How To Make A Professional Cake

Complete A High School Diploma Or Ged

Many employers and education programs require candidates to have completed high school or earned a GED. Having this qualification demonstrates your skills in basic math, science and interpersonal communication. While in high school, be sure to take courses in home economics, cooking and chemistry because the skills you earn in these courses directly relate to being a professional cake decorator.

However, some employers may value experience over formal education, so you may find apprenticeships and entry-level positions willing to hire candidates who have relevant experience but no high school diploma or GED.

Make Professional Cakes With One Awesome Tip

Do you ever wonder why your cakes may not look the same way professional cakes look? When I first started decorating cakes I would spend hours working with the icing so it would look smooth. No matter what I did it never ended up looking the same as professional cakes. I knew how to make the flowers with royal icing, but the buttercream seemed to look a little lifeless. This was really disappointing!

Then one day I learned the secret and I want to share it with you. Do you want to know how to make your cakes look professional?

The secret is an ingredient thats in the buttercream frosting.

How to Make Professional Cakes:

Both of the buttercream flowers were made with the same buttercream frosting recipe. There is one difference, I made two different batches using different ingredients. They both were piped with #104 decorating tips and were the same consistency. I wanted you to keep that in mind as we continue to find the tip that will change your cake decorating.

Okay, its time to explain why the flowers in the picture above look so different even though the same recipe was used to make both batches of the frosting. Are you ready for the secret on how to make professional cakes at home?

The buttercream frosting recipe called for shortening. I used two different kinds of shortening when making the frosting.

• The rose at the top of the picture was made with Crisco shortening.
• The rose at the bottom of the picture was made with a hi-ratio shortening.

How To Fix A Leaning Cake

If you notice that your cake is sliding as youre assembling, you can try resetting it and placing it in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes.

Once the cake is fully stacked, I like to use drinking straws or dowels to help hold the cake layers in place . Drinking straws are the easiest.

Simply cut them shorter than the height of your cake and use 3-4 spaced evenly in the cake. This is best done before adding the final layer of frosting on top so that you can cover the holes from the straws.

Of course, be sure that you are starting with nice and even layers as mentioned above. You want to cut the dome off the top of your cake.

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How To Slice A Cake

Taste of Home

After all the hard work of baking and frosting, you want every slice of your cake to be picture perfect.

To slice a cake cleanly, grab a sharp knife and dip it into hot water. Then wipe the knife dry and cut into the cake in one fluid motion. The heat from the knife will soften up the frosting and the sharp edge of the knife will give you the best looking slice. Wipe the knife clean and repeat for each slice.

Writing And Piped Designs

Taste of Home

Part of the appeal of bakery-bought cakes is the perfect penmanship that those cake decorators have. But its really not too hard to replicate at home. All youll need is a piping bag, a fine piping tip, a toothpick and some patience.

To start, write or print out the message or motif youd like to be featured on the top of your cake. If youre very new to piping, do a test run on a sheet of parchment or waxed paper to get used to how the frosting flows out of the piping bag.

After a little practice, trace the design onto a sheet of parchment or waxed paper and lay it on top of your cake. With a toothpick or sharp skewer, prick the design until you have a dot-to-dot of your message. Carefully remove the paper and connect the dots with your piped frosting. Thats all it takes to write on a cake! And once you have a few cakes under your belt, you can do this freehand.

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Invest In An Oven Thermometer To Make Sure You’re Baking At The Proper Temperature

“Ovens are almost never accurate and they can seriously mess up your baked goods,” shares Bartone. To be safe, invest in an oven thermometer . Just hang it off a rack in your oven to make sure your temperature is exactly where you need it. An oven that runs hot can make your cakes rise too quickly and fall, while an oven that is too cold can result in inadequate browning.

How To Make The Perfect White Cake

To get started making this cake, first, pour the milk, egg whites, and both extracts into a bowl. Blend the ingredients with a fork. Next, in the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Add the cubed butter to the flour mixture and continue to beat on low speed for a couple more minutes. Then, add all but 1/2 cup of the milk mixture to the flour mixture. Beat at medium speed for a minute and a half before adding the remaining milk mixture to beat for one additional minute.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 27-30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out with a few crumbs, but no wet batter. Let the cakes cool in the pans for about 5 minutes before flipping them onto a wire rack to cool to room temperature.

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Bake Gently Cool Thoroughly

For any kind of cake, baking and cooling are the final factors that need to be handled with care.

Position your rack in the very center of the oven to get the most even heat distribution, and make sure your pans dont touch each other or the back or sides of the oven as they are baking. Again, this facilitates an even heat distribution all around the dessert.

Try not to disturb the cakes as they are cooking. The more the pans are jiggled or manipulated, the more of a chance there is that the delicate structure will be destroyed, resulting in a sunken bottom and other types of unevenness.

Avoid opening and closing the oven door keep all that heat in the oven for the best results.

When done, remove the pans promptly from the oven and place on a cooling rack.

They need to cool significantly in the pans before they are removed. They are still developing their final structure as they are cooling, and are very delicate straight from the oven.

Let them cool in the pans for at least 30 minutes. Then run a paring knife around the edge to loosen, and invert.

Remove the parchment paper from the bottom, flip right side up, and place them back on the cooling racks.

At this point, they are still too hot for decorating, and the final texture is still developing as it gradually cools. Allow them to cool completely before using and storing.

Ignore them for awhile. Watch TV, play cards, read a book, drink a glass of wine Anything that will keep you distracted!

