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The Cake Decorating Bible PDF
The Cake Decorating Bible PDF
Cover
List of Recipes
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Cake Jargon and Supplies
Equipment and Tools
Preparation: Cake and Cookie Basics
RECIPES
FILLINGS AND COVERINGS
LAYERING AND CONSTRUCTING CAKES
ICING CAKES
STACKING CAKES
DECORATING CAKES AND COOKIES
Design Ideas: Cookies
Design Ideas: Cupcakes
Design Ideas: Mini Cakes
Design Ideas: Single Tier Cakes
Design Ideas: Modelling
Design Ideas: Multi Tier Cakes
Caketastrophes!
Templates
Stockists
Acknowledgements
Copyright
LIST OF RECIPES
ake Jazzling
hocolate Cigarillos
hocolate Cupcakes
hocolate Ganache Cupcakes
ookie Explosion
orsage Fondant Cupcakes
overing Cupcakes with Fondant Icing
overing Cupcakes with Ganache
overing Miniature Cakes with Marzipan and Sugarpaste
overing with Buttercream
overing with Chocolate Paste
overing with Glossy Chocolate Ganache for Pouring
overing with marzipan and sugar paste
overing with Royal Icing
reating Marbled, Swirled or Feathered Designs
ut-Out Petals
Hand-Moulded Roses
ce Cream Cookies
etal-Paste 3D Shapes
iping Straight Lines
rinted Cookies
rint-Wrap
Using Cutters
Formerly with the Little Venice Cake Company, Juliet Sear now
runs Fancy Nancy (www.fancynancy.info), her own successful cake
boutique in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, selling celebration cakes,
cupcakes, cake pops and cookies. She has been praised widely for
her contemporary edge, stunning designs and the supreme taste of
her cakes. Fancy Nancy supplies Harvey Nichols across the UK and
Juliet runs classes at Leiths School of Food and Wine.
FOR SIMON, GEORGE, LYDIA AND RUBY
INTRODUCTION
In the world of cake decorating there are words, phrases and supplies
that you may be unfamiliar with. Here they are explained.
ACETATE PAPER
A translucent, plastic, flexible paper that is used for creating run-
outs. Because it is clear, you can trace images through it. If you find
this hard to get hold of, you can use plastic stationery document
wallets in its place.
BAKING PARCHMENT
A thick, moisture-proof, greaseproof paper used to line baking tins
and trays. It can also be used to make piping bags.
BLEEDING
When one colour of icing runs or spreads into another; lighter-
coloured icings can get stained by stronger ones. This happens most
commonly with combinations of light and dark, especially on run-
outs, or cookies decorated with royal icing.
BLOOMING
This is when chocolate gets unattractive white patches on its
surface. The bloom can be caused by the fat or the sugar; the
chocolate is still fine to eat and will still taste the same, but is less
appealing to the eye. This can occasionally happen on a ganache
cake if you keep it for a while.
BRUSH EMBROIDERY
A decorating technique where a piped royal-icing outline is brushed
inwards with a soft, damp brush to create an embroidered effect.
DUST COLOURS
These are non-toxic powders, available in many colours and shades.
You can use them to decorate dried sugar decorations or they can
be mixed with vodka or cocoa butter to create a paint that you can
use for cake decorating. You can apply them with a dry brush to
give your sugar decorations more depth and varied colours.
EDIBLE-INK CARTRIDGES
Cartridges filled with edible ink (food colouring), which can be
used with a normal printer as long as the printer is used for edible
ink only.
FLOODING
This is when you fill in a royal-icing outline with a more liquid
royal-icing colour, to give blocks or shapes of colour to decorate a
cookie or cake. This is how run-outs are made.
FORMERS
These are solid forms or shapes used to dry sugar flowers, leaves or
pieces, e.g. sugar shoes on. You can buy plastic formers for many
purposes or indeed make your own using old, dry sugarpaste
wrapped in cling film, or even using folded card.
GANACHE
A mixture of chocolate and cream used for filling or covering a
cake.
GLITTERISING
When you apply non-toxic glitter to the surface of a cake, cookie or
sugar decoration to add magical sparkliness. Non-toxic glitter is
considered safe to use, but if you prefer not to use glitter, you can
substitute it with ‘sanding sugars’. These are coloured sugars that
glimmer but are not as sparkly as glitter (see here).
