How To Make Icing Roses
Adding rosebuds to any cake or cupcake gives it an elegant look. Beautifully constructed and colored roses can be used on birthday cakes, wedding cakes or cupcakes to add flair and beauty. Are you wondering how to make icing roses? Then get ready to make rosebuds for your wonderful cake!
You would think that making rosebuds from icing would be difficult, but following simple steps and using the right utensils will result in success.
What do you need? You will need a rose tip, a rose nail, wax paper, a knife and a pastry bag with icing. Why not do a second color icing to add different color petals to your rose?
Attach your rose tip to your pastry bag and fill the bag half full of icing. Pink or red icing looks great on cakes, use white or cream as a second color to add contrast to your petals. Once your bag has icing in it, twist the top to close it.
Hold your rose nail in your hand with the flat side facing up. Holding the rose tip to the centre of the nail, gently start squeezing out icing in a cone shape in the centre of the nail. Turning the rose nail in circles with your fingers as you squeeze, will make this task easy Keep adding to you cone to give it a big of height.
Gently add three arches around the outside of your cone. Move your rose tip from the bottom of the cone to slightly above the top of the cone and back down again to create an arch. Start each arch in the middle of the last one. You can change your icing colors for each arch to make different color petals.
Starting in the idle of the petal arches, start another five arches on the outside of the first three, again start each arch in the middle of the last. Once you have done five arches to cover the whole icing rose, start with another seven arches on the outside of those five to make your final petals. Allow the petals to overlap slightly.
Take a knife and carefully slide it under your rose to move your rose to wax paper to dry. These frosting rosebuds look great on any cake. Now that you know how to make icing roses, why not try and make your cake a masterpiece with rosebuds?
How to Make Butter Cream
Making butter cream for your crusting is easy. For those wondering how to make butter cream, a basic recipe along with your mixer will make this step in your cake process a painless one.
Try not to use Cristo shortening, they have changed their brand to zero transfer which causes the butter cream to yellow and dry out. Whatever you do, do not use lard when making butter cream. Follow these simple steps to a hassle free butter cream which will be smooth and tasty.
CK high ratio is the best shortening to use when making butter cream. Unfortunately this brand is not available in your regular supermarket, but is available online and at specialty food stores. Use unsalted butter at room temperature, because icing is meant to be sweet and use clear extract, especially when making white icing.
Using your mixer add your high ratio shortening to the bowl. For real butter cream add half butter to half shortening and put on a medium mix setting for a few minutes until your mixture is soft and without any lumps.
Add the extract of your choice. Vanilla is a popular choice, but why not try almond, banana, strawberry or cherry for added flavor? While this is all mixing together add two tablespoons of water. If you are using Cristo zero transfat shortening replace the water for whole fat milk, this will help with the smoothing effect.
Add your sugar, approximately four cups worth, Always use a good quality sugar and strain it a few times to remove any unwanted lumps. If your mixer seems to start struggling at this point add a little bit more water or milk to your mixture. Add the water slowly while keeping an eye on the consistency. You don’t want to add too much water.
If your butter cream looks thick and crumbly, don’t worry there is still more mixing to be done. You can do the last bit of mixing by hand, this enables you to control the consistency and not over mix, which causes air bubbles.
If it still is too thick to move around the bowl, add another half a tablespoon of water and see if it improves. Once you have the consistency to your liking you should have a butter cream which is tasty and smooth. And now you know how to make butter cream at home!
Icing a Square Cake
Baking has become a great past time for many people and being asked to produce a beautifully decorated cake for a birthday or special occasions is a proud moment for anyone who takes pride in their baking. Icing a square cake, though, can be a challenge for bakers.
To frost a square cake you will need a 16 inch bag, a size 789 tip, a large and small spatula, different sized scrapers and a roll of viva paper towel. Be sure you buy the towel without any designs on it, it must be plain.
Crumb Coating Your Cake
Start on the side and cover over the centre frosting holding the tip vertically against your cake and squeezing the frosting as you move along each side. Use the flat side of your spatula and wipe the frosting all over the sides, until they are completely covered and smooth. Go over the corners to ensure you have covered any gaps and then brush upwards on the sides and over the top, this smoothes the edge where the top and sides meet.
Allow the crumb coat to dry for approximately 15 minutes before adding any frosting. You will know it’s dry because if you touch the icing, it shouldn’t come off on your finger. If it does, leave it to dry a bit longer.
Let’s Start Frosting!
Start on the bottom sides of the cake using your tip vertically, squeeze out the frosting along all four sides. Do the top of the cake next, leaving the top sides until last. The top sides should overlap the bottom layer and slightly over the top of the cake.
Smooth the top of your cake with the flat side of a spatula, clean the excess frosting off the spatula as you go. Work from side to side until you have a smooth layer with no holes.