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While A Slice Of Cake Or A Cupcake Can

In addition to chocolate, make sure you celebrate valentine’s day with this stunning layer cake. Decorating a small home might seem like a bit of a challenge at first. Here’s a beginners’ guide to get you started. Hgtv magazine offers up design inspiration from a. Hgtv magazine shares kitchen design inspiration to help you recreate this stylish space. Hgtv shares home organization tips from experts and the best organizers for pantries, closets, bathrooms and entryways. Make a homemade coffee cake recipe and you’ll have some really happy people around your table. Learn how to be a cpbd. Learning to decorate cakes is a matter of experience. While a slice of cake or a cupcake can. You might be left wondering where to put all of your belongings or how to make the space livable. Or try another easy coffee cake recipe that calls on a se. If you dream of designing homes but want to avoid becoming a registered architect, consider a career in building design.

Properly Prep The Pans

There are a variety of ways to prep these, but Im partial to a certain method. Follow my favorite technique below to ensure that your treats come out cleanly with no issues, every time:

1. Make paper liners for the bottom of the pans. To get the right size, outline the bottom of the pan on the parchment paper, cut out, and set aside.

2. Lightly coat the bottom and edges of the pan with nonstick cooking spray.

3. Line the bottom of each pan with one parchment paper liner.

4. Lightly spray the parchment with more nonstick cooking spray. Your pans are now nonstick, and ready to go!

Through personal experience, I have found that it is not necessary to coat the pans with flour after greasing the nonstick cooking spray and paper liners are effective enough to prevent the finished cakes from sticking.

Its one less step you need to take, and its less of a mess. No flour, no fuss!

I maintain the same rule of simplicity with my nonstick cooking spray I have the best success with plain, oil-based cooking spray rather than the types that have flour added.

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How To Make My Best Vanilla Cake

A stand mixer makes this vanilla cake a breeze to make, though it can be made with a handheld electric beater. While it takes time to beat the eggs to make a lovely fluffy cake, this recipe is more fail-proof than the usual cream butter and sugar until fluffy recipes read the above box for why.

The unique plush, fluffy crumb of this cake is from double lifting power whipped eggs PLUS baking powder!

1. Whip the eggs and sugar Beat the eggs with sugar for a whole 7 minutes until thick and glossy, it changes from yellow to white, and tripled in volume .

The aeration created during this step is key for a soft, fluffy crumb. This is a technique borrowed from Japanese sponge cakes.

TOP TIP: After this step, keep beating to a minimum otherwise youll knock the air out. Just follow my time and beater speeds and you cant go wrong!

Heres what it looks like before and after beating:

2. Gradually add flour Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Then add into egg mixture in 3 lots, mixing for just 5 seconds on Speed 1 in between. This should make the flour just incorporated dont worry if there are some bits not mixed in.

3. Hot melted butter in milk use a microwave or stove to heat milk with the butter until it melts. Believe it or not, HOT milk helps with aeration in this cake. I doubted it, so I tried with cooled melted butter in milk and found it did not rise as well.

6. Pour into 2 cake pans lined with parchment/baking paper.

Once You Learn How To Decorate A Cake You’ll Be Whipping Up Gorgeous Celebration

For special occasions, theres no better dessert than a delicious and perfectly decorated cake. While many of us enjoy visiting our favorite bakery for an elegant treat, it is absolutely possible to get stunning results right at home. All you need to learn how to decorate a cake are a few basic tools and a bit of patience.

Now, bake up your go-to layer cake, and lets get frosting.

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For A White Chocolate Ganache:

Warmth the cream as much as slightly below a boil then pour over white chocolate and butter. You possibly can play with the proportions on the ganache and use solely cream and white chocolate in the event you want as properly. Enable to web site for a pair items after which whisk till there arent any lumps.

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You might need to pop it into the microwave for 20 seconds on half energy if there are bits of unmelted chocolate. Add a drop of oil-based delicate pink meals coloring . The colour will lighten barely when the ganache cools. When youre utilizing white chocolate be warned that water-based dyes will make the chocolate seize up!

My Best Vanilla Cake Recipe Is

• Plush, moist, fluffy crumb without being freakishly unnaturally so . No more dense cakes!

• Keeps near perfectly for 4 whole days. 100% fresh on Day 1, still 96% perfect on Day 4. Thats unheard of!

• Lovely vanilla and butter flavour without a greasy mouthfeel

• Even, elegant crumb no large tunnels or irregular, crumbly holes

• Bakes perfectly flat no levelling required!

• Makes perfect cupcakes

• Not overly sweet and

• As tender as it can be but still be stable enough to make a large layered cake smothered with frosting or piles of cream and berries. In contrast, Chiffon Cakes and Japanese Sponges which, while lighter still, cannot actually hold up to much extra weight the bottom layer gets quite squished.

So if all that appeals to you too, then I dare say this might become YOUR favourite vanilla cake recipe too! And heres a little preview to show you how soft and fluffy it still is after 4 days:

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First Bake Your Cake Into 3 Layers

Usually when people make layer cakes they are always made in 2 cake pans which equals 2 cake layers duh.

When I first started out, I couldnt understand why my cakes didnt look like the ones in the magazines, and it was because my cakes werent tall enough!

Depending on what cake recipe you are using, this may mean that you have to double up the recipe. A more professional looking cake = a tall cake, so double up!

I use a standard of 3 cake layers in my tiers. When combined with the buttercream they end up being 5-5.5 tall. So this one cake has 3 layers, and is one tier tall at a height of 5 total.

To be clear- a cake tier is combined of cake layers. No, layers and tiers are not the same thing.

A cake tier is compiled of cake layers.