I teach cake decorating - ask me anything

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

Put my knowledge to the test 😄 (out all morning, maybe day, will answer questions tonight if I even get any! 👍🏻)

[cloudjumper]

How do you get the sides of a cake straight enough to be able to put a stencil on? No matter what I try, they are never flat enough, once I've covered the cake with marzipan and fondant.

[GMtoBe]

How can I make really good buttercream that will hold it's shape when piped? I can never get it to stay!

[Imjustagirlwhobakes]

What is the best way to stack tiered cakes without damaging the fondant? I'm making my friends wedding cake and assembling the 3 tiers at the venue is giving me nightmares!

[timeisnotaline]

Do you teach stuff like lace work / 3d piping? Also do you teach People who you just think are awful at it? Do you get CFs asking for cut price wedding cakes as a favour?

[NewDOOFUSfor18]

Is it possible to teach someone who has an interest in cake decorating but absolutely no artistic flare whatsoever?

[Gotitwrongagain]

I'd really like to practice piping but would rather not make (and waste) lots of butter cream icing. Can you suggest anything that has a similar consistency but that
a) won't make me fat
b) won't dissolve my Kid's teeth (ds2 is lunge a hoover when he sees sugar!!)
and C) cost a huge amount.
It doesn't have to be edible but preferably reusable!

Also, was trying to ice buns for a cake sale at the weekend but it was so hot, the icing wouldn't hold it's shape and it was a race to get it into the fridge. Can you suggest something to prevent the icing melting? I usually use a little milk with icing sugar and butter.

I'd love someone to teach me how to perfect it.

Tia

[charbarrr]

OP! your name! 🙊😂😂😂 haha

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

Ok, some lengthy answers coming up 😄 sorry! Tried to give full answers though!

How do you get the sides of a cake straight enough to be able to put a stencil on?

God, I hate doing stencils 🤦🏼‍♀️ all I can suggest is being meticulous in every step before you get to the stencil, do everything you can to achieve an even coverage!:

• Use ganache plates & a hot bench scraper to get perfect ganache
  
• Use spacers when rolling sugarpaste
  
• leave your supposedly perfect fondant to harden
  
• Adhere stencil to cake using for example Trex - try and get no gaps between cake and stencil - it’s hard!
  
• Apply royal icing and do a lot of touch ups! You can get gauze things from Evil Cake Genius which are meant to help but I’ve never used them.
  

Stencils are really tricky IME. Royal icing doesn’t leave a mark if you pick it off when dry, so I’d kind of score any rogue icing when it’s wet and then leave it to dry and pick it off using a sterile pin or cocktail stick or whatever.

How can I make really good buttercream that will hold it's shape when piped? I can never get it to stay!

I do a lot of piped buttercream flowers. I find ‘American’ buttercream the sturdiest and use a 1:2 ratio of butter:icing sugar. Room temp butter, mix til pale, add half icing sugar, then the other half, then if it seems a bit too stiff still then add a DROP of milk (or water). Mix again then see if you need more. Bear in mind that when you come to fill your piping bag, you should make sure you ‘paddle’ your buttercream so you get rid of the air bubbles (slowly mix back and forth), this softens up the buttercream as well so you don’t want to have previously added too much milk.
Also are you filling the bag too much so the heat of your hand makes your buttercream too soft?

What is the best way to stack tiered cakes without damaging the fondant? I'm making my friends wedding cake and assembling the 3 tiers at the venue is giving me nightmares!
What’s the reason for transporting it unassembled? (Just nosey, doesn’t really relate to Q 😄) I would suggest making sure the fondant has had a couple of days to harden up, so it shouldn’t really dent. To get the cakes out of the boxes I shift the box to the edge of the table, open the side of the box and then you can get your hand under the cake and lift it. You can use a palette knife to life the edge but I’ve found that can damage the fondant edges.
Hmm what else. Take any rings off to avoid dents. Presumably you’ll have ribbon/piping etc around the base of each tier so I wouldn’t worry too much about the bottom edges.

Instead of a palette knife and hand to get the cake on top of the one below, one place I worked used an angled pizza paddle eg Cutter + Pizza Peel + Pizza Shovel Pizza Server, TedGem 3 in 1 Pizza Paddle with Wooden Handle 430 Stainless Steel for Baking Homemade Pizza and Bread Pies & Cookies Cake [[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DFYB2VK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_gXqrBbG0K1C4N?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 this]] which was handy.

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

Do you teach stuff like lace work / 3d piping? Also do you teach People who you just think are awful at it?

I loooove royal icing the best and absolutely love the Lambeth method, oriental stringwork etc 💕 but no, I haven’t taught it, not enough people want to learn it, so the classes won’t sell, so my boss won’t go for it. I’ve designed a modern Lambeth method class but alas not taught it.
I’ve taught some people who do really struggle, sometimes they just don’t have the right technique and that can be taught, but a lot of the time it’s because they just haven’t listened or have missed a step. There’s a certain kind of personality that will just chat through demos, be on their phone, have a laugh, then stress when they don’t get 😒 that can really hold up a class just because someone hasn’t been paying attention!