Use a scraper on the sides. Hold the sharp side of the scraper against the cake and move along the side, removing excess frosting as you go. If you have any holes you can put a bit of frosting onto the spatula and go over the area again. Keep working until your sides are smooth and there are no holes.
Go over the top of your cake one more time with a larger spatula, until you are happy with it.
Allow your cake to dry for approximately fifteen minutes or when it doesn’t stick to your finger when you touch it.
Take a piece of viva towel and place it over your cake. Using a small spatula start wiping over the top of the towel, this will remove any lines caused by the spatula when you were smoothing your frosting.
On the sides of the cake put the viva paper against the side and using the spatula work from the bottom upwards. Keep going over your cake until it is as smooth as possible.
Decorating your cake can be exciting and there are so many designs to choose from. You can add ruffles by using a size 104 tip. Place the wide end at the top and the narrow end at the bottom and gently move the tip up and down as you move sideways along the cake, squeezing out frosting as you go.
You can layer the ruffles by placing ruffles above the first layer, overlap them slightly.
Use a size 7 round tip to add dots along the top of the ruffles, adding flair. Try using different colors for your ruffles. Decorating and icing a square cake can be such a pleasure, especially when you see your family and friends faces when they see it for the first time.
Ladybug Fondant Birthday Cake
If you are looking for a great birthday cake idea for a young girl, try making a ladybug (aka ladybird) themed cake. It is cheery, bright and full of fun. Not too time consuming; it can be made in one or a few tiers for effect.
Make a traditional layered cake in whichever flavor is preferred, maybe chocolate and with creamy butter cream filling. Crust your cake and then use fondant over all tiers separately. Airbrush each tier individually with a green food coloring, giving the impression of grass. Once your cake has dried, you can put the tiers together using icing to hold them together.
Putting your cake on a round base and covering the base with fondant, continuing the theme, makes it easy to move around. Maybe wrap a red ribbon around the edge of the base to match the ladybug colors but adding contrast at the same time.
Color your gum paste with red gum paste coloring and make your ladybugs in a variety of sizes, enabling them to be placed in different places on the cake. Once dried, paint the black line and spots onto your lady bug using food coloring.
Give them a happy smile and big eyes using white gum paste and draw a black dot in each eye. Maybe make each one’s eyes looking in different directions, and then you can place them next to each other looking at one another. The possibilities are endless, it’s up to you.
Making a few flowers to dot about will add to the theme, these can also be made from gum paste. Use white gum paste to make the petals, maybe a daisy effect and yellow for the centre. These will go well with the theme and color of the cake. Make a few flowers, not too many you want them as an added extra, four or five flowers are ample.
Now time to start decorating. Place your ladybugs on your cake in different places around each tier. Put a large and slightly smaller one on the top. Place really small ladybugs on the flowers for added effect. Use icing to stick the flowers and ladybugs to the cake.
Another great effect is some tufts of grass made of icing. These can be made using green icing. Place a few tufts around the cake at the seam where the two cakes meet.
Add a name to the top of the cake in icing if you like, or leave it plain, either way you now have an amazing ladybug birthday cake to make any little girls heart soar.
Using Rolled Fondant
Using rolled fondant is not as difficult as you would think. Using rolled fondant on a square cake and avoiding excess on the sides is easy and hassle free.
The first thing you need to do is put a crumb coating on your cake. A crumb coating is a thin butter cream. The crumb coating fills in any holes and helps provide a smooth surface to work with.
Let your cake crust over, which means let the crumb coating dry. Once dry pat any areas that are sticking out with your finger. Not too hard you don’t want to dent your beautiful cake. If any coating sticks to your fingers it is not dry enough and you can always add a little confectionary sugar to that area.
Rolled Fondant Basics
If you are using fondant for the first time, there may be a few things you don’t know which can help you achieve the best possible results.
If you want great taste for your cake, why not try an apricot glaze rather than a butter cream crust to smooth out your cake before putting fondant on? This glaze will offer a great added taste and does the same job as butter cream crust does. This adds a flavor sensation when you eat your delicious masterpiece; it is also a neutral color making it easy to blend in with your cake and fondant.
You first need to make sure your apricot jelly is very well strained, remove any lumps which will show once you have put the fondant on. An easy way of doing this is to heat the jelly slightly in your microwave and then press it through a strainer; this achieves no lumps and perfect smoothness.
Cake Decorating Tip 789
You have baked a beautiful cake and now it is time to ice it. You don’t want an uneven and messy icing job to ruin your pride and joy, so using an icing tip is a great tool to help you achieve smooth and even surfaces when icing.
Icing tip 789 is a large tip with a serrated edge on one side and a flat edge on the other side. People love using this particular tip because it makes icing a cake easy.
Place your cake on a turntable. A turntable is a must have item if you want to ice this way. Place the tip in the bottom of your icing bag, fill the bag with your choice of icing and twirl the top to help squeeze the icing down as you go.