GLYCERINE
Glycerine is a sweet, clear, odourless syrup that is available in
supermarkets and from cake-decorating suppliers. It is a softening
agent that is extracted from fats and oils, and in cake decorating it
is primarily used as an addition to royal icing, to prevent the icing
from becoming too hard, allowing you to cut through the iced
covering more easily. Without it, royal icing sets rock-hard and will
break up when a knife is inserted into the cake.
GUM ARABIC
When gum arabic is mixed with water, it can be used as a glaze for
marzipan, or as edible glue for sugarpaste. As a glaze, it gives the
decoration a glossy sheen.
GUM TRAGACANTH
This is a plant-derived chemical that can be used to stiffen
sugarpaste to make it set harder and hold its shape. It’s particularly
handy for modelling, when you need shapes to stay in form.
LEVELLING
To make your cake or icing level on the surface.
LIQUID GLUCOSE
Also known as glucose syrup, this is a viscous sugar solution of
glucose suspended in liquid, which is sold in jars or tubs. It is now
more readily available and can be bought from the baking section
of supermarkets, from chemists, or from chocolate and baking
suppliers. It is used to make chocolate paste, as when added to
chocolate, it allows the chocolate to be moulded or rolled out.
LUSTRE DUST
Lustre dusts are non-toxic powders that come in many different
colours and metallic shades. Sugar flowers, embellishments or iced
surfaces can be decorated with lustre to give them a twinkling,
metallic effect. Lustre dusts can be mixed with vodka or cocoa
butter and painted directly onto sugar decorations or a cake itself,
though the dust can also be applied dry.
LUSTRE SPRAY
An edible spray that can be used to decorate and add sheen to a
cake’s surface or to sugar decorations to give a metallic sheen. It is
much quicker than painting on lustre dust.
MARBLING
When two or more colours of icing are added to a base coat of
Royal icing, and a cocktail stick is then dragged through them to
create a swirly, patterned effect.
PALETTE KNIFE
A tool used to spread and smooth fillings or icings.
PASTE COLOURING
Professional, strong, cake-decorating colourings with a paste or gel-
like consistency that is stronger and more intense than liquid food
colouring, and does not affect the consistency of sugarpaste or
liquid icings. You can buy these from cake-decorating suppliers or
online, and even some supermarkets are now starting to stock
them.
PEARLS
Small round piped dots of royal icing.
PETAL PASTE
A stiff sugarpaste that is used for making flowers. It can be rolled
very thinly and sets rock-hard, so that petals look less chunky and
more realistic. It dries out very quickly. I also use this for making
sugar buttons.
PIPING
When you force royal icing, buttercream or melted chocolate out of
a bag through a nozzle, to create a message, add detail or texturise
a cake.
PIPING GEL
A sugary gel that can be used for many different aspects of cake
decorating, including glazing sugarpaste or to give a sheen. It can
be tinted with colours or added to metallic lustres to give cakes a
shiny finish. You can also use it to create novelty effects, such as
the suggestion of water. I prefer the Squires Kitchen brand because
the gel is clearer and much easier to apply than many.
PLUNGER CUTTER
A cake-decorating cutter that cuts out, then ejects, a shape. These
are now available in many different shapes; they are quick and easy
to use.
PRESSURE PIPING
A piping technique that uses varying amounts of pressure to create
a more shaped piped line, with thicker parts in the pattern that trail
off to thinner parts, and vice versa.
ROLLED FONDANT
Another name for sugarpaste (see here).
ROYAL ICING
A white or coloured liquid icing that sets hard. It is made with icing
sugar, egg white and lemon juice, and can have glycerine added to
it when being used to cover a cake, to keep it softer and slightly
easier to cut through. It is a fairly old-fashioned cake covering
(rolled pastes are more commonly used nowadays).
RUN-OUT
This is a decoration or shape made by piping a border or outline
with royal icing, then filling or ‘flooding’ the outlined areas with a
more liquid royal icing, in whatever colours you like. Also known
as flood work, these can be piped onto baking parchment or acetate
paper or directly onto the surface of a cookie or cake. When the
shape is dry, you have an icing decoration that can be used in many
ways. You can even make run-outs on wires, cocktail sticks or
skewers so that they can stand upright on a cake.
SANDING SUGAR
A large, granular sugar that comes in many colours and is used for
cookie decorating or cake decorating to create a sparkly look.
SCORING
Scribing onto a cake to give you a guideline for writing over,
marking out a shape or making a mark to indicate where you want
to place a decoration or cake tier.
