The Busy Girls Guide to Cake Decorating (21 page)

•  Sometimes when rolling out sugarpaste, air bubbles can form within the paste and can ruin your beautiful finish. If this happens take a clean pin and pierce the centre of the air bubble and smooth the air out through the pinhole. Finish rolling out as before.

•  Sugarpaste is a sticky substance to deal with and will try and stick to your work surface at any given opportunity. Keep checking the sugarpaste is loose and free from the surface when rolling out – keeping the surface lightly dusted with icing (confectioners’) sugar. To stop it from sticking to your rolling pin, dust your hand lightly with the icing (confectioners’) sugar and run the rolling pin through your hands. This should stop the paste from sticking without transferring white marks to the surface of your sugarpaste.

•  Occasionally little bits will dive into white sugarpaste when you’re rolling it out – if you spot them before the sugarpaste is the right thickness you can pinch them out lightly with your fingertips to remove them. Carry on rolling out to the correct thickness, which will smooth out the pinch mark leaving your sugarpaste blemish free.

•  When covering a cake with sugarpaste, sometimes it is easy to misjudge when flipping it into place, leaving it slightly short of reaching all the way down one of the sides. If this happens, place your fingertips on the sugarpaste just above where the shortfall is. Move your fingertips in a circular rubbing motion, which will encourage the sugarpaste downwards to meet the base of the cake. You can cover up to a 2cm (
³
⁄
₄
in) gap with this handy technique!

•  Cracks can often form around the top edge of a cake. To prevent this from happening, make sure to dust your surface lightly with icing (confectioners’) sugar when rolling out, as too much will quickly dry out your sugarpaste and encourage the cracking. Roll out just enough to cover the cake without a large overhang of excess – too much and the extra weight will cause the sides to pull, again creating cracks. Small cracks can be sealed back together by rubbing gently with your fingertips in a circular motion.

•  If you have cracks or marks in your sugarpaste once you have covered your cake, it is always good to remember that there’s always the back of a cake! Choose the best side to present as the front. Work design elements into your cake to disguise any small cracks, nicks or marks – a little blossom will do the trick!

•  If there’s a big gap in your sugarpaste (either at the base of a cake or elsewhere) that is quite large, roll out a little more to the same depth and cut out a piece to patch in. Rubbing the joins with your fingertips in a gentle circular motion will begin to blend them in. It’s not a quick task, so keep massaging the sugarpaste and finish by smoothing with an icing smoother until it’s as good as new and the joins are not visible.

•  If you end up with a large gap at the base of your cake when you have cut away the excess sugarpaste, consider using a wide ribbon to trim round the cake, which will disguise the gap.

•  Getting the consistency of royal icing just right is always a bit of a battle, but time spent perfecting it before using it is definitely worthwhile. If it’s too thick, add a couple of drops of water to loosen it slightly, and if too thin, then you will need to beat in more icing (confectioners’) sugar.

•  When piping lines or dots with royal icing, if you find there is a little peak at the finish point dab it down with a slightly damp paintbrush.

•  When you’re not happy with the positioning and finish of your sugarpaste when covering a cake and feel like admitting defeat, as long as you haven’t smoothed it down and trimmed the excess, you can peel off the sugarpaste and start again. The used sugarpaste will have to be discarded, as it will be sticky with buttercream, but you can re-smooth your frosting layer, chill the cake again and roll out some new sugarpaste to cover the cake.

•  Buttercream/frosting – used to secure sugarpaste (rolled fondant) icing to cupcakes and to prepare a cake for covering with sugarpaste.

•  Cake board – also referred to as cake drums, 12mm (
¹
⁄
₂
in) thick. A solid non-edible base for cakes. Can be used covered with sugarpaste to complement your theme, or uncovered.

•  Cake card – thin foil-covered card used to mount cakes on for support when moving or when creating tiered cakes.

•  Cutters – cutters come in all sorts of shapes and sizes from the regular round and fluted cutters to decorative shapes such as blossoms and butterflies. Used for creating cookie shapes and for sugarpaste decorations, cutters can also have plunger ejectors often used with very small shapes, which release cut out shapes easily for you.

•  Double-sided tape – used to secure ribbon around the edges of cake boards.

•  Dowels – plastic or wooden rods, used to provide support within tiered cakes.

•  Dragees – sugar shapes, (e.g. balls and hearts) used for decoration adding a touch of sparkle, can be found in many many colours and sizes.

•  Edible glue – ready-made edible glue can be used in place of water. It is much stronger and a good investment if you’ll be decorating regularly.

•  Edible lustre dusts and glitters – as the name suggests these are edible non-toxic powders and glitters that you can get in every colour under the sun. A great way to add a touch of glitz to a cake.

•  Embossing – imprinting sugarpaste gently with cutters or other items such as buttons to create a subtle pattern.

•  Florists’ wire – available in white, silver, gold and a range of colours. Thicknesses vary from #20 (thickest) to #28 (thinnest). A medium-gauge wire (#24) is ideal for most tasks. Used to create wired cake toppers or stems for sugarcraft flowers. Available to buy from florists and cake-decorating suppliers.

•  Gel paste colours – used to colour sugarpaste and royal icing. They are extremely intense colouring and you will only need to use a small amount. These colours do not greatly alter the consistency of icing in the same way liquid colours will.

•  Greaseproof (wax) paper – a non-stick baking parchment paper used to line tins (pans). Also used for transferring templates onto cakes.

•  Icing smoother – a flat smooth plastic tool, similar to a paddle and used to polish covered cakes and boards providing a super smooth, glossy finish.

•  Icing (confectioners’) sugar – used to prevent sugarpaste from sticking to work surfaces and as an ingredient in royal icing and buttercream.

•  Marzipan – an almond paste used with fruit cakes. A marzipan layer is applied to a fruit cake first before covering with sugarpaste. This seals in moisture and stops the fruit from staining through onto the sugarpaste layer.

•  Non-stick mat – using one of these to roll out your sugarpaste on will greatly cut down the need for dusting with icing (confectioners’) sugar (and will help when it comes to clearing up too!).

•  Nozzles – also known as tips. They come in a variety of sizes and are used in conjunction with a piping (pastry) bag to pipe royal icing or buttercream. You may like to buy a basic set (I frequently use small round nozzles 1, 2 and 3) and then add more to your collection as needed. Look for seam-free ones for faultless piping.

•  Paintbrushes – Soft brushes, flat or round, are extremely useful for a number of tasks in cake decorating. Natural hair bristles are preferable to synthetic ones.

•  Palette knife – the ideal tool for covering cakes with a layer of buttercream before applying sugarpaste.

•  Pastry brush – silicone brush used for applying apricot glaze to fruit cakes.

•  Pearl-headed pins – used decoratively to disguise the join in a ribbon around a cake or cake board. The pearl heads also make the pins more easily identifiable for removing when serving.

•  Piping (pastry) bag – disposable or reusable bags which, when fitted with a piping nozzle (tip) and filled with icing, can be used to pipe decorations and borders.

•  Posy pick – a small pointed tube that sits within a cake to hold wires of a cake topper. Food safe, these prevent the wires from coming into contact with the cake.