![]() ![]() ![]() *For round cakes, don’t try to cut a circle. I’m telling you, the cake will fall right out next time if you do this. First grease the bottom, then stick the parchment to that, then grease & flour the parchment. Don’t you hate when you tip over your pan to release the cake and it sticks? UGH! Line the bottom of your cake pan with parchment. Parchment Paper – this really only applies to cake recipes. It will be much easier to frost your cake now. After a thin coat of frosting, refrigerate the cake for at least 30 minutes and then have at it. You’re supposed to water it down (add milk or water), but I don’t necessarily do that. About ½ c of each will provide sufficient syrup for two 9” round cakes.Ĭrumb Coat – you know those pesky crumbs that get all mixed up in your frosting when trying to ice a cake? No more! I found out about doing a “crumb coat” which is basically a thin primer coat of icing before doing the real icing. Simple Sugar Syrup is equal parts water and sugar, boiled for about 3 minutes and then cooled in the fridge. Immediately after doing so, move on to the crumb coat (see below) to lock in the moisture. Simple Sugar Syrup – want to add some moisture to your cake and lock it in? Prepare a batch of simple sugar syrup and generously paint it on the cake after it has cooled. I don’t want to be responsible for your catastrophes if you substitute flours, but I can tell you that in my experience, so far so good. Supposedly you need to use an additional 2 tablespoons of cake flour when doing this, but I’ve done it 1:1 and have had fine results. But knowing that AP flour is so much “stronger” than cake flour (since it has more protein), use your judgment to decide when you can substitute and when you may not want to. Now, in reverse, I almost always use cake flour even when a recipe calls AP flour. If a recipe calls for cake flour and you don’t have any, you can make your own quite easily: put 2 tablespoons of cornstarch into a 1 cup measuring cup, spoon enough AP flour to fill cup, and sift together at least 3 times. The lightness of this flour gives cakes and cookies a better rise than AP flour. ![]() On top of that, it’s bleached and milled more than All Purpose (AP) flour, so it has less protein (gluten, which is a binding agent) and is high in starch. This aerates the dry ingredients, making it fluffy and your cookies or cake will be light and fluffy too!Ĭake Flour – Cake flour is made from the endosperm of wheat, which is the softest part. If you don’t have a sifter, passing it through a sieve or whipping it with a whisk is better than nothing. No matter how good a cake decorator you are…something about it just always seems off.Sift – you know how some recipes tell you to combine your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, etc.) and then mix them in to the wet stuff? Even if the original recipe doesn’t tell you to do so, I recommend you sift this stuff. Take it from me…it will only make your cakes better! And as a bonus tip…I suggest never trying to make a cake of your friend’s face. Once you have done this one time, you will see the difference it makes in your final product. Once you are done, place the cake in the fridge for 15-30 minutes, or until the icing has hardened.Īnd that’s it! You are done! And then, after the icing has set up in the fridge, you are free to start decorating. Try to make it as thin and as smooth as possible. It is easiest to start at the top, and then work your way down the sides. Once you have filled and stacked your layers, take a small amount of icing and spread it all over the cake. So do yourself a favor – and crumb coat your cakes. This is annoying, and as you can see, not very appealing. This little coat of icing makes your life so much easier and if you skip this step, you run the risk of having little pieces of crumb in your final product. It is kind of like the concept of using paint primer before you start to paint your house. The crumb coat gives you a solid base to start decorating on. But, it also helps you to fill in places where your cake might not be totally even. By definition, a crumb coat is a thin layer of icing that traps in all the cake crumbs. One of the first, and probably most important things I learned in my early research was the importance of a crumb coat. After a few more cakes like this, I decided to it was time to open a book. But we all have to start somewhere, right? Obviously, I started in a place where there was a lot of room for improvement. That is supposed to be a cake of my friend’s face – and in case you were wondering…she does not look anything like this. And as a result, I made cakes that looked like this. I didn’t read any books or blogs, or watch any baking shows…I just went for it. When I started making cakes in high school, I kind of just went in blind. ![]()
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