SNAIL TRAIL
When icing is piped around a cake in a continuous line, using any
kind of nozzle to create a textured or shaped trailing line to finish
or decorate.
SOFT PEAK
A term used to describe the consistency of royal icing. When the
icing is lifted from the bowl with the back of a spoon or palette
knife, it will have a peak that droops down and won’t hold a stiff
shape.
STIFF PEAK
A term used to describe royal icing mixed to a consistency that is
stiff enough to hold a firm peak when lifted from the bowl with the
back of a spoon or palette knife.
TAIL
A tiny tail-like projection that forms on the tip of a piped pearl
when the nozzle is lifted away. This spoils the roundness of your
pearl; it can be rectified by patting down gently with a small,
damp, clean paintbrush.
TEXTURISING
A method of adding a rough pattern or detailed finish to a cake.
VEINER
A rubber, plastic or silicone mould that can be used for marking
and making impressions onto petal paste or sugarpaste to make
leaves or flowers look more realistic. Some plunger cutters will cut
out a shape and also make an impression at the same time, which
saves the need for a separate veiner.
EQUIPMENT AND TOOLS
CAKE DECORATING
Must-haves:
Rolling pins (ideally plastic) – a large one for rolling out
coverings for the top and sides of a cake (should be 8cm/3in
larger than the diameter of the cake, so for a 20cm/8in cake a
35cm/14in) rolling pin is best) and a small plastic pin (15–
20cm/6–8in), for rolling out small amounts of sugarpaste, or
especially petal paste, for decorating
Cake boards
Piping bags
Piping nozzles/tubes – these come in many sizes but a basic
set includes No. 2 and No. 3 round nozzles and a simple star
nozzle. It’s easy to make your own leaf-tip nozzle by cutting
down a piping bag to create a ‘V’ shape at the end.
Scriber needle or pin tool (or use a regular pin with a ball
head, but take care not to lose it!) – this is used for popping
air bubbles, removing tiny particles or colour marks and
marking out lettering or patterns on your cake
Nice-to-haves:
Turntable
Guide sticks or marzipan spacers – not essential but handy for
ensuring an even thickness to cake coverings and cookie
dough
Side scraper (or a small plastic ruler as an alternative)
Straight edge tool (you can use a metal or strong plastic ruler
instead, but those generally only go up to 30cm/12in, so you
can’t use them for cakes that are any bigger)
Cake smoothers: ideally two side smoothers and one top
smoother
Varying sizes of paintbrushes for dusting colours, painting
and fixing mistakes
Ribbon cutter – a handy, wheeled cutter that can be adjusted
to cut different width strips of sugarpaste, chocolate or petal
paste, as well as ribbon
Ribbons
Cake dowels – for stacking cakes. I find the extra-strong
heavy-duty ones are the best option, especially for your base
cake if you are stacking a few tiers
Polystyrene cake dummies – shaped polystyrene ‘fake’ cakes.
They come in many shapes besides round and square and are
usually 7.5cm (3in) in depth
Polystyrene separators – polystyrene squares or circles of a
shallower depth than cake dummies; they come in 2.5cm
(1in) and 5cm (2in) depths
Projector – some people like to project images onto a cake’s
surface to aid with hand-painting or piping. It is not essential
but great if you aren’t good at freehand drawing and
painting. Alternatively, you can print off a picture and mark
out the edges by stabbing carefully through the paper with a
pin to create a dotted line on the icing, then all you have to
do is ‘join the dots’ with icing!
TIP
Make sure you use silicon baking
parchment for lining, not greaseproof
paper. Greaseproof paper isn’t substantial
enough and often disintegrates, or gets
baked onto the tin and sticks to the cake.
Parchment will protect your sponge, save
on washing-up and easily peel away from
your sponge. You can find parchment in
the baking section of supermarkets or
alongside the cling film and foil.
STEP 5 Sit the tin on top of the rolled-out baking parchment and
either cut with a sharp knife all the way round (if your worktop or
surface is safe to cut onto) or draw a circle around the tin and cut
out with scissors. Place the parchment disc into the base of the tin,
overlaying the snipped, folded edge that’s sitting around the sides.
Now your tin is perfectly lined and ready for your cake batter.
TIP
You can bake the cakes the day before you
need them and leave at room temperature,
or you can make them a few days in
advance, then wrap well and chill or even
freeze them if necessary. Just make sure
that you defrost them thoroughly one day
before use.
