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- Everything included in the Premium plan plus
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- 8 Business professionals to help you achieve your goals
- CakeFlix Business Boot Camp
- Monthly Live Q& A with Paul and David
- Big prize competitions
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Next Level Off The Cake Tops
A flat cake is a heck of a lot easier to stack than a cake that has a dome top, so you need to level it off.
You can take a sharp, long, serrated knife and evenly, with the blade flat, start at the lowest part of the dome. Slice through in a push and pull motion .
Make sure to keep the blade at the same level throughout the whole cut or it will end up lop-sided.
A great trick is to leave the cake in the pan, and once its cooled, place the flat side of the blade of top of the pan and use it as a guide to hack off the top.
This method works well if the whole surface area of your cake baked higher than the pan.
Optional: stuff your face with the cake tops or pawn them off on someone else.
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Cake Decorating Tip #: Freeze Your Cake After The Crumb Coat
The freezer will be your best friend when youre decorating your cake. After your entire cake is assembled and its ready to be decorated, always start by spreading a thin layer of frosting around your entire cake. Then freeze your cake for 10-15 minutes to let it set. This thin layer of frosting is known as your crumb coat.
Your crumb coat is what will hold all of your cake layers together when you start to add the rest of your buttercream and decoration. If you take your cake out of the freezer and youre noticing some of your cake layers mixing into your buttercream, this means your crumb coat is not set all the way. Put it back in your freezer for another few minutes and then try it again. This crumb coat is key to getting you a nice and beautifully decorated cake!
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The Right Recipe Matters
Several of the cakes I made would have probably turned out great, but the recipe wasnt. It was either too dense, too dry, didnt taste good, or fell apart. If you want a pretty cake, you need a recipe you can count on. My favorite recipe right now is a dark chocolate cake from Lovely Little Kitchen. Its my go-to when I want something moist and chocolatey.
Best Free Class: Cakes By Lynz
Cakes by Lynz
Why We Chose It: Cakes by Lynz is a YouTube channel with over 419,000 followers and over 100 videos that explain everything from basic cake and frosting recipes to more advanced decorating techniques and projects.
ProsAll videos are free to watchLots of basic and advanced tutorialsEasy to find videos by categoryConsVideos have adsOnly one instructor
Though there are loads of YouTube videos on cake decorating, Cakes by Lynz is one of the most comprehensive dedicated cake decorating channels with over 100 videos broken down into categories like gumpaste flower tutorials, cupcake piping techniques, and cake decorating for beginners. A self-taught baker, Lynsey Jackson explains basic techniques as well as more advanced cake projects from her home in Kent, England.
Jacksons video tutorials help you do simple things to improve your cake decorating skills, such as how to make truly white American buttercream, how to cover a cake in smooth buttercream, and how to dowel and stack a tiered cake. More advanced cake projects include a gravity-defying hand mixer cake, a birthday bear cake, and a moon landing space rocket cake. Jackson does break down each step on how to make the cakes, with clear instructions as well as a list of tools you need .
All videos and tutorials are free, though like many YouTube videos, there are ads at the beginning and middle of each one.
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Storing Crumb Coated Cakes
After youve filled and frosted your cake with a crumb coat, its safe to store it in the refrigerator overnight without the risk of drying out the cake. The thin layer of buttercream acts as a barrier to preserve the cake underneath and help it maintain its moisture.
I always like to add my final layer of frosting to a chilled crumb coated cake anyways, because having a nice firm structure underneath the final layer is one of the secrets to creating a smooth buttercream finish. Even if you dont plan on storing your crumb coated cake in the fridge overnight, I highly recommend letting it firm up in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before you add your final layer of frosting. Heres everything you need to know about how and why I crumb coat my cakes.
Cake Decorating Tip #6 Reading The Recipe
So about that whole following the directions thing I talked about before. Would you believe that the #1 answer to 99% of all the questions about failed recipes that come to me is did you follow the directions. Sometimes the answer is YES! Of course, but then they realize, oops, no they didnt. They used all the correct ingredients but skipped a few steps here and there in the directions. This part is SO important.
