The Contemporary Buttercream Bible (26 page)

prepare

colourful

or

gradient

colours

of

buttercream to make this effect even more

attractive.

Patting strokes

After applying your buttercream all over your cake,

use the tip of your palette knife to repeatedly pat

the surface all the way around while it is still sticky.

This will create a unique texture.

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Thinning

‘Thinning’, as you might guess, just means making

the buttercream into a very soft and spreadable

consistency by adding few drops of water. The

pictures below show how thinned and unthinned

consistencies behave when you spread them. The

thinned buttercream is easier to spread or blend

with a palette knife.

Unthinned

Rough and uneven when spread with a palette

knife, unthinned buttercream is ideal for most

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piping and decorating. This is the consistency you

will get if you follow our buttercream recipe (see

Buttercream Basics).

Thinned

When thinned, your buttercream will spread in a

smooth and level way, perfect for using with a

palette knife to create some of the effects described below.

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About palette knives

In this chapter we will not only use the typical

palette knife that you will probably already

have in your kitchen. Instead we have adapted

some of the techniques used by fine artists

when palette knife painting in oils, so we will

also be using an artist’s palette knife painting

set. These can be easily purchased from most

art supplies retailers. As you can see here,

they have different shapes, lengths, handles

and tips. Forget about the length and the way

they are numbered and just look at the tips of

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the knives as these will be useful in

determining which knife to use in a design. If

you are just using a knife for spreading you

can basically use any size, but if you want to

use it for a more specific design, like a flower

(which you will learn about in the following

pages) the size of the tip becomes important.

Use a small tip knife for small petals and other

such details, and a big tip knife for large

details. It’s a simple principle!

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Blending

This palette knife technique requires a careful

choice of colours, otherwise the results can be a

murky mess. Select a range of colours that

complement each other and produce an over-all

pleasing effect – the clashing of just two colours

may ruin everything. The actual act of blending

them with your knife is very simple.

1 Prepare the cake by crumb-coating it. Make sure

that the tinted buttercream colours are already

thinned and in individual piping bags. Cut the tip

off the piping bags to create a small hole – there’s

no need to use a nozzle. Pipe your first colour on to the surface of the cake (A).

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A

2 Using your palette knife, hold it about at about a

10–20 degree angle and spread the buttercream in

a small circular motion (B), or with up and down

strokes. Be careful not to press too hard with the

knife (C).

B

C

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3 Pipe your next colour but make sure you leave a

small gap in between the colours. Repeat the same

process to spread the buttercream and then

gradually blend two colours together using the

same technique (D).

D

4 Just keep repeating the same process until you

have finished covering the cake with all the colours

you have prepared (E).

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E

Tip

It can be helpful to chill your cake first in the

fridge so the surface is hard and easier to work

on. The only downside is that the tinted

buttercream you will apply could crust too

quickly because the surface is cold. If it does,

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