LINING SQUARE OR OBLONG TINS
STEP 1 First, generously grease your cake tin with plenty of butter by
smudging it all over with a piece of kitchen paper, a pastry brush or
even with your fingers.
STEP 3 Fold over 1cm (½in) along one long edge of each strip. With
scissors, make lots of snips all along this folded part, at 90 degrees
to the fold line, just up to the crease, to create a ‘fringed’ edge.
Place the strips onto three of the internal walls of the tin, with the
snipped edges sitting flat on the base.
STEP 4 Sit the tin on top of the rolled-out baking parchment, lined up
to one edge.
STEP 5 Cut round the tin, but allow about 10cm (4in) extra for the
side that hasn’t yet been lined. When you place this piece of paper
into the base of the tin, the extra-long edge can be folded up to line
the final side. Now you have a perfectly lined tin ready to bake
your sponge.
Getting the top of the cake flat is one of the first things you need to
make happen. This top tip came from my good old dad, George (an
engineer by trade who is ever present in the kitchen, adapting his
inventive ideas into cake-decorating tips), and it makes this
laborious stage so much easier.
As described in the tin-lining instructions, line your tin so that
there’s an extra inch of baking parchment poking up above the top
edge. Then fill the tin with cake batter almost right to the top, just
about 1cm (½in) below the edge. This will allow your sponge to
rise above the top of the tin. Once cooled, you can put the cake
back into its tin and slice off the top using the tin as a guide. This
gives a perfect flat result, ready to decorate without the hassle of
reshaping, patching or building up. (Note that this tip only applies
to the Very Vanilla and Lemon Drizzle recipes; the Rich Belgian
Chocolate Truffle cake cannot be baked like this.)
Not only does this save time later (and you can be doing other
things whilst the sponge is in the oven), but it will also give you a
perfect base on which to decorate.
For all of the cupcakes in this book, I have used a muffin-sized
cupcake tray in which the muffin cup measures 51 × 38mm (51mm
diameter and 38mm deep). If you are using a different size, you
will need to adjust the amount of cake mixture – as a guide, I fill
the cases half full for buttercream-topped cupcakes, and one-third
full for cupcakes that will be covered with fondant or ganache, so
that it will sit fairly flat, rather than having a domed top.
TIP
My sponge recipes take a bit longer than
regular ones because they are quite deep, so
they need longer to cook in the centre. All
ovens vary, so once you have filled the tin
right up with batter, bake it at the usual
temperature (around 200°C/Gas mark 6
depending on your oven) for the first 30
minutes, until the cake has risen nice and
high, up to the top of the baking
parchment. Once it’s well risen, turn the
oven down by about 10°C/one gas mark.
STEP 1 These instructions are for a round cake board; the same
principles apply for a square board. Dust the cake board with a little
icing sugar, then wet this with a pastry brush dipped in cooled
boiled water or vodka – this will stick the icing to the board so that
it doesn’t slide around while you are trimming off the edges.
STEP 2 Knead the sugarpaste until pliable, then shape into a ball and
flatten. Before rolling out, dust the worktop beneath the icing with
plenty of icing sugar. You can also dust the top of the sugarpaste
with just a little icing sugar but try not to use too much or the
sugarpaste will become dry and can easily crack.
STEP 3 Roll out the sugarpaste evenly from the middle outwards,
turning it regularly to prevent an uneven or spidery shape; you
want a nice round piece to lay over the cake board. You can use
guide sticks if you have them, otherwise take care to roll with even
pressure so that the sugarpaste has a good, even thickness of
approximately 5–6mm.
STEP 4 Once rolled, lift the sugarpaste carefully over both arms, or
roll it onto your pin to lift, and place on your dampened cake
board. (If you haven’t quite judged the size right and you have too
little icing or the shape isn’t quite round, you can easily strip it off
the board and re-roll it.) Make sure that there are no air bubbles
under the icing – you should be able to see them if you bend down
so that the board is at eye level. If you see any, use a pin tool or
scriber tool to pierce a small hole in the icing and gently expel the
air by pushing it out with your fingertips.
STEP 5 Now smooth over the board with a top smoother (or with the
flat of your hand, but a smoother guarantees a better finish), to
iron out any lumps and bumps and to polish and smooth the
sugarpaste.
