Covering Cakes With Fondant

Hey cake virgins!

Let's talk fondant. It can come in two forms. The one you may be most familiar with is rolled fondant, which is used to cover wedding cakes and give them that smooth, clean look. This cake, courtesy of Pink Cake Box, one of the blogs I follow, is covered with fondant. The gorgeous cherry blossom flowers are made of gum paste.

Poured fondant is a cream concoction used as a filling or coating for cakes, pastries and candies or sweets.

For the purpose of this blog, we are just going to discuss rolled fondant. Rolled fondant reminds me a lot of play-dough. The flexibility of fondant is what makes fondant so great as a cake covering. If it tears because you rolled it to thin, no biggie! You can mush it back together and roll it out again.

Before putting fondant on your cake, you need to cover it in buttercream icing. This works best with fondant. Not only does it help the fondant stick to the cake, but if you make a mistake and need to take the fondant off of your cake, you won't rip your cake to shreds.

For information on how to ice your cake properly, check out my previous post. In that post, I discussed crumb coating your cake. CRUMB COATING IS NOT THE COAT THAT YOU WOULD PUT FONDANT ON! If you do that, your fondant will look lumpy.

After the crumb coat, you put the cake in the fridge to cool. Once cooled, you take another bowl with a clean spatula and clean, crumb free frosting and coat the cake a second time. This layer will be crumb free and smooth. You can check out this video from Epicurious to show you how to make the top coat of icing.



Once you have a clean top coat of icing, we can start with the fondant. I found these steps off of Wilton, and have included a few of my own tips as well.  Step one would be to knead the fondant. You want it to be a workable consistency. If the fondant becomes to sticky, and is all over your hands and work station, knead in a little confectioner's sugar. You can also dust your work surface and your rolling pin with confectioners' sugar to prevent it from sticking everywhere else. It should be rolled out to the size of your cake. You want it to be able to cover both the top and sides of your cake.

The next step would be to gently lift the fondant over the rolling pin. Sprinkle confectioners' sugar on the top of the fondant to make sure it doesn't stick to itself. Then, all you do is position the fondant over your cake, just like you would if you were laying a table cloth on your kitchen table.

Nest, shape the fondant to the sides of your cake. It would be best to use a smoother here, as the pressure from your hands can leave impressions on the fondant. If you are light with your hands though, then the smoother isn't necessary. Starting in the middle of the cake top, you smooth outward and down the sides, removing air bubbles and smoothing as you go. If you do get an air bubble, insert a thin pin on an angle into the bubble, release the air and smooth the area again. Once the sides are covered, use a spatula or a sharp knife to trim the excess fondant.

And poof! You've just covered your first cake with fondant! You can move on to decorating the cake! We will start talking about some tips in later posts, but if you are eager to begin, you can check out videos on Epicurious and step-by-step instructions on Wilton.

Until next time cake virgins!

Crumb coat that cake

Hey cake virgins!

Now that you've baked that delicious cake of yours, let's refrain from picking at it and start turning it into a cake to make your friends envious.

Icing your cake is the next step, and I want to introduce you to the beauty of a crumb coat. A crumb coat is a thin layer of icing that you lay on the cake. It's purpose is to catch all those crumbs to allow your top layer of icing to be smooth and crumb free, kind of like putting a sock on before you wear your tennis shoes.

I have attached a video from Epicurious that shows you exactly how to crumb coat your cake and how to stack them, but I want to give a few of my own pointers.

To level the cakes in the video, they use a long, serrated knife. While this is fine and dandy, you can't guarantee that the cake will be level. I still highly recommend the use of a leveler. It is just an easier and safer way to make sure those layers are nice and level, especially if you want to make a two or more tier cake.

I give mad props to Epicurious for the use of the wax paper under the cake. GREAT idea and something I have never done. The wax paper also has an added benefit of making your cake easier to move at the end of the day. This could eliminate the need for the lifter if you are doing a one tier cake, but i still recommend the lifter if you are making a two or more tier cake. It is much easier to slide the cake off of the lifter than to slide it off wax paper.

Now, if you are in a rush, you can just use store bought frosting. If you want to get creative, you can find icing recipes all over the web. I recommend making buttercream icing or cream cheese icing, as they are both basic flavors that everyone can enjoy. Check out Wilton for icing recipes!

Check out the video and good luck on those cakes!

Until next time cake virgins!

Baking the Cake

Hey cake virgins!!

Let's talk cake. Delicious, mouth-watering, succulent cake. As the basis for all our decorating, what kind of cake you bake can spell masterpiece or disaster for your cake. For example, don't use a soft, crumbly cake when you want to stack two or more cakes as the weight will just crush the cake down. This recipe is from Wilton (I know, surprise, right?) and is for a basic yellow cake. What I love about this cake is that, once cooled, it is a strong and sturdy cake, perfect for sculpting or stacking. I've used it on numerous occasions,  since basic yellow cake is usually a crowd pleaser.

