Obviously your going to need an apron and icing. Decorating cakes is a very messy job so I always keep an apron around. I also find having towels is very handy. Whether I’m washing or cleaning things and keeping things dry.

A pair of scissors, we’ll discuss a few uses for them. Obviously your going to need a frosting spatula. Something to scrape out the bowls when your working, when you’re baking a cake you want to scrape out that batter before you put it into your pans.

How to Decorate a Cake Techniques

Scotch tape, yes we’ll be using scotch tape. Toothpicks are a great thing for using your food colors. Skewers, many bakers use a toothpick to test if a cake is done or not, I use a skewer. Air tight containers also work great.

Now, let me show you a few things that you may not have in your home. There are many types of cake decorating tips, starting with some rounds ones. Tips are numbered to help you identify the size. For example a #3 tip is different than a #12. As you can see when the number is smaller, so is the tip. Those round tips are used for writing and for figure piping.

And then we have star tips. Star tips are used for stars, shells and many other techniques. The one in my left hand is a #16 and this one is a #22. They also range in sizes.

And we have some other specialty tips. These are leaf tips, this is a #67 and one of my favorites, a #349. A little “V” shaped works very well. We also have rose tips. Everyone is always interested in making arose. They come very tiny, a #104 is the most commonly used and this one is even larger.

We have other specialty tips. This one is called a basket weave and that is it’s main purpose. And this one is called a drop flower and they come in sizes, too.

This little tool is the greatest for helping you work with cake decorating. Your going to put this in your cake decorating bag and this fits on the outside with a tip in between. So when you cake decorating and your writing a message and all the sudden you want to do some flowers.

You want to use the same color and the icing is the right consistency.You take off that tip and put on your rose tip and keep working with the same color without having to change or fill up another bag.

Speaking of bags, you have different ones available to you on the market. These are called feather weight bags. They’re a light, plastic material that will work fairly well and last a long time, they’re very durable.

We also have plastic disposable bags. And we have parchment triangles. You can make a parchment triangle into a nice cone so you can work with that.

You also will want to invest in a few spatulas. This one is my favorite because of the angle design. While I’m working on a cake I’m not going to get icing on my knuckles because that allows for some extra room that a straight spatula doesn’t.

The small spatula I use for mixing up my colored icing as well as other small techniques. You may want to invest in this. I keep it in plastic because it is very sharp. But this is a wonderful tool for trimming off your edges and leveling cakes.

Another thing you may not be familiar with are cardboard circles. When I’m working with an eight inch cake I will use one that is the same size as the cake. And I will use two for my base and cover it with a nice decorative foil so that it will look nice once I set my cake on top of it.

Speaking of that foil, here is a nice roll of it. You can use regular aluminum foil, but this has a pretty pattern in it and is great. Another thing that you might not happen to have are little paste food colors. They come in half and one ounce sizes and they last you a very long time.

An extremely helpful tool with cake decorating is a turn table. You find similar ones to this at a department store, they are normally around 14 inches round. Another thing I use often is wax paper. Many of the things I’ve discussed you can buy or be bought at any candy supply and cake decorating store.

The first tip is to make sure you fill up you pans properly. I have some cake batter here, a nice chocolate cake that I’ve mixed up. You want to fill up your pans half full. Now this will depend on your recipe. Some recipes will require that you fill them up fuller because they don’t rise as well.

Spread that around nice and easy in your pans. As you can see, both cake pans are half full and they’re nice and level. Now my next little tip for making your cakes nice and level like this, it’s nice and flat.

The second tip is to wrap it in a toweling strip. This is just from an old towel cut to fit the depth of the pan. Now I’ve taken this over to my sink and rang it out making sure it’s nice and wet. I wrap it around my pan. Then I bought a T pin. It’s called that because it’s shaped like a T. You can buy it at any department store that has fabrics and such. Then I take this and pin right through the layers of the toweling and now it’s ready to be baked.

If your cake comes out of the oven and it’s not nice and level, there’s one more trick I have to how you. As soon as it comes out of the oven, take a nice dry towel, lay it across a hot cake and gently press it to make a nice level cake.

Any non pattern paper towel will work, I used the inside of this one. You want to set that on your cake and you can use your hand to smooth it. Or you can use a tool called a fondant smoother. And basically what your doing is ironing your cake. SO you just take small circular motions, don’t press too hard, we don’t want to press the icing around, we just want to make it smooth.

Cake Decorating with Fondant Video

I’m going to make a heart and a star. You want to put down a little powdered sugar and lightly coat the fondant with the sugar so it won’t be sticking. You can even coat the rolling pin with a little powdered sugar, and roll that out a bit.

