Anyone can make a cake, but there is an actual art to making a cake that won’t
collapse, crumble or seep fillings all over the place. Here are some tips to baking a cake
that is friendly to icing as well as the spatula spreading it!
Making The Cake
The cake that you make serves as the canvas for the great works of art you will
be creating on its surface. It is very difficult to roll fondant or create icing decorations on
a cake that is crooked, sunken or tilted to one side. This chapter is not only devoted to
teaching you how to create a cake that tastes good, but also how to master cake architecture.
Mostly baking the perfect cake is about creating as level as a surface as possible
for the artist (that’s you!) Ideally after you remove the cake from the oven, the cake
should be a light golden brown (with no crispy edges) and boast a level top and straight
sides. The cake should also have very few crumbs. If it doesn’t have straight sides you
can always buy a tool called a cake leveler to shave the bump off of the tops of your
cake.
Another important consideration is the state of your cake pans. Pans that are
warped or bent out of shape are sure to create a cake that is crooked. To save yourself
a lot of cutting and leveling time (as well as a lot of wasted cake) use pans that are in
good shape in the first place.
Baking the Perfect Cake Step-By-Step
To create the perfect cake for decorating:
1) Start with a good, quality pan, properly prepared for baking.
2) Preheat oven to the temperature specified in your recipe.
3) Prepare the pan by polishing it liberally with solid vegetable shortening. Never
use butter, margarine or a liquid based vegetable oil as those can cause the
edges of your cake to crisp and burn. Oils and butters can also cause your cake
to stick to the pan.
4) Dust the pan lightly with flour. Turn the pan in your hands to make sure all the
greased surfaces are covered with the flour. As a rule try to use about two tablespoons
of flour per nine inch pan. Tap the bottom of the pan after dusting to see if
there are any shiny spots. If so dust the pan again. If you want to spare yourself
the trouble of larding and dusting the pans you could also use a product such as
Wilton’s Cake Release, which is designed to help cakes pop easily out of the
pan. This is a highly respected product that is applied straight to the pan like lard,
but there is no need to dust the pans with flour after using it.
5) Pour cake batter in the pan and spread the batter evenly with a spatula. Give the
pan a light bang on your table counter to remove any bubbles that might be in the
batter.
6) Bake cake on the middle rack of a preheated oven for the amount of time specified
in the recipe.
7) To test whether the cake is done, insert a toothpick or cake tester near center
and remove. If tip is clean, cake is done. If batter is visible, bake a little longer
until toothpick comes out clean. When done, remove your cake from the oven
and cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes.
To unmold the cake place a cooling rack on top and flip it over so that when the
cake is unmolded it will be resting on the rack. Lift the pan carefully off of the
cake and gently brush away any loose crumbs.
Leveling the Cake
No cake emerges straight from the oven perfectly straight and flat. After the cake
has cooled one hour, you will need to level it. In essence leveling means using a knife or
a cake leveler to removes the bump (sometimes called the crown) from the cake center
and gives you an even decorating surface.
Trim off the raised center portion using a serrated knife or a cake leveler. Wilton makes
a good one.
Most cake levelers come with three or four different notches through which you
insert wires. You can use several wires to “torte” your cake (separate it into several layers)
by gliding it through the cake. Cake levelers come in different heights and widths to
suit different cake sizes.
If you’re using the Cake Leveler, start with your cake on a cardboard cake circle.
Measure the height you want to cut from your cake, then position the ends of the cutting
wire into the side notches to reach that height. Keep the legs standing level on your
work surface, and cut into the cake, using an easy sliding motion.
If using a knife, place the cake on a cardboard cake circle, then place on it on a
cake turntable. While slowly rotating the turntable, move the knife back and forth across
the top of the cake in a sawing motion to remove the crown (the bulge in the center of
the cake). Try to keep the knife level as you cut. Brush off all loose crumbs.
Some people also set their cakes on turntables to ice them. Tilting cakeboards
with rubber mats on the bottom that keep the cake board (a circle or square of cardboard
that fits below the cake) from slipping.
