How to Prevent the Three Big Mistakes Cake Decorators Make

Whats in a cake? It gives smiles to many children as they watch you make one. Special occasions become even more unforgettable when there is a cake around. So it matters if its not created perfectly. To avoid any baking tragedy, stop big-time errors as early as now.

1. How do I freeze my cakes so they wont dry out?

A good cake decorator plans well ahead of time all of his cake projects, and that includes saying no to the request of a child for you to bake one for the next day because its his project. But then, would you really do that? Should this be the case, then at least you must be told about it at least twelve hours before the actual occasion so you can properly plan.

A key step in preplanning is to learn the strategy of properly freezing the cake. This way you can do the actual baking days, even weeks, before filling and icing them. This will help you cut a good amount of time of cake preparation on the day of the occasion.

Yet, freezing them may cause the cakes to taste blunt and become dry. So you need to wrap and set aside them appropriately. It is best to freeze cakes plain without icing.

You can use a plastic wrap to cover the cake in two to three layers. The aluminum foil, meanwhile, comes in handy in order to keep the moisture out of the wrapped cake. This will also lengthen the freshness of the cake.

To completely defrost the cake, it should be taken from the freezer at least a day or two before you begin your cake decoration.

The cake must be defrosted according to room temperature before adding the icing.

As mentioned, it is not ideal to put ice before freezing the cake, because once you get into this step, the icing will sweat during defrosting.

Youll end up with soggy icing and droopy decorations. It isnt ideal.

So bake cakes as early as possible.

2. How do I keep my filling from bulging out the sides of my cake into the icing?

This big difficulty when it comes to cake decoration is now being fought almost every day. Its called the Battle of the Bulge, and almost all cake experts are getting desperate to seek help.

How do I prevent my filling from bulging out the edges of my cake into the icing?

There is an actual procedure that promises to contain your fillings and stop them from overflowing.

a.) First, you can make an icing dam at the edges of the cake. This makeshift barrier will prevent the overflow of filling into the edges.

b.) You can also wrap the whole assembled cake with crumb coats.

c.) Refrigerate your cake for two to three hours to permit both the cake and crumb coat to firm up.

If chilled, the icing dams and the crumb coat will work together to seal your cake and contain the filling. Then you can already add the final icing. No more bulge!

3. I have a hard time with crumbs in my icing. What can I do?

Crumbs shouldnt be ignored. Even if they're so minute, they can still annoy you by damaging the overall cake design.

Bakers are getting nuts and are still in limbo as to the best solution to the problem.

Do you know of crumb coat? It is a layer of glaze or icing that is thin and that you can place in the assembled cake so the crumbs will stick in the surface of the cake.

To apply a crumb coat, take some of your icing and thin it with extra of whatever liquid is part of the recipewater, milk, or creamuntil you get an almost-runny consistency. You cover the entire cake with the thinned icing.

You wont have any problems about crumbs mixing with the icing or even how the cake will appear. If the crumbs dry up, all of them will then stick to the surface and the cake will have a good layer to hold them together. To speed up everything, you place the cake in the freezer. Applying the crumb coat absolutely adds a little time to your cake decorating, but its always time well spent. It decreases the risks of crumbs mixing with the final icing as well as solidifying the cake base.

Since youve been armed with these face-saving tips and techniques, youll be prepared to take on any cake anytime, anywhere!