STEP 6 Finally, you need to trim off the excess. Hold up the cake
board with one hand (as you would hold a plate, with your fingers
splayed out under the board). With a sharp knife, carefully cut all
the way around the edge, holding the knife at a 90-degree angle to
the board and using the edge as a guide. Let the excess sugarpaste
fall back onto the worktop; you can re-use this. Turn the cake board
as you cut, until you have gone all the way around the board.
STEP 7 When you have trimmed off the excess icing, make sure the
edge is neat and that there are no rough bits, by gently smoothing
round the board with your fingertips. Leave the board aside to dry
until needed, for at least 24 hours.
TIP
If you get too much icing sugar on the
surface of a dark-coloured sugarpaste,
especially black, the icing sugar will cause
white blotches that spoil the iced surface
and are very hard to remove – if this
happens, re-knead and roll the sugarpaste
again.
TIP
If you find it tricky holding the board in
one hand, another option is to use a
turntable. Place the board on the turntable,
make an initial cut into the excess
sugarpaste, then hold the knife in place.
Now rotate the board so that your knife
glides through the rest.
MAKING PIPING BAGS
For cake decorating you will need lots of piping bags. Of course,
you can easily buy disposable ones, but it’s handy (and cheaper) if
you can make your own. If you want to ice a cake with a variety of
different colours, it’s best to make plenty of piping bags before you
start, as you’ll need a separate bag for each colour. I keep a stock of
them, and make 100 or so at once, so that I have them ready for
whenever I need them.
Ideally use baking parchment for making these, as it is stronger
and more substantial than greaseproof paper and so will last
longer. For instance, if you load a bag with coloured royal icing
and have some left over, you might want to use the rest the next
day. With greaseproof, you may find that the bag splits. Parchment,
on the other hand, is coated, so it won’t get too soggy from the
icing. (However, if greaseproof is all you have, then just use it.)
STEP 1 Unroll the parchment and cut at intervals, so that you end up
with several large squares of parchment.
STEP 2 Cut across each square on the diagonal from corner to corner.
You will be left with large triangles of paper.
STEP 3 Place a triangle with the longest straight edge away from you
and the opposite point facing towards you, then take hold of one
outer corner (I start on the right-hand side, but this depends on
whether you are left- or right-handed), and bring it in to meet the
point. Pull this in tightly so that a cone shape begins to form.
STEP 4 Hold these corners together tightly and lift up the cone in
front of you. Bring the other corner in by wrapping it around
behind the cone, to meet your thumb that’s holding the first part
together. Quickly and carefully slip the new corner under your
thumb too, making sure not to let go of the other bit.
STEP 5 Check you have a sharp point at the end of your bag: if it’s
not sharp you can play with it by pulling the cone tighter with your
thumbs and fingers. If you don’t get it right the first time, keep
trying; it’s easy once you get the hang of it but it does take a few
goes to get the feel of it.
STEP 6 To secure the piping bag, staple it at the top of the cone
where the paper is overlapping. This is the best method, but do take
care that no stray staples fall into your piping bag or find their way
into your cake.
The following sponge recipes produce cakes that are
perfect for decorating. They are delicious yet robust
and firm enough to be cut, carved, split and filled
and will hold the weight of your marzipan and
sugarpaste or chocolate paste. I bake these recipes
all the time, but of course if you are making these
for the first time, do take extra care and be sure to
check your cake regularly whilst its is cooking, as
all ovens vary and you will need to find what
works for your oven.
STEP 2 To make the syrup, mix the sugar and water in a saucepan
and bring gently to the boil, stirring occasionally to prevent lumps
or burning. Once it starts to boil, remove from the heat and allow
to cool slightly. Alternatively, you can microwave the sugar and
water for 1 minute at a time until all the sugar crystals have
dissolved and the syrup has boiled.) Add the seeds from the scraped
vanilla pod and then add the pod for extra vanilla flavour. Leave to
infuse. Once cool, transfer to a squeezy bottle or jug for pouring.
STEP 3 To make the sponge, combine the butter, sugar, vanilla seeds
and extract and beat with a wooden spoon, hand mixer or in an
electric mixer on medium–fast speed, until the mixture is very pale,
soft and fluffy and the granules of sugar have disappeared.
STEP 6 Spoon the cake mixture into the lined cake tin, pushing it up
the edges a bit, so that the sponge will rise high in the tin. Create a
well in the centre to prevent a large hump from rising; this will
help your sponge to rise evenly.