Cake Boards
A cake board sounds like a fancy thing but it’s really just a piece of cardboard
that fits beneath the cake. Usually the cake board sitting beneath your cake should be
about two inches wider than the cake itself. For example if the cake is a ten inch cake
then get an appropriate shaped cake board (square or circle) to fit beneath it. Some
cake boards are fancy, such as the ones made by the prestigious cake supply company
Wilton, and have a shiny side made of foil and a cardboard side.
If your cake is an odd shape you can cut the cake board to fit using special cardboard
you can purchase at specialty cake supply stores. Some people make their own
cake boards before they bake the cake by tracing the circumference or perimeter of the
pan and adding two inches.
Cake boards are also used as bases for tiered cakes, such as wedding cakes
that sit on pedestals or other pediments.
Ambitious chefs can also decorate the edges of their cakes with Fanci-Foil or
Tuk-N-Ruffle. These are products that allow you to edge the cake board with crinkled
foil to give it a cleaner more decorative look.
Another consideration is using a cake board that already boasts an aluminum foil
edging or a very classic edging. Using these boards gives your cake a very traditional
and antique look.
Stacking the Cake
The simplest cake you can bake consists of two layers sandwiching your favorite
filling. A cake that has more than two layers is technically considered to be a torte.
You can fill your cake with icing or whipped cream but you can also fill them with
spreads and jam. A more modern approach is to fill the center of your cake with fresh
fruits or puddings.
To stack a cake like the professionals do you will want to fill a decorating bag with
icing that is of a medium consistency. You can just squeeze the icing or the filling
through the coupler (an attachment that fits at the end of the bag) or you can attach the
fat nozzle shaped number 12 cake decorating tip to create a thick ridge of icing around
the rim (insider edge of the cake.) This acts as a dam so that when you add any type of
filling it doesn’t spill over the side of the cake. Adding a rim of icing also helps to stabilize
your next cake tier as well as give it more height.
Your next step would be to simply fill the center of the cake with icing, fruit filling,
whipped cream or pudding. You are then ready to place the next layer on top of the
cake. If your icing is not too soft the next layer should fit perfectly on top of the filling. It
is normal for a bit of the icing to expand out from the sides of the cake slightly.
Tortes
Torting a cake simply means using a knife or a leveler to add many levels to the
cake. Between these tiers you can add all kinds of fillings. The key to making a successful
torte is to not use any fillings that are too runny. Buttercream or thick jams or
fruit compotes work best for this.
It is easiest to cut the cake into layers for torting using a cake leveler. However if
you are going to do it by hand, make sure you use a long thin serrated knife such as the
type that is used for cutting bread and that you place the cake on a turntable.
Cake Decorating Made Easy!
15
To cut a cake on a turntable, hold the top of it steady with the flat of your hand
and then while slowly turning the cake cut it laterally into slices. You might want to mark
the cake with toothpicks or dots of icing to make sure you are cutting it straight as opposed
to on a slope.
Icing the Cake
The trickiest thing about icing a cake is keeping crumbs out of the icing. The trick
to keeping crumbs out of the cake is to keep your first layer of icing which is spread on
top of the cake thinner. Think of this foundation layer of icing as being like plaster,
which seals the cake itself and prepares it for decorative moldings.
One tip is to thin the first layer of icing with tiny amounts of corn syrup so that it
does not stick to the cake and cause it to stick to the spatula. Another tip is to let the
spatula glide over the surface of the cake area without actually touching the top of the
cake.
There are many ways to dress up a cake but the following method describes the
basic steps to icing a cake with buttercream or royal icing.
1) Place a large amount of thin consistency icing in the center of the top of the cake.
2) Spread the icing across the top, while never actually touching the cake surface.
Pushing the excess icing down onto the sides of the cake. Build up enough icing
in front of the spatula to prevent pulling up crumbs.
3) Ice the sides of the cake a section at a time. When the sides are covered, hold
the spatula with the edge against the side, slowly spinning the turntable without
lifting the spatula from the cake’s surface. Return excess icing to the bowl and
repeat until sides are smooth.
4) Smooth the top of the cake in the same manner, moving the spatula across the
top until the cake is completely iced.
Congratulations! You are have now created a cake canvas that can support any
one of the popular cake decorating
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