Decorating Kids Birthday Cakes - The Basic Essentials

In addi...

When I very first started baking and decorating my children birthday cakes, the range of decorating tools I could acquire seemed endless. And there was so much advice out there on cake decorating! It was a whole new world to me. Nonetheless, I reined in my impulsive nature to get every thing I thought I necessary, and purchased some standard tools. It is these fundamentals which have 'stood by me' in my quest for decorating those colourful creations my kids ask for each and every year on their birthdays.

In addition to these tips, I've added some helpful ideas for decorating your child's subsequent birthday cake - some of which were given to me freely from other individuals while a couple of goodies were borne from my personal mistakes...

Cake Decorating Gear:

You don't necessarily need to have elaborate equipment but you will need to have some standard supplies. You can buy most of the following supplies at specialty baking shops or even your nearby supermarket. They are indispensable for baking and decorating any birthday cake your child could dream up.

Rubber Spatulas:

It's great to have a set of assorted sizes that are created of flexible rubber. They're the best tool for scraping frosting from the sides of bowls.

Metal Spatulas:

Have at least one particular massive and one particular tiny angled spatula for spreading and smoothing frosting. Keep away from your cake crumbling by using a tiny metal spatula to gently ice the cake with a extremely thin layer of frosting before adding the 'real' layer. This process is referred to as 'crumb coating'.

Piping Bags:

Reusable 8", 12" and 18" bags with plastic coating on the inside for effortless cleaning. Clear plastic disposable zip-lock bags are great for little jobs.

Coupling Nozzles:

These nozzles are vital simply because they enable you to modify your guidelines according to the style. They can also act as a extremely massive round writing tip for piping figures.

Gel, Powder or Paste Food colouring:

These are preferable to liquid food colouring simply because they are much more concentrated and will not thin down the frosting.

Guidelines:

1. Have all ingredients at room temperature.

two. Use an electric mixer when beating the cake mixture. You have far more opportunity of eliminating bumps in the pre-cooked cake mixture.

three. Wire Cake Racks are essential for cooling and inverting cakes.

four. Trim baked cake so it sits flat. Use the smooth base as the best of the finished cake and decorate with icing.

five. To cease crumbling, bake the cake the day ahead of you want to decorate it and put it in the freezer.

6. Decorate even though nevertheless cold.

7. Cake boards are really low-cost to pick up from cake decorating shops. Or you can cover a huge piece of cardboard (cut from a box) with coloured foil.

8. Butter Cream Icing is great for decorating cakes. The only point I have discovered with butter cream icing is that when you add colouring, a pastel colour is the only colour it will go to. This is simply because of the fat in the butter. If you want a darker colour, you have 3 choices: Use plain icing sugar and water then add colouring replace the butter in the butter cream icing recipe with vegetable shortening cakes or add black coloured powder to your icing mixture - it will deepen the colour.

9. Cut strips of waxed paper to slip underneath the edges of your unfrosted cake. When finished, you can pull them away and you won't smear the cake board.