Make Ahead Cake Decorations

When I decorate cookies, I often have leftover royal icing and instead of tossing it, I use it to make rose decorations that I keep on hand for decorating cakes in a pinch.

Just let the royal icing roses dry completely and then store them in an airtight container. They'll keep for months and they are so handy to have on hand.  And, they're so pretty that no one will even think for a second that they were made in advance and your cake was a breeze to decorate.

Here's how:
Whip the royal icing until it is very stiff and tint it using gel coloring. I like to make two-toned roses so I tinted some rose and some cream. Fit a pastry bag with a petal tip. My preference is a Wilton #103.

I used a rubber scraper to spread some rose colored royal icing on the inside of my piping bag.

Then I dropped in the cream colored icing. This will give me a nice two-toned effect and keep the pink color just on the edges of the petals.

Adhere a small piece of parchment to a flower nail. Pipe a dollop of icing on the center.

Add a petal around the dollop. When you use a petal tip, it's essential that the narrow end of the tip be up as you pipe. This gives you realistic looking thin-edged petals.

Keep working around your dollop of icing and add two more petals to completely go around the dollop which is the center of the rose.

Add another layer of petals. I stopped after the second layer since I wanted small roses but you can keep going if you want to make a bigger rose.

Set the roses on a sheetpan to dry completely. I let mine dry for two full days and then I removed them from the parchement and put them in a single layer in an airtight container.

Using a #67 Wilton tip, I also made some leaves.

Before I add my handy dandy rose and leaf decorations to a cake, I experiment with placement on a sheetpan first to get them exactly how I want them.

A pretty cake that was a cinch to decorate.

Cake Tip: Add A Frosting Frame

A cake with a frame. Adding the design detail is easy when you create an outline to follow.

A piped icing frame around lettering on a cake is a nice way to add decoration and little extra oomph to the design. Piping a perfect shaped frame is easy to do if you first create an outline and you do this using a dish. That's right, a dish.

Let me explain. First add the lettering to your cake then find a dish with a shape you like that fits around the writing.

For a recent sheetcake, I used a 2.5 quart CorningWare casserole dish. Once you have your dish, you just carefully set it upside down centered around the lettering on your cake so that the lip creates an outline in the base frosting to follow for piping your frame. Carefully remove the dish, add the piping and you have a frame for your cake.

The casserole dish that I used.

Adding the piping.

Piping closeup. I used a Wilton star tip for this design.

A few icing roses are also nice but that's another story.

Decorating Tip: A Touch Of Blue Makes White

I'm making lots and lots of French macarons filled with dark chocolate, toasted coconut and coconut buttercream for a wedding this weekend.

I wanted the macaron shells to be white so I used a decorating tip that I learned nearly 20 years ago when I was writing an article on homemade wedding cakes for The Yakima Herald Republic and interviewing wedding cake decorators.

The tip I learned is that just the smallest touch of blue coloring whitens a buttercream. The reason behind this is that blue is the complementary color of yellow, the color of the butter, so adding the blue negates the yellow and turns the buttercream white.

For the article I made my very first wedding cake. When it was done, I was so anxious for someone besides myself to see it that I called my dad who was at work.  It was in the middle of the afternoon but my dad, understanding my need to show off the cake, drove over to my house just to see it. He even brought his co-worker with him which I thought was so sweet.

The macaron batter is yellowish from the almond meal so the touch of blue trick worked like a charm. You have to be careful though to not add too much. All you need is to put the tiniest amount of blue coloring on the end of a toothpick and just touch the batter lightly with it. Then, mix the batter and watch the magic happen.

After baking the macaron shells I filled them with dark chocolate, toasted coconut and coconut buttercream. I love how these turned out.

The piped macarons.

After baking.

The shells, sorted into pairs.

Filling the macarons.

All done!

Chocolate Cake Wrap

This was my first attempt at making a chocolate wrap to put around a cake and I'm pretty pleased with the results.  But I know I'll get better with practice.

In all honesty,  I would have had a much easier time if I would have started smaller and then gained experience before attempting a wrap on such large cake.  But as my family would attest to, that's not my style. When I get excited about a project, I tend to jump right in and go for it.

The reason that a smaller cake would have been better to start with is that the chocolate wrap needs to be long enough to go around the circumference of the cake. A smaller wrap would be much easier to manage.

After adding the frosting, my cake measured 9.5-inches in diameter.  It's very important to measure carefully because you don't want to come up short. The circumference is simply the diameter of the cake multiplied by pi (3.14). By doing this, I got 29.83-inches and proof that it's important to pay attention in geometry class. I added 2 plus inches to the circumference to get 32 since it's better to have a bit of extra wrap so that you don't come up short. Excess chocolate can be easily trimmed off.

I also measured the height of my cake which was 5.25 inches and then added an inch so that I could also trim it fit perfectly. On another note, it's essential that your cake be as level and as straight-sided as possible. This means you might have to do a bit of cake shaving before adding the frosting.

