To create intricate and beautiful cakes is an art requiring many skills and tools. Just how many, I didn’t realise until I looked at Cake Decorating, a new magazine available in South Africa that inspired me to extend my very limited decorating skills.
While some of the skills look challenging, it seems there are simple ways to decorate that also look fabulous. From large layered cakes, to the ubiquitous cupcake and tiny iced biscuits, there’s a world of creativity awaiting those interested in the craft.
Apart from time and patience, which you need in large quantities, there are three things you need to create beautiful cakes: techniques, tools and imagination.
The techniques you can learn – and practice makes perfect here; the tools you can buy, and the imagination? Look around, and find ideas.
Copy those in books and magazines, and adapt them to your taste. Change the colouring or flavour of the icing, or the shape of the cake, and you have a unique creation. Be playful.
Cake Decorating is a weekly magazine full of inspiration and step-by-step instructions for everything you need to know about decorating.
It explains things like the different nozzles you need, various kinds of icings, modeling tools and piping basics.
The magazine also gives classic recipes for biscuits and cakes, as well as cakes for special occasions.
Stiff-peak royal icing
500g icing sugar
2 medium egg whites
1 tsp lemon juice
Sift icing sugar into grease-free bowl. Add egg whites and lemon juice and beat together – 4 to 5 minutes on a low speed if using an electric mixer and 6 to 7 minutes for a handheld. Consistency should be smooth and shiny. When icing makes a stiff peak it’s ready. If not using immediately, spoon it into airtight container, cover with damp clean cloth and close lid to prevent it from drying out. This icing is best used fresh, but will keep in fridge for up to five days. Beat it back to the right consistency when you need it.
This is good for piping small details like flowers and leaves, and sticking decorations on cakes. If you need it softer, add a little water, a drop at a time. Soft-peak icing is used for outlining borders and piping patterns. For flooding inside outlines, thin it down until runny.
Blossom Cake
3x20cm sponge cakes, sandwiched together
Buttercream made with 500g butter and 1kg icing sugar, coloured blue
125g royal icing (see recipe above) to make about 50 piped blossoms
Step-by-step guide to piping a blossom:
1. Place petal nozzle into piping bag and 100g of stiff peak royal icing.
2. Pipe a tiny amount on to a flower nail (or make you own by inserting a long needle into a wine cork) and attach a square of greaseproof paper to hold it firmly in place and give a steady base to pipe on.
3. Hold piping bag so that nozzle is at 45 to the top of greaseproof square. The widest part of the nozzle should be near the centre of the square and thinnest part pointing outwards.
4. Use gentle pressure, squeeze out the icing, keeping wide end of nozzle in centre and moving the thin end around in a circular arc shape. Stop squeezing and move the nozzle away when you have petal shape you want.
5. Turn flower nail around and touch nozzle just under the edge of the first petal. Squeeze out second petal, then third and fourth. As you finish, stop squeezing and pull nozzle to centre a little and move it away. If icing sticks up, pat it down with a fine damp paintbrush.
6. Carefully remove paper with blossom on it – use a palette knife – and let it dry for eight hours at least. Wipe clean and repeat until you have 40 to 50 flowers.
7. When they are dry, colour the remaining 25g royal icing pink, watering down to soft peak consistency. Place round piping nozzle in bag and pipe four dots in centre of each flower.
To assemble:
Spread buttercream over cake, starting at the top. Spread as evenly as possible.
Carefully remove flowers from greaseproof squares and stick them gently on the cake.
Attach while buttercream is still wet, but if it has dried, pipe or dab a small amount of soft buttercream on the back of each blossom to help it stick, particularly on the sides of cake.
Start on top edge and gradually work way towards the centre. Place blossoms around the side of the cake.
Iced sponge squares
Madeira Cake
200g unsalted butter
200g castor sugar
4 medium eggs
200g self-raising flour
100g plain flour
grated zest of one and a half lemons
Preheat oven to 170°C and grease and line a 20cm square cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until very pale in colour and fluffy. Break the eggs into the same bowl, one at a time, and beat into the creamed mixture. Sift in the flour, folding into mixture as you add it. Fold in lemon zest. Place mixture in tin and bake for 60 to 80 minutes. Test cake with a skewer – if it comes out clean, it’s ready. Leave for 24 hours before decorating if possible.
To decorate:
Fondant icing (buy ready-made or make your own)
Royal icing (see recipe above)
Apricot glaze
Food colours: yellow, lime, turquoise, orange
Gently score top of the cake to divide it into 16 evenly-sized squares. Cut with a sharp knife. Brush thinly with melted apricot baking glaze and place on a cooling tray over a metal tray, with space around each one.
Sift fondant icing sugar into a bowl and pour half the amount of water recommended to ensure a thick covering. Mix well, add a few more teaspoons if you feel it’s too thick. Pour half of the white fondant icing over seven squares, covering each square evenly. Divide remaining icing into three bowls, tint one lime, one yellow and one turquoise. Pour each bowl over three squares.
Piping: Divide 100g soft peak royal icing into four small bowls and tint one yellow, one lime, one turquoise and one orange. Place a damp towel over each to stop them drying out. Use simple lines and dots in a variety of combinations and colours.
Marbled Heart cookies
Sugar cookies:
125g unsalted butter
125g castor sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
250g plain flour
Beat the sugar and butter together until light and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix together. Sift half the flour into the bowl and mix it in.
Sift other half and mix again.
Knead the dough until smooth, wrap in clingfilm and let rest in fridge for half an hour. Preheat oven to 180ºC. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to about 4mm thick.
Cut out heart shapes. Place on a baking tray lined with parchment and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown. Wait for the cookies to cool before decorating.
To decorate:
Stiff-peak royal icing (recipe top left)
Red colouring
Cocktail stick
Snip a small hole in a piping bag or use a round nozzle. Spoon stiff peak icing into it until half full. Start at top centre of heart and using even pressure pipe an outline around the inside edge of cookie to the tip of the heart. Stop, move nozzle away and then outline the other half.
Divide 150g of stiff-peak icing into three separate bowls. Add water to the first one until runny consistency for flooding. Add a little water and a dab of colouring to the second bowl and stir to get light pink. Add a little water and more red to third one to make a rich red.
Now fill three small piping bags with the icing. Using white, flood the inside of the cookie, starting at the edge and zigzagging up and down until completely flooded. Working quickly, drop in three pink horizontal lines across the white icing. Hold the tip of nozzle just above flooded icing and use a gentle, even pressure to pipe a line. Stop squeezing and lift nozzle away swiftly. Now drop in red lines a few millimetres below each pink line. Again working swiftly, take a cocktail stick and dip into icing and drag it in straight vertical lines down through pink and red stripes. At the bottom, keep it in the icing and move in a curve and drag it back up through pink and red stripes again. Continue up and down to create a marbled pattern. At end quickly pull up the cocktail stick. If icing peaks, dab it back with a damp, flat brush. - Cape Argus