STEP 8 When cooked, turn out onto a wire rack and peel off the
paper to allow steam to evaporate from the sponge. Whilst still
warm, spear through the crust in several places with a sharp knife
or skewer, then drizzle or brush the sponge with the syrup. To feed
the syrup into the holes you can use a pastry brush or a squeezy
sauce bottle or drizzle it slowly from a jug with a spout. You don’t
want it too soggy but you need enough to soak in: use around 60ml
for the top of the cake, and save the rest to use in the middle of the
cake when you later split it to be filled. Now leave the cake to cool
completely.
TIP
Having all your ingredients at room
temperature makes your cake batter come
together perfectly. If your ingredients are
cold, they will not combine well and the
eggs may curdle.
SHELF LIFE AND STORAGE
STEP 1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6. Line one or two 12-
hole muffin trays with paper muffin cases.
STEP 2 Follow steps 1–5 of the main vanilla sponge recipe, then
divide the mixture between the cases and cook for 10–15 minutes.
Check after 10 minutes, as all ovens vary; the cakes should be a
light golden brown and springy to touch. If you want to be sure,
test with a sharp knife – this should come out clean and free of
mixture if they are cooked through.
STEP 3 Once baked, turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and brush
or drizzle with a little vanilla syrup to coat the tops and soak into
your sponges. (You will have more syrup than you need, as the
amount in the main recipe covers about 30 cupcakes, but you can’t
really make it in smaller quantities. See here for storing any
leftovers.) Leave the cakes to cool, then decorate as required.
This cake is to die for … I’ve tried lots of good chocolate cake recipes
and have tweaked my favourites until I got this result. It’s soft, fudgy
and decadent, but there’s enough flour in the mixture for it to keep its
shape when being cut, without crumbling too much – the perfect balance
of taste and practicality. You will have some leftover sponge from
baking this cake, as you need to cut off the top crust from both halves.
Save these gorgeous bits to put in trifles or eat with ice cream. See the
quantities chart here for a guide to baking other sizes, if you want to
make multiple tiers.
STEP 1 Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas mark 3. Line two 15cm (6in)
round tins (you can’t make this sponge in one tin as it’s too heavy;
you need to cook it in two halves) with baking parchment (see
here).
STEP 3 Beat the butter and sugar together slowly with an electric
hand mixer or in an electric mixer (or in a large bowl with a
wooden spoon) until combined, then beat vigorously on a fast
speed until the mixture turns pale, soft and fluffy.
STEP 4 Add the beaten eggs a little at a time, mixing slowly until
each addition is incorporated.
STEP 5 Pour the cooled chocolate into your mixture, beating all the
time until everything is combined.
STEP 6 Stir or mix in the vanilla extract with the mixer on slow.
STEP 7 Add the flour and fold or mix in slowly, until it’s combined
with the wet ingredients.
STEP 8 Spoon evenly into the lined tins. You need to fill each tin
around 6cm (2½in) deep – you can measure this by dipping a
plastic ruler or knife into the mixture; it will leave a mark showing
the depth.
STEP 9 Bake for 30 minutes, then test the cakes with a skewer or
small, sharp knife. You can always cook for a few minutes more,
but you can’t unbake them! They should appear well risen, but
should still wobble a bit when shaken. There will be a crust on the
top, which will sink back into the cake as it cools.
STEP 10 Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin. This
sponge is fragile so remove it from the tin only when cool or it can
break very easily.
TIP
Begin checking the bake after 30 minutes,
and check periodically, as ovens vary
greatly and the gauge of tin can also affect
the cooking time.
A lemon cake is a perfect recipe for both celebrations and weddings and
ideal when layered with zesty lemon buttercream (see recipe here). This
is lovely in spring and summer, when you can accompany it with some
fresh cream and raspberries if you want to serve it as a dessert. Using
plenty of fresh lemon zest and the addition of the lively lemon syrup
ensures a moist and delicious sponge. See the quantities chart here for a
guide to baking other sizes, if you want to make multiple tiers.
STEP 3 For the sponge, beat the butter, both sugars and lemon zest
together using a wooden spoon, hand mixer or electric mixer until
the mixture is pale, soft and fluffy and the sugar granules have
disappeared.
STEP 4 Add the beaten egg, a quarter at a time, mixing between each
addition. If it curdles a little (looks lumpy and separated), just add
a spoonful of flour from your weighed-out amount.
