Cake Decorating Ideas

If you intend to decorate your cake, you will want the frosting to be smooth and free of any bumps or lumps.  Creating a cake with smooth icing is really ease to do, if you know what to do.

You Will Need:

• 1 Large 16 inch bag
• 1 Tip number 7892
• Different sized spatulas
• Different sized scrapers
• Roll of Viva paper towels

Fill your bag with frosting and put your cake on a turntable, it makes it a lot easier to work this way, as you constantly need to turn the cake as your frost it.

The Filling

Start on the top of your cake in the centre.  Squeeze your frosting onto the cake as your turn it on the turntable.  Using a continual motion and keep squeezing in a circle getting bigger and following the outside of the previous circle, until the whole top of the cake is covered in rings of icing.  Make sure you follow this through right to the edge.

You can stop at any time to refill or replace your bag; you are still going to smooth the icing, so it doesn’t matter if there are seams at this stage.

Use the smaller of the two spatulas and using the flat side start smoothing your frosting over the top of the cake, slide the spatula side to side, making sure you cover all the gaps and holes.  Move your cake around on the turntable as you sweep your spatula over the top to assist with the smoothing process.

Add your next layer of cake on top of this smoothed over frosting.  It is easier to level your cake first and then place it on top.  Push down slightly on the top layer and ensure it is lined up with the layer below.  Remove any crumbs from the top layer and around the base before continuing.

Frosting Your Cake

Start on the top layer as you did for the filling.  Begin in the centre of the cake and turn it on the turntable as you squeeze the frosting in circles around the top, all the way to the edge.

Move to the bottom side of the cake and add icing all the way around.  Then start higher up, but ensure this layer slightly overlaps the bottom layer.  Don’t worry if you need to stop to get a better grip of your bag or refill it, as there is still a lot of smoothing still to be done.

Once you have frosted all the way up the sides, use your spatula as you did with the filling and start smoothing over the top as your turn your turntable.

Start on the sides using a scraper.  Hold the scraper against the cake and turn your turntable as you go.  Keep going over it until it is smooth and all holes are filled in.  If you need to you can add a little frosting to your spatula to fill any gaps.

After you have done the top and sides and you are happy with the outcome, start on the top of the cake using a large spatula; slide the spatula from the back to the front of the top of the cake, wiping off any excess frosting as you go.   Then do the sides.

Leave the cake for about fifteen minutes and allow the frosting to dry.  If you touch your cake and the frosting sticks to your finger, it is not dry yet.

Place the Viva paper towels over your dried frosting and using the flat of a small scraper gently rub all over the top and sides of the cake.  This will smooth away any icing lines that were caused by the spatulas and scrapers during the smoothing process.

Keep rubbing over the top and sides of the icing until you are happy with the smoothness of your cake. Decorate to your liking and you have an amazing cake to display at any event that has wonderfully smooth icing.