So once I had my level iced-cake and measurements, here how I made the chocolate wrap:

Supplies
A sheet of parchment paper cut to fit the cake with a little extra:  My measurements were 32x6.25-inches, so I used a ruler to mark these on a larger piece of parchment because I needed to leave space at the top where I could grab to lift the template up and get it around the cake. I had to tape two strips of parchment together to make it long enough. Also, tape the template onto a flat surface so that it doesn't shift while you pipe the chocolate.

Melted chocolate:  You can use semi-sweet, milk, or dark chocolate. I used Callebaut dark chocolate and it's important that the chocolate not be tempered or it will set up too fast before you have time to get it around the cake. Just melt the chocolate in the microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring after each until it's thoroughly melted.

Pastry bag or parchment cone for piping: I used a disposable pastry bag and simply clipped a bit off the end for piping. Don't overfill the bag and the chocolate will be easier to control. If you wanted to use a pastry tip for even better control, I would use a #2 tip.

I started off by piping staggered squares and then piped "v" shapes through them for added strength. Be creative with the pattern you choose but be sure it's not too delicate. You need solid connections of chocolate throughout the pattern.

Finishing this took a good 30 minutes so you can see why it's important not to use tempered chocolate. You need the chocolate to set up slowly. Once the wrap is piped you need to be patient and wait until the chocolate is firm but still soft enough to be flexible and bend without breaking. It took another 30 minutes for the chocolate to be ready to go onto the cake. If you are working on a smaller cake and have space in your refrigerator,  you could set the template in it for just a minute or so, watching it carefully,  to speed the firming process.

I quickly found out that picking the template up and getting it onto the cake wasn't a one person job. I could lift the template up and get it into place but I didn't have a third hand to also gently press it to get it to stick onto the cake. My daughter Eleanor came to my rescue and we got the cake wrapped and then put it straight into the refrigerator so the chocolate could completely set up. This takes about 15 minutes. Then you pull the cake out and gently begin pulling off the parchment. In the picture I've pulled off a section of the parchment and you can also see where the chocolate overlaps. After removing all of the parchment you can cut this off. A warm knife does the job nicely.

I also cut off the excess chocolate from the top of the wrap. Cutting it to fit masks any imperfections you might have with the levelness of the cake.

A shell border of frosting around the base and top of the cake looks nice and helps keep the chocolate wrap locked into place.

All done!

Lazy Susan For Cookie Decorating

A dozen cookies on my new Lazy Susan that are all ready to be iced.  I can rotate the Lazy Susan to move from cookie to cookie without having to pick up cookies and risk messing up the icing.

I'm anxious to share with you my new favorite cookie decorating gadget - A Lazy Susan.

The wooden 15-inch Lazy Susan was an inexpensive surprise find on a recent shopping trip to Ikea with my friend Cindy who also decorates cookies and liked it so much that she bought one too.

What caught our attention was that it was sturdy, broad and short (so using it won't add too much additional height to my work station).

I used it for the first time while decorating my most recent batch of Letter Cookies and it proved to be very helpful. I can set cookies on it and rotate it to easily move from cookie to cookie and decorate without having to risk handling the cookies and messing up the icing.

My new gadget will also be helpful with cake decorating. I love that it is short and doesn't raise the height of my work table too much.

The Lazy Susan cost just $7.99 and will also be handy for cake decorating. I even think it is attractive enough to be used as a cake stand or platter for serving.

Dinosaur Cake

I've said it before and I'll say it again — I'm not a fan of fussy cake decorations using gumpaste, fondant and crusting buttercream.

They all are sickly sweet and frankly taste terrible. Crusting buttercream isn't even made with butter. It's made with shortening and bakeries like it because it's cheap to make and forms a protective crust that makes cakes iced with it easier to box and transport.

For me, taste is what matters most and nothing is better than a subtly sweet Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  So that's what I used to make this Dinosaur Cake for my Goddaughter GraceLin's 5th birthday celebration.

My secret for adding a perfectly shaped dinosaur to the top of the cake is to use a cookie cutter as my guide to make a template. Then all you have to do is trace the template with a toothpick or skewer and add icing and decorations. It really is easy.

Here's how:

Use a dinosaur cookie cutter as a guide to draw a template. I made the template out of cardboard from a cereal box.

Cut the template out.

Position the template on the cake. I had to give the tail a clip to make it fit better.

Use a skewer or toothpick to outline the template.

Now this dinosaur is ready for some color.

Outline the dinosaur with green buttercream.

Fill the outline with more green buttercream and use a small knife to spread and smooth it out.

Looking good.

I used the pink candy hearts to make spikes down the dinosaur's back.

Just stick them in upside down.

Break some of the white hearts in half for toes.

That was easy.

Use a candy sprinkle for the eye.

GraceLin is going to love it!

Swedish Pearl Sugar makes perfect dinosaur teeth.

The candy decorations add nice pops of color to the design.

I added a bit of hot pink sanding sugar down the dinosaur's back and I used a skewer to write "Happy Birthday" so that I can be sure all the letters fit before going over them with icing.

This cake is ready!