Re: Baking - The Beginners Guide
o.k. I made a cake last night and decorated it today.
Here is what you need. Take note of the measuring utensils. They are important. There is a measuring jug for liquids (in the pan) and measuring cups for dry substances. There are also measuring spoons besides the black measuring cups.
You don’t need to buy anything fancy or expensive. You can find these in the dollar store as well, so you don’t have to break the bank. These are very important as they are the correct measuring tools.
One mistake I used to make was using a regular teaspoons and tablespoons and chai mugs as measuring tools. You can’t do that with baked goods.
Put all your ingredients together and mix it until it is smooth and free of lumps. If you are using an electric mixture, be sure to use it on the lowest speed available. Air can become trapped into the mixture if mixed on a higher setting, which is what can cause the cake to sink in the middle while baking.
Grease your pan with LOTS of shortening. This technique works for my cakes. You can ignore this if you use the wax strips cause that seems to work for many people as well.
If you grease your pan, cover it with lots of flour. Make sure to shake it around so it goes everywhere.
Put the batter into the pan. Leave enough room for the cake to rise. So don’t fill it more than ¾ inches.
For this particular cake, I used fresh strawberries for the filling. I would not need them until the day I decorate the cake (today), so I prepped them in advance so that they would dry and not be too juicy. Left in the fridge overnight.
I baked the cake at 300 degrees (I have a gas oven) for 1 hour and 20 minutes. I only opened the oven after the first hour was complete. It baked fairly flat, which is how it is supposed to be.
I take the cake out of the pan immediately and place it on a cooling rack. I let it cool like this (upside down) for 3 hours at room temperature.
I like to bake my cake in advance, never the day I decorate it. It makes it easier and less crumbly. So I covered this cake in a plastic bag, placed it back in the pan (just out of habit to put it back in the pan) and left it in the fridge overnight.
If I have to freeze it, I wrap the cake up in saran wrap, at least 3 times, tightly covered, then put into a plastic bag, then another plastic bag and into the freezer. The day before I have to decorate it, I leave it in the fridge overnight to defrost.
The next morning – Decorating the Cake
I have some of my tools here. I plan on using gold pear dust (never used before, have no clue at this point how it will turn out) as part of the decorations of the fondant. You will also see a serrated spatula. You can use any knife/spatula that is serrated, as long as the length is long enough to cut through the entire length of the cake.
I put all my ingredients together for the icing. I include my leftover cream cheese from the last cake I made on Valentine’s Day. I also use more milk, as opposed to water, for the icing as milk tends to make the icing more fluffy.
Mix, mix, mix. You will be able to tell when the icing is ready as the consistency will change. It will become smoother, fluffier and free of lumps.
Ok here is my cake. I have it on a cake board as it makes it easier to carry. I also use a cake turntable, which makes it very easy to ice the cake. Will say more on this later. The cake is already flat, so I tend to cheat at this point. Usually, you are supposed to slice the very top layer off so it is all even. What I do if the cake bakes flat is just flip it over so that the top is on the bottom and decorate it this way.
Here I’m slicing the centre of the cake in half with my serrated spatula. This is the first place the turntable comes in handy as I spin the cake while I saw through the centre.
There it is in half.
Now I insert my filling. I first put buttercream and then placed the strawberries I sliced the night before onto the buttercream. I made sure not to go all the way to the edges cause I don’t want the filling spilling out. I then piped a border around the edge so that it would hold the top and bottom pieces of the cake in place. In the past, I never piped this border when using strawberries and had issues with the strawberries falling out ….
Here I put the cake together and the piped buttercream border has come into use. No strawberries sticking out hurrah
Now I add colour, with a toothpick, into the remainder of my icing. You have to be careful how much colour you use. The more you use, the more it can change the flavour of the icing – in an unpleasant way.
Now I’m ready to ice the cake. I start by putting a lot of icing on top of the cake. This is where the turntable comes into handy again. I use the big spatula here again and basically sweep back and forth (not with the serrated side) while spinning the cake. I keep doing this and even do this on the edges until the entire cake is covered.
To get the smooth look, I had to keep cleaning my spatula as well as dipping it in hot water. I would also sprinkle hot water on the icing on the cake.
While you spin the cake, start at the opposite end of you. In other words, you are going to rotate the cake while pulling the icing inwards towards you while you spin the cake.
It’s hard to explain … I think the video link SGC provided in one of her posts illustrates the exact technique how to do this.
Making lilies out of chocolate fondant for the cake.
The final product:
I experimented with the pearl dust. The instructions said to just brush it on with decorating brush. I did that and it looks quite messy. Oh well, I will practice some more.
Cooling rack is a seperate accessory … basically just a rack you can place anywhere.