Do you get CFs asking for cut price wedding cakes as a favour?
Not really, I either charge what I should and take barely any orders because of it 😄 or do free cakes for friends. Hence I don’t take commissions anymore as people just aren’t willing to pay enough to make my house being taken over and my evenings eaten up worthwhile. There’s a lot of competition too here as it’s the classic Mum Job and they don’t charge a living rate and also there’s a cake shop in town which makes cakes for pittance so not really worth it round here!


Is it possible to teach someone who has an interest in cake decorating but absolutely no artistic flare whatsoever?
I’d say so! Most things eg models, piping, can be broken down into specific shapes and most people are able to copy them one by one and end up with something reasonable!

I'd really like to practice piping but would rather not make (and waste) lots of butter cream icing. Can you suggest anything that has a similar consistency but that
a) won't make me fat
b) won't dissolve my Kid's teeth (ds2 is lunge a hoover when he sees sugar!!)
and C) cost a huge amount.
Hmm tricky one!! I can’t honestly think of anything. For practise I do use buttercream (I find it easy to not eat lone BC), and either use dummy cakes (they can go in the dishwasher so just use and reuse), or pipe onto the side of a bowl, glass etc to practise side piping or onto table/cellophane etc if piping from above?? That way you don’t have to make a cake and freeze it for reuse (done that one!) or eat it.

Also, was trying to ice buns for a cake sale at the weekend but it was so hot, the icing wouldn't hold it's shape and it was a race to get it into the fridge. Can you suggest something to prevent the icing melting? I usually use a little milk with icing sugar and butter.

Originally I thought you meant iced buns/iced fingers, but I think you mean cupcake-type-things? You can use royal icing sugar instead of normal icing sugar and that will keep buttercream a bit stiffer in this heat! It has egg powder in which keeps things sturdier.

Hope that helps!

[Gotitwrongagain]

I'd love to be able to pipe flowers. I've watched YouTube tutorials where they pipe onto a stick. Is that how you do them?

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

gotitwrong

I use flower nails! Love it.

[OohMavis]

I'm a cakemaker. Is teaching profitable?

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

oohmavis

Depends, I make £15 an hour but do a day a month max! Also I am self employed within a cake school so if I was teaching from my kitchen table I’d be making a lot more (but also my house would be a wreck 😄 or more like, id spend hours getting it into an acceptable state for pupils to see 😄)

[M0reGinPlease]

What does Merriwhite powder do?! Loads of people have told me it makes buttercream more stable but I don't know what it is or does!

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

moregin

It’s basically egg powder so you can use it for royal icing (or add it to buttercream to make it more stable - I mentioned using RI powder in buttercream upthread - you could add meriwhite to regular icing sugar for the same effect). You could also use it to make meringues apparently but I’ve never tried. Just use a bloomin egg 😄

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

Basically the egg proteins make things nice and firm.

[M0reGinPlease]

Thank you!

[Gotitwrongagain]

Great answers, thanks for your help.

Yes, buns =cup cakes to me 😄 my mum always called them buns, as did i until i reached 30 something and realised the rest of the world generally call them cup cakes 😂 and sometimes i forget!

Would love to see some photos of your work!

[Racecardriver]

Can you do mirror glazing? What is the best technique to get it right. This thread is making me really hungry BTW.

[Pollaidh]

Are you any good at plastering? I've often thought they were similar skills...

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

can you do mirror glazing? I’ve never tried sorry!

are you good at plastering it really appeals to me and would find that such a satisfying job I reckon! I’ve never done plastering but bloody love whenever I need to get the polyfilla out!

[SneakyGremlins]

How can I colour fondant so it has a marble type effect? It always ends up like Playdoh - ie all colours smudged together

[FredSheeran]

Is there any way of making nice thick cream cheese frosting that doesn’t end up runny as soon as you add sugar, or is UK cream cheese just different to US cream cheese?

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

sneaky if you use too many colours then it does tend to all blend into shades of brown - I tried to do a rainbow marble once and it didn’t end well. So it’s best to stick to shades of one colour plus white. I’d do majority white, then eg a light grey, dark grey and tiny bit of black. Roll all colours into sausages, roll the sausages together into one big sausage, then twist and fold the sausage a couple of times (not too many!). Roll out and hope for the best, usually I find one side of the rolled fondant is much more pleasing than the other.
Or you can use gel colours and just not mix in completely!

Fred I make a regular buttercream 1:2 ratio, without adding any liquid, and then at the end add in a few spoons of cream cheese to taste. Seems to work better that way! Get rid of any liquid that’s on top of the cheese before you put it in.

gotitwrong I would post some pics but they’re all on Instagram and I don’t want to out myself (very unlikely I know!). Should have name changed!

[Imjustagirlwhobakes]

Thank you so much for answering.

I think transporting an assembled 3 tier cake would stress me even more! I'd be terrified it would fall over in the car, and I don't think it would fit in my boot assembled! Also I have never tried put a dowel all the way through the tiers (I'm a complete beginner at this - baking has always just been a hobby!)

I'm definitely going to get one of those angled pizza paddles - thanks for the tip!

Now to hope it isn't too hot to give the fondant a chance at going hard.