STEP 6 Spoon the cake mixture into your lined cake tin, pushing the
mixture up the edges a bit, so that the sponge will rise high in the
tin. Create a well in the centre – this will help your sponge to rise
evenly and prevent a large hump from rising in the middle.
STEP 7 Bake for 30 minutes, then check – you want a nice high
sponge, and test with a knife to be sure that the middle is cooked
through. You might need to cook it for longer, even for up to an
hour depending on your oven. If you think the outside of the cake
is cooking too fast, turn the oven down and cover the top of the
cake with a piece of foil to prevent it from burning.
STEP 8 When cooked, turn out onto a wire rack and peel off the
paper to allow the steam to evaporate from the sponge. Whilst the
cake is still warm, spear through the crust of your cake in several
places with a sharp knife or skewer and drizzle or brush the sponge
with the lemon syrup. To feed the syrup into the holes you can use
a pastry brush or a squeezy sauce bottle or drizzle it slowly from a
jug with a spout. You don’t want it too soggy but you need enough
to soak in; it will take around 60ml for this size of cake. Save the
rest to use in the middle of the cake when you later split it to be
filled. Leave the cake to cool completely.
TIP
Zest all the lemons first, before juicing
them. You can save any zest that you
aren’t using by putting it into a freezer bag
and freezing; you can re-use it straight
from the freezer and mix into sponge
batter, cookie dough or any other recipes
that require it.
One batch of the syrup will still be enough for all the above sizes of
cake. Use the syrup to taste, brushing it over each layer of cake
without soaking them. How much you need is really down to
personal taste. Be careful, though; the cake can become sugary if
too much syrup is used.
RICH BOOZY FRUIT CAKE
This divine recipe is perfect for celebrations. It’s got loads of brandy in it
and will keep for ages. See the quantities below for a guide to baking
other sizes, if you want to make multiple tiers.
STEP 2 Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas mark 3 and line a 20cm (8in)
round cake tin with baking parchment (see here).
STEP 3 Melt the butter and sugars in the microwave, stirring every
minute, until the butter has melted and the sugar and butter have
become amalgamated. Alternatively, do this in a pan on a medium
heat, stirring well to mix. Pour into a mixing bowl.
STEP 4 Add the beaten eggs to the sugar and butter. Stir with a
wooden spoon.
STEP 5 In another bowl, place the flour and all the ground spices. Sift
into another bowl to thoroughly combine the flour with the spices.
Add the flour mixture to the wet sugar, butter and egg mixture.
STEP 6 Now stir in the steeped fruit and its remaining liquid, and the
vanilla extract. Mix well, using your hands if it’s easier.
STEP 7 Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 2½
hours until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out
clean. For an extra brandy kick, brush some brandy onto the top of
the cake while it’s still warm. Leave to cool in the tin.
STEP 8 When cool, turn the cake out of the tin and wrap in a double
layer of greaseproof paper and a layer of foil, then store it until you
are ready to decorate.
I have found that many chocolate cupcake recipes turn out really dry.
While this recipe will obviously be heavier and denser than the vanilla
cupcakes, my recipe has soured cream added, so is very moist. The
cupcakes are deliciously chocolatey!
STEP 4 Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl and mix with a spoon
until combined.
STEP 5 Add the egg mixture to the melted chocolate mixture and stir
together with a spoon until amalgamated.
STEP 6 Gently fold in the flour mixture until all the dry flour and
cocoa has been incorporated into the wet ingredients.
STEP 7 Spoon into the paper cases, around half full. Bake for 15–20
minutes until just firm. Test with a sharp knife to ensure they are
cooked through. Allow to cool for 5 minutes then turn out onto a
wire rack. Once cool, decorate as required.
ZESTY ORANGE CUPCAKES
STEP 2 Mix the sugar and orange juice in a pan and bring gently to
the boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve lumps. Alternatively, you
can microwave for 1 minute at a time until all the sugar crystals
have dissolved and the syrup has boiled. Once it starts to boil,
remove from the heat. Add the orange zest and leave to infuse.
Once cool, stir in the liqueur, if using, then transfer the syrup to a
squeezy bottle or jug for pouring.
STEP 3 For the sponge, combine the butter, both types of sugar and
the orange zest and beat, with a wooden spoon, hand mixer or in
an electric mixer on medium–fast speed, until the mixture is very
pale, soft and fluffy and the sugar granules have disappeared.