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Basic-Yellow-Cake

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sifted cake flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup butter or margarine
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Instructions:   
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom of two 8-inch round cake pans and line with waxed paper or parchment paper. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Cream sugar and butter together until light. Add eggs and vanilla to creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Continue beating one minute. Spread batter evenly in prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely. Fill and frost as desired.

Quick Note:
Now, the recipe gives you the baking time for two 8-inch rounds, but don't worry! You are in no way stuck to just making this batter into two 8-inch round cakes! You can easily make this into whatever shape you want, using the right pan. The baking time will change of course, but there is a quick and easy solution to this.
The easiest way to make sure your cake is cooked right is with the use of a toothpick or any other long, stick thing you have lying around the house. Check your cake often, using a oven light if you have one since that will keep all the heat inside the oven. Once the cake starts looking golden and cake-like, open the oven, and stick the toothpick into the center of the cake. If, when you pull it out, the toothpick is clean (meaning no pieces of cake crumb on the stick) then your cake is done! If you do see crumbs on the toothpick, close the oven and give it a few more minutes, and check on it again.
This ensures that your cake won't be overcooked, but also not underdone.

There are HUNDREDS of other cake recipes out there, so you certainly aren't limited to just using yellow or white cake. Just make sure that whatever recipe you use, that it suits your needs. Don't choose a soft, crumbly cake when you want to build a three tier cake or sculpt anything. Try recipe sites like Recipezaar and Epicurious to find great cake recipes!

So grab that mixing bowl and get baking!

Until next time cake virgins!

Top 5 cake baking tools

Hey cake virgins! 


Before we can go on about baking cakes and decorating them, let's talk about the basic tools that you'll need.


This is my list of the top five cake baking tools that will make your life easier. These tools don't include the things you'll need to do intense cake decorating, but these are tools I use every single time I bake a cake and prepare it for decorating. 


1. Cake pans: 
Yes it seems like an obvious choice, but there are a wide variety of pans that you can choose from. Round pans, square pans, heart shaped pans, etc.


Now, I've been fond of simple round pans, but if you bought square or sheet pans, you could easily make several circle cakes out of those pans. It would be much harder and much more limiting to make a square out of a circle. 


The best pans I found come from the cake gurus, Wilton.Wilton offers both round and square pans, as well as a variety of sheet pans at a variety of price points. I recommend going for the decorator preferred pans, as the extra-thick aluminum will dispense heat efficiently on the larger pans. They do run a little more expensive, depending on where you buy them from, but for those who have older ovens that disperse heat unevenly. I know my oven certainly does, and these pans make baking the cakes evenly much easier.


2. Spatula: 
Again, another basic choice, but I wouldn't go for just any old spatula. Wilton has an angled spatula that is great for icing cakes. Straight spatulas can be used as well, but the angled spatula keeps your fingers away from the cake, preventing any smudging that might happen if your fingers grazed the sides of the cake.


3. Cake leveler: 
This is a nifty little tool that can be used time and time again. Wilton has two varieties of cake leveler, one for large cakes and one for smaller cakes. Depending on what kind of cakes you are baking, you can decide which size would suit your needs. All you do is place the adjustable wire in the notches that equal the desired height and move it through the cake in a slow, sawing motion. 


Warning though! DO NOT DO THIS WHEN THE CAKE IS HOT!! If you do, your cake will crumble and fall apart right before your eyes, and your icing job will be much harder. 


4. Food coloring: 
Food coloring comes in three main types: liquid, liquid-gel, gel-paste, and powder. 


Liquid food coloring is the most common, but the worst for cake decorating. It gives the weakest color and will thin out whatever it is being mixed with.


Liquid-gel gives a deep, rich color without thinning anything out.


Gel-paste gives deeper, more vivid colors than gel or liquid. It is very concentrated, so you don't have to use a lot of it to get the color you desire.


Powder food coloring very concentrated. It can be used in a variety of cake decorating techniques, but I wouldn't worry about buying it now. Powder food coloring is a much more advanced technique.


I recommend using gel-paste, available at craft stores and at Wal-Mart. It will last you a lot longer, since you have to use less of it to get your desired color. 

This is a cupcake cake I made for my sister's birthday. Right as I was about to start decorating it, I had discovered that  my parents had thrown out the food coloring that I had bought. I was left with liquid food coloring. The coloring ended up being completely off, the icing was extremely thin, and I ended up having to use flour to thicken everything. Lesson of the story: stay away from liquid food coloring....oh....and keep food coloring away from your parents. 


5. Cake lifter:
While probably one of the least necessary things, a cake lifter will come in handy for when you don't have an extra set of hands to help you stack cakes. Because it is such a strong, flat piece of metal, it can easily squeeze under your cake without damaging it. Wilton offers one with a no-slip grip too, which will come in handy when you've been elbow deep in icing, flour, and cake batter.


As you may have noticed, I've recommended Wilton products for the cake baking basic tools. I actually recommend Wilton products for everything related to cake. From experience, I know their products to be quality and to provide the best results for an affordable price. Other products and companies can be used though, so if you find the same thing at a better price, go for it! 


However, all the Wilton products should be available at your local craft store or at Wal-Mart. 


Until next time cake virgins!