I’m working on a piece of non stick baking paper so that it will be easy for me to lift and it won’t stick to the surface. I’ll let that dry.

Now I’ll make a yellow star. You do the same thing. Take a bit of the fondant. The fondant that is left over you can just add back to the same color. If it gets too dry you can just knead it with shortening or margarine and it will soften up.

You can use all kinds of cookie cutters to decorate cakes with this fondant. It is so easy to work with, it’s like working with modeling clay.

We put a little bit of chocolate over the marble. You scrap very quickly with chocolate, nice and even. You pick it up and very quickly shape the chocolate. This one is very simple that people can make.

Put it the refrigerator for 30 minutes then get out your cake. This idea is a perfect decoration, you can even put a little bit of cocoa is you like. You can place that over the cake and in a few seconds you can have a very small and easy decoration.

Cake Decorating with Chocolate Video

Next, these chocolate fans, great for decorating the sides of your cake. Apply white chocolate to a baking sheet and spread it thin. Apply the chocolate with a roller like a paint roller, to give it texture. Then put it in the refrigerator, you want it solid but soft enough to work with.

Check with your finger to see if the chocolate is pliable. Now take a fillet knife and carve your fans, it may take a little practice to perfect the shape. Once you have enough fans, place them on the side of the cake.

The fans can also be combined with each other to create beautiful chocolate flowers, much more impressive than your typical frosting was. Of course fans and flowers take practice.

If your looking for something a little more basic, take your marble surface again and pour on a slab of chocolate. Cut it into strips and roll. You can make a quick roll and a nice presentation. It is something you can make at home, it’s easy and you can decorate a cake with it.

There you have it, four different decorations using melted chocolate for cake that your guest will claim is magnificent.

Basically, you load your writing tip which is the one with the little open tip, very plain and you write in big letters. Try to write fat and not connected. When you write slanted in fancy handwriting, it’s harder to pick your letters off the cake if you make a mistake.

I’m just going to put my name here and if you notice, I’m writing in nice, big letters. The reason you want to write in nice big letters is because if you make a mistake, you can freeze the cake. Then take a toothpick and pull each one of those big pieces off the cake.

So let’s try that again, you use the big, big letters and I’m telling you this becomes invaluable when you make a mistake. A lot of times when you’re putting the cake together you misspell a name or put a wrong word and you need to take it off. So just remember that if that ever happens you can just take a small toothpick and go under those letters and pull them off once you put it in the refrigerator or freezer.

So that is basically how you write on a cake.

First of all, I’m going to take this iced cake and set in on my nice foil-covered board, so that it’s ready to work with. I do that by taking a small amount of icing and spreading on my board. That works like glue. Now, I’m going to take my spatula and slide it underneath the bottom edge of the cardboard to lift it on to my fingers and move it over to the board.

Let’s take that messy turntable out of our way. Now I’ve got my cake on a nice foil board.

As I said, this is a fairly nice smooth cake but I like it even nicer than that . This is my favorite technique. This is just an ordinary paper towel with a little design in it. I like it best with a very small design. When you look at paper towels, you notice that they’re textured in many ways.

Let me tell you first how to know when your icing is ready to use this technique. Your icing should be dry to the touch so when you touch it, nothing comes off on your fingers. If that was moist and fresh, and I touched it, I would have icing on each of my finger tips.

Now I’m going to take my towel and lay it off across the top of the cake and gently rub it. As I do this, my fingers are levelling out the surface and the cake will pick up the texture of the paper towel. I have another paper towel that I use that has a very smooth texture. Now you see that pretty little texture on the cake? I like that design for the background of my birthday cakes and any special or all-occasion cake.

Now we are going to continue around the sides, because. of course, I want the sides of the cake to look as nice as the top of the cake. So, continuing, I just gently am rubbing my hands up and down and back and forth. When I run out of paper towel, I pull it off and reposition it and continue.

I should pull a cameraman over here and have him do this part. This is easy. I get all my students to do this and they are amazed at how simple this technique is.

All right. Now I’ve come back full circle to where I started and this is where I just take a moment and check to see if I missed any spots. Well, right here, I’ve got a little bit of an empty space where it’s got a kind of wrinkle, so to speak, in the icing. I’ll just go back with my paper towel one more time over that area and smooth it again, and it needs a touch more.

This is what happens when you work with a chocolate cake on camera. Chocolate cake always tends to still leave a little touch of a crumb underneath the icing or in the middle of the icing. You see here, I’ve got a couple more dips and divots in the cake and I’m just going to smooth them out a little bit more with that paper towel.

Ta-da! Ain’t that nice?

That’s my preferred method for giving a nice smooth professional look to a cake.