You cant mix and match mixing methods or switch out times. Baking is a science and someone spent countless hours perfecting that recipe youre trying and you spent good money on ingredients so dont waste them.
How to follow a recipe successfully
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Tip #8 Want To Learn More About The Basics Of Cake Decorating Take Our Basics Series Online
This may or may not be a shameless plug but truly, I wish I had a series of videos to watch when I was first starting out to teach me everything, and I mean EVERYTHING from start to finish on how to make beautiful and successful cakes. If you feel like youre missing something in your process, you might check this out. Were even doing a 7 day free trial right now for new memberships so you literally have nothing to lose < 3
Do you have a cake tip? Leave it in the comments below for anyone reading this post
Which Techniques Will I Learn In An Online Cake Decorating Class
Depending on your skill level, cake decorating classes teach myriad techniques. Beginning decorators may learn how to stack cakes, use buttercream and ganache, or create painted or airbrushed cakes, along with cake toppers. More advanced classes teach decorating for themed cakes such as unicorn, wedding, sculpted cakes, and even how to decorate a box explosion cake.
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Cake Decorating Tip #2 Cake Goop
I am embarrassed to tell you how long I used the old vegetable shortening and dusted flour technique for prepping my cake pans. It was the only thing I could do that was fairly easy and dependable. The issue? Super messy. I always had flour remnants all over the trash can, the sink, the floor .
I WISH I could remember who told me about cake goop because it changed my world.
No more pan spray, no more shortening and flour, no more parchment paper. Just brush it in the pan and bake it up. Cakes will slide out of that pan so easy peezy, youll kick yourself for not making up a batch of cake goop sooner.
The ingredients are simple, mix up equal parts vegetable shortening vegetable oil and flour. Mix well until combined and then store in a container. You can keep it on the countertop or the fridge but it wont spoil. I use a pastry brush to brush it on the pans evenly. Dont worry, you dont need a lot. Just a nice even coating will do you.
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How To Make A Box Cake Taste Like Scratch
Ill let you in on a little secret, there are plenty of professional cake decorators out there who dont bake from scratch, they use a box mix and add ingredients to it to make it taste more like a scratch cake. This is called a doctored box mix and is quite tasty!
The most popular doctored cake mix is WASC which stands for White Almond Sour Cream Cake. But you dont have to use a white box mix, you can make the same adjustments to a yellow or funfetti box mix and it will taste just as good. If you want to use a chocolate box mix then check out the Chocolate WASC.
If you want to make your WASC into funfetti then add in 1/4 cup of jimmy sprinkles or confetti sprinkles. Mix into the batter at the very end of making the cake batter.
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Simple Techniques For Beautiful Cake Decorating
Do you want some fun, simple, and easy ideas for decorating your next cake? You can come to the right place!
The rose cake is by far my most famous design! Here I have done it in a Yellow Ombre pattern, but I also do it in dusty rose, Neapolitan, red velvet, patriotic, and chocolate just to name a few!
You can see a video of me making this cake here.
I call this the Purple Shell Cake. I based it off of this simple design on my white cake recipe. It uses a small star tip and is a basic repeat pattern. Adding in a bit of fun contrast with the darker purple is super easy!
You can see a video of me making this cake here.
Want to know something fun? This Harlequin Cake uses the exact same tip as in the Purple Shell Cake!
This cake is all about the planning. Once you have your basic design, the actual piping only takes a few minutes!
Start With The Right Tools
With just a few tools, you can get started on your cake decorating journey. In fact, you may already have a few of these items lying around the kitchen.
A cake turntable is a raised stand that rotates 360-degrees. This will let you spin the cake so the right side is always facing you. If you dont have one, a Lazy Susan can also work in a pinch. But the extra height from the turntable lets you stand up straighter, which can make decorating easier on your back.