STEP 4 Add the beaten eggs, a quarter at a time, and mix in slowly at
each addition. If it curdles a little (looks lumpy and separated) just
add a spoonful of flour from your weighed-out amount.
STEP 6 Divide the mixture between the paper cases and cook for 10–
15 minutes. Check after 10 minutes, as all ovens vary. When done,
the cakes should be a light golden brown and springy to the touch;
if you want to be sure, test with a sharp knife. This should come out
clean and free of mixture if the cakes are cooked through.
STEP 7 Once they are baked, turn the cakes out onto a wire rack. Use
a pastry brush to coat the tops with a little of the orange syrup, or
use a squeezy bottle to squirt it on – or pour from a jug. Leave to
cool, then decorate the cupcakes as required.
BASIC VANILLA COOKIES
This recipe is so easy; you just make the dough and roll it out, then cut
out any shape you wish. I use this to make lovely cookies for treats,
presents, party or wedding favours, as well as cake decorations (see here
for the Cookie Explosion cake). You can also use this recipe to create
cookie ‘lollipops’ by baking with a stick embedded into the dough. I give
these as gifts and treats, and use them on top of the Cookie Explosion
cake. If you want to spice things up a bit, you can change the
flavourings in this mixture. For example, if you want orange or lemon
cookies, instead of vanilla, you can use the grated zest of two oranges or
two lemons. To make them chocolatey, replace 25g of the plain flour
with 25g cocoa powder.
QUIPMENT:
0 lolly/cookie sticks (optional)
STEP 1 Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas mark 5 and line two baking
sheets with baking parchment. Mix the butter and both types of
sugar with the vanilla seeds (or orange or lemon zest if you prefer)
until just combined but still grainy. Do NOT cream like you would
for a sponge mix or you may find your cookies spread, puff up a bit
and lose their shape definition. Either do this with a wooden spoon,
hand mixer or in a electric mixer on a slow speed. If using an
electric mixer, you may need to pause it a couple of times and
scrape the mixture down into the centre of the bowl before
continuing, to totally incorporate the butter.
STEP 2 Add the egg, a little at a time, mixing in each addition with a
wooden spoon or with your mixer on slow. Repeat until all the egg
is mixed in.
STEP 3 Add the flour to your mixture and mix slowly until a dough
forms. If you like, you can do this with your hands. If your dough is
still a bit sticky you might need to add a little more flour, or if it’s
dry, add a tiny bit more beaten egg. You need it to be firm and
easy to roll out without sticking to your rolling pin.
STEP 4 Dust your worktop with plenty of flour and roll out the
cookie dough. Work from the centre, rolling away from your body,
then from the centre towards you. Keep turning the dough a
quarter-turn. This will help you to roll out a uniform oblong as
opposed to a spidery shape, which is more difficult to cut shapes
from. Take care to apply even pressure, and roll to an approximate
thickness of 5mm. If you have guide sticks, use them to ensure you
get an even thickness and that the cookies all bake evenly.
STEP 5 Now cut out your required shapes with a cookie cutter(s).
Alternatively, you can draw or print out a shape, glue it onto card
and cut around it with scissors. Place this template onto the top of
the dough and cut around the shape with a sharp knife. You might
need to gently smooth any jagged edges with your fingertips to
make them look neat.
STEP 7 Bake for around 10–12 minutes. Check after 10 minutes; you
may need to give them a few more minutes. The cookies should be
golden brown, firm and springy to touch but not too dark. Cool on
a wire rack and then decorate as required.
TIP
If you bake the cookies until they are very
dry, they will last longer. You can give
them 10–20 minutes extra but do this at a
lower temperature so that they properly dry
out and don’t burn – turn the oven down
by 10–20°C.
Fillings and Coverings
anilla Bean Buttercream and Variations
Orange Buttercream
Lemon Buttercream
Fresh Raspberry and Strawberry Buttercream
Belgian Chocolate Ganache Buttercream
Cupcake Buttercream
oyal Icing
ondant Icing
Glossy Chocolate Ganache for Pouring
ark Belgian Chocolate Paste
White Belgian Chocolate Paste
VANILLA BEAN BUTTERCREAM AND VARIATIONS
STEP 4 Finally, beat the buttercream on fast for a minute or two until
it’s fluffy and pale. You can now use the buttercream, colour it or
adapt into many different flavours.
COLOURING BUTTERCREAM
You can tint or colour buttercream using liquid or paste food