wire racks for the inverting and cooling process.
4. Trimming will give you a cake that sits flatly. You should also use the side of the cake, which is smoother for decorations.
5. If you do not want your cake to crumble, you should bake the cake a day before you start decorating it. You must also put the cake in the freezer before you start frosting it. When you decide to frost the cake, you need to do it almost immediately.
6. Cake boards are easily available at cake decorating shops or hobby shops. You can also make cake boards yourself by using a colored foil to cover the piece of cardboard.
7. A good icing on cake will be Butter Cream. Butter Cream is normally used in decorating children’s birthday cake.
8. Cakes without frosting should have strips of waxed paper underneath. This is so that your cake will still look neat especially after decorating it with frosting. Then when that is done, all you need to do is remove the waxed paper by pulling it out gently.

The important part of cake decorating actually lies in its basic tools. You should always refer to tips to help you with your child’s birthday cake. It will be hard for you at first but when you finally create the ideal birthday cake for your child, it will definitely be very rewarding indeed. There are plenty of Internet sites that can help you with your cake. Some websites are also very well detailed in their explanations. It is a good habit to take down notes from these sites so that you will know how to start decorating your cake properly. Soon, you will definitely be busy creating beautiful cakes in the future.