Cake Decorating Techniques

One thing I really love about pastry school, and especially my latest class, is the chance to get to experiment without having to worry (okay, directly worry) about the cost. At home in my own kitchen, I would never have a reason to make a cake that had four differently designed sides that I can't sell or even really use for portfolio pictures. But in school, I've already paid for those little square blocks of styrofoam like three times so pass 'em on over! 

My assignment with this "cake" was to use different techniques in mixed media to decorate each side separately. There were components that I had to put on there, but we had creative licence over most of it. On the side above I used royal icing to pipe the border and drop the delicate little strings from the cake onto pastillage bases. For more examples of string work, check out this baby shower cake too.

On the next side I did a ruffles leading up the side in gumpaste. You can cover whole cakes with ruffles like these which is a look I like a lot. Hanging down the side is a lace applique also made from gumpaste, similar to the ones on the side of the lace cake I made for a wedding last summer.

This side has more strings hanging from a crimped edge. Of all the sides, this one is definitely my least favorite, but it was still good practice to work with a crimper. The border is a rope made out of fondant.

On the final side I did a border out of a fondant rope, cut to have a "crown-like" edge. The butterfly is extremely tediously and tiny piped royal icing and the banner and buttons are also made out of fondant. I like the fondant banners and swags a lot and think they'd be perfect on a wedding cake for the right event. Lots of great ideas and practice came out of this class and there's still a lot more where that came from.

Royal Baby Shower Cake

I recently finished up my first class at the CIA on the other side of my externship, Confectionery Arts. It's a class that I've been looking forward too since I started pastry school because of the chance to experiment with cake decorating mediums I might not use on my own like chocolate, pulled sugar, and the royal icing string work featured on today's cake:

This is a dummy cake that was a partner build, and I worked on it over the course of two classes with my teammate Emma. The design was assigned to us by our chef and we made all the decorating elements by hand. It's covered in light blue rolled fondant and the darker blue pieces coming off of the sides are made from gum paste. All of the white on the cake is Royal Icing. Because of our color choices I thought it ended up looking a bit like it belonged as a centerpiece to a swanky shower for a new mama-to-be!

Royal icing is the type of decorating medium that is a jack of all trades. It can be used as a rock hard drying glue, a paint to embellish cakes and fill in stencils, or delicately piped strings suspended in air as seen on this cake here. String work is a very old school technique for cake decorating but it's something that I've always wanted to try my hand at. Royal icing strings are a tedious business, but I think it is a gorgeous way to embellish a cake. Let's get a close up on those strings:

My teammate Emma also made this sweet sugar sculpture (pun intended) to sit a top this beauty while I went a little cross-eyed dropping all of those strings. 

Our result was definitely a style much different from the type of cakes I normally do, but so delicate and beautiful. I will definitely use Royal icing as a medium for wedding cakes again, especially lace or detailed piping. 

Jimmy Buffet Birthday Cake

A cupcake tower that gives a nod to the kitschy, tropical, parrot-head culture. What's special about this cake are the unique flavors and handmade sugar decorations. There are three varieties of cupcake: the plain jane (vanilla with vanilla buttercream), classic red velvet (with cream cheese frosting) and dark chocolate chambord (a tipsy, chocolatey cake filled with raspberry preserves, fresh raspberries and iced with chocolate ganache). The 6" cake topper is also chocolate chambord.

All the flowers, leaves, bamboo and flip flops are handmade out of fondant and gumpaste.

The parrot was an online find, and he is the only non-edible decoration on the cake.

It was a cupcake tower in paradise.

75th Wine Barrel Birthday Cake

My Grandma turned 75 this week and I made her a wine-inspired cake for the party we had for her this weekend. The bottom layer is meant to look like a wine barrel, and is all handmade from gum paste. The top layer is covered and decorated with Italian butter cream.

Blue Bow Dummy Cake

No, the inside is not edible, but yes, the outside is all handmade! I'm especially proud of how well the bows turned out. Bows made with gum paste, bands and cake are covered with fondant.

50th Birthday Cake

My parents turned 50 last March and my sisters and I threw them a big party to celebrate. This was my first time using fondant and gum paste and I loved the smooth look. The cake is vanilla-almond cake with berries and cream on the bottom and chocolate almond on the top. The numbers and flowers are handmade in gum paste.