The Contemporary Buttercream Bible (5 page)

Tip

Some designs will require you to fill a piping

bag with more than one colour of buttercream.

In this case it is best to put each colour into a

separate piping bag and then pipe them into a

new bag (see Up and Down Two-tone Ruffles

in Piping Textures and Patterns).

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Inspirations

We are always asked, ‘Your cakes are all unique –

where do you get your inspiration from?’ Our secret

is simple. We get inspiration from anything

beautiful

and

interesting,

from

absolutely

everywhere! Look around you, and if a certain

colour or design catches your eye the next thing you

should do is imagine how you will put it on your

cake.

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Covering Cakes

Here we will discuss how to cover your cake

properly, making sure that the buttercream sticks to

the cake and provides a clean base for any

additional decoration. Buttercream is physically

heavy and if you don’t learn to cover correctly, then the buttercream might fall off the cake. The first

essential stage is crumb coating, so we’ll begin

there.

Crumb Coating

As the name suggests, this is all about coating the

crumbs! This technique means applying a thin layer

of buttercream around your cake to secure the loose

crumbs, before adding the decorative layers and

features. This is a very important step that you

should not miss, as this makes your outer layer of

buttercream stick to the cake, giving the heavy

piped and textured designs something to adhere to.

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1 You can use a palette knife to apply the

buttercream to the cake, but some cake sponges can

be very crumbly. When you use a palette knife, the

tendency is to keep pushing and pressing the

frosting and this might damage your cake. Instead,

we use a piping bag to apply the frosting (A).

A

2 Use a round nozzle or just snip the end off a

piping bag. Using the same frosting that will go on

the rest of the cake, fill the piping bag and pipe

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around the cake with a good pressure so it sticks to

the cake (B).

B

3 Use your palette knife to spread the buttercream,

using even pressure (C).

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C

4 Next you can use a cake scraper to level out the

thickness of the frosting and to remove any excess

(D).

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D

Tip

It is best to put the cake in the fridge after you

have crumb coated it, for about 30 minutes to

an hour (or quick freeze it for 10–15 minutes)

or until the surface is hard enough to work on

before you apply any more buttercream

decoration.

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Smoothing

After the cake has been chilled for a short while you can apply another layer of buttercream and create a

smooth surface. The thickness of this layer will be a matter of taste. To be able to perfectly smooth a

cake takes patience and practice. Trust us, you will

not be able to ‘perfectly perfect’ it on your first go, but after a while you will get so practised at it that it will become easy.

PALETTE KNIFE

This is the common way of smoothing a cake – no

fancy tool, just a palette knife. You simply have to

spread the buttercream frosting around the cake

using the knife. The finish though is not perfectly

smooth as the knife will leave few lines and ridges.

You can use any palette knife, straight or cranked,

and the best choice of size will depend on the size of your cake. We find it is best to use a short

crank-handled knife for most occasions. The

direction in which you spread doesn’t matter, but it

is important to remove any excess and to make an

even layer.

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Tip

Applying a buttercream layer with a palette

knife will allow you to create an artistic finish.

Don’t expect the surface to be perfectly

smooth with this method.

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CAKE SCRAPER

Make sure that the edge of your scraper is perfectly

smooth. Remember that any dent on your scraper

will be visible on your cake because buttercream is

soft and delicate. Using a plain edge scraper is a

fairly quick way of smoothing your cake. With the

cake on a turntable, hold the scraper upright and

perpendicular to the work surface, and run it

around your cake until smooth.

If your cake is tall you may need to use a longer

implement, such as a ruler, a big cake lifter or (the most effective tool we’ve found) an L ruler or 90

degree triangle ruler.

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Tip

For best results we highly recommend that you

place your cake on a thin cake board that is

about 0.5–1cm (1⁄ –1

4

⁄2in) larger than the cake.

See photograph B below. As you run your

cake scraper around you can press against the

edge of the board, rather than on the cake

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side, ensuring an even layer of buttercream

and preventing you from pressing too hard on

the cake.

NON-WOVEN CLOTH

The following technique is similar to the ‘Viva paper towel method’ that is being used to smooth

buttercream covered cakes in the USA. However, if

you don’t live in the States, you will need an

alternative that you can source locally, so we have

spent some time researching a product that can be

found all over the world. We tried and tried

different mediums until we came up with using a

non-woven cloth, which has a smooth side and does

not stick to the buttercream. Non-woven cloth may

come in plain white or with minimal design. A good

example of this is the interfacing fabric that is used in sewing. You can buy this by the metre or yard