subject: Learning How To Make Cakes [print this page] If you are interested in learning how to master the art of cake decorating, you will have to learn the many different steps in the entire process. Interestingly enough, most people forget that it all begins with understanding how to make cakes. Generally speaking, the different types of cake decorating techniques can work well with homemade cakes or those made from boxed mixes, but it is important to understand that a "sturdier" cake is usually the one that holds up best to popular or traditional frosting techniques.
So, this means that learning to decorate cakes means learning how to choose the right cake "body" for the job. Need an example? Let's say that you are not a big fan of baking cakes from "scratch" and you often really on a boxed mix that yields an extremely moist and fluffy cake. You tend to bake this cake in a sheet pan because it is so fluffy; and this means that it might not be an ideal cake for a very heavy decoration such as fondant.
You must always consider the structure and the pressures put on a cake in order to determine the right one to make for your preferred decoration treatment.
After choosing the right cake to make for your design or decoration style, you must then be sure that you are baking the cake in the size or pan most appropriate to the work as well. For instance, if your cake is to have many different layers (which requires you to master the slicing technique called "torting"), you will have to understand if the pans selected are actually deep enough to give you enough cake to make so many layers. Simply envision the completed cake and then double-check this vision against the pans you are using. If the sizes seem to match, you can move on to the next step - baking and cooling.
We cannot tell you how to properly mix and bake a cake because there are too many recipes available, but we can tell you that it is imperative to allow your cakes to cool completely. One of the biggest, and most common, cake decorating mistakes is to try to apply icing or fondant to a cake that is still too warm. In fact, one of the biggest insider tips for most cake decorators is to let the cake cool completely and then to wrap it tightly and put it in the freezer overnight. When it is time to apply the frosting, it is usually much easier to remove the frozen cake from its wrappings, trim and level it, tort it, and then apply a totally crumb-free and flawless base layer. Even when working with a bit of a "picky" frosting such as buttercream, the frozen cake layers tend to provide a much better result each time.