Youll need a serrated knife to level your cake. Most cakes come out of the oven with a slight dome at the top, so you need to cut that extra height off for a nice flat surface. Youll also want an offset spatula. This will let you keep your fingers back from the frosting, so you wont accidentally ruin the finish. You may have both of these items at home already many home chefs do!
For specialty tools, a cake scraper is handy for creating a smooth finish with your frosting. This simple tool is just a flat piece of metal that you can hold against your cake while rotating it on the turntable. They usually have one straight side and one patterned side for textured designs.
Finally, every new cake decorator will need pastry bags and tips. There is a wide variety of tips that let you pipe your icing into words, flowers, dots, basket weave patterns, and more.
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Cake Decorating Tip #7 Chilling Your Cakes
Last but not least, I want to talk about chilling yours cakes. I remember hearing in the very beginning of my cake journey that you cant put your cakes in the fridge because if you did, the cakes would sweat and that would ruin the fondant. So when I covered in fondant, I would literally be trying to put it over soft buttercream. It was not pretty.
I distinctly remember making this cake for a friends wedding and the cake literally split in half while I was trying to frost it. How did people do this? How do you get your cakes to be so straight and pretty with sharp edges?
One of my first HUGE wedding cakes circa 2009. I delivered this cake fully stacked and was not refrigerated. The cake actually slid off the cake board during delivery because we where driving up a STEEP hill. I was so lucky the thing did not topple over. I now always deliver my cakes not stacked, all chilled and boxed individually.
The answer is you CAN put your cakes in the fridge. As Yolanda Gampp says, crumbcoat and chill! YES your cakes will sweat a bit coming out of the fridge but that small amount of condensation is not going to ruin your cake.
That beings said, if you live in an area that has HIGH humidity you might need to put a fan on your cake to get rid of that shine. For instance, you plan on painting on your cake, you take it out of the fridge and its shiny. Youll want to wait until it comes to room temp before you paint on it. The fan will speed up that process.
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Cake: The Star Of The Show
This is the main item of your dish, your prima donna. There are a wide variety of options for you to choose from, all depending on personal considerations like taste preference, dietary restrictions, and color combinations.
If you are looking to build from classic flavors, try our basic recipes like chocolate cake or vanilla butter cake.
These flavors actually combine well, so you can even layer one of each.
For the buttercreams, you can choose to use the original recipes, which are both flavored with vanilla extract. If you want to add any food coloring to personalize your treat, it is best to work with one of the vanilla buttercreams as a neutral base to get the brightest colors.
If you want another flavor instead of vanilla, you can opt for one of the suggested variations to create a variety of flavors like chocolate, citrus, and much more.
Its all up to you, chef.
Baking Tips To Bake From Scratch
Now, I know that there are many articles out there that give you a long list of baking tips and no explanation as to why. That changes today.
In this post, I share with you my 10 baking tips. And I will tell you exactly why you should or should not do something. So, no more following blind rules.
In fact, once you understand these tips they will come to you naturally. Understanding your ingredients and the baking process is a great way to really become a good baker. So, let’s start with the baking tips.
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How To Decorate A Cake To Look More Professional
In the beginning of my cake decorating days I was mesmerized with how cake could be decorated in so many different ways. I wondered how to stack my layers and how the frosting always looked so even. But mostly, I was wondering why the hell couldnt my freaking cakes look the same!
Now, after pastry school and 10 years of cake decorating experience, I am here to share my tips and tricks on how to start making your cakes look better.
Maybe you want to start your own cake business and know nothing. Or, you like to decorate cakes as a hobby. Maybe you want to impress your in-laws. Whatever the reason, here are your basic starting points for making your cakes more professional.
Disclaimer: There are definitely ways to decorate beautiful cakes without special cake tools, but your cake life will be much easier if you have:
Lets start and learn how to decorate a cake!