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Using A Combination of Techniques To Create A Beautiful Cake With Little Effort Required

Published 22 November 2012 by Francine Appleby

Using a small open star tip/nozzle, a small plain tip/nozzle along with one of the 3 designer stencils from issue 31 and some edible gold spray to create an unusual and unique looking celebration cake!

 

I was delighted with this week's results, the piping tips/nozzles used and the easy to use stencil along with some edible gold spray which made for a stunning looking cake with very little effort required. It was quite like play time in the kitchen and this was really fun to make. I had this in mind as an alternative to a traditionally iced Christmas cake and was most surprised as well as delighted when someone who saw it said it looks like a really cool wedding cake! Well, whether you see it as a Christmas cake or wedding cake, this little beauty is just that! A beautiful cake that is really pretty and honestly, it didn't take long to do. Working on a small scale here with a small fruit cake as the base cake with a layer of sugarpaste applied to cover the cake, the cake was ready fore the decorating. It was then a case of using the stencil with the edible gold spray across the top of the cake as well as around the sides which made for instantaneous and quick decoration with ease. Place the stencil where you want the image to be and spray! Simple as!

 

I then piped on the remaining detailing. I piped small tiny beads using a small plain tip/nozzle and royal icing around the base of the cake to make it extra secure and of course to cover the unfinished edge where the sugarpaste meets the cake board. I piped a shell pattern around the top edge of the cake which is easy to do. Using a small open star tip/nozzle, you start by applying moderate pressure and with the tip/nozzle pointing toward you creating a curve from your starting point going upwards and with the tip/nozzle pointing away from you as you bring the curve down towards you and the cake before repeating at the start again to create an overlapped effect of shells in a continuous circle without stopping piping until you are back to the start point again. Once I had decorated the top edge I decided I would put little stars or peaks in the inner edge of this first row of adjoined overlapping shells. I switched back to the plain tip/nozzle and decorated the top of the cake with some curvy lines and repeated the curved line pattern around the sides of the cake too.

 

Once I had made this little cake, I was ready for the up-scale! Next time I use this type of decoration it will be on a much larger cake, will still be easy to do and I have had my practice run to make sure that on the bigger cake it will be as good as this one looks. Look out for next week's post with more on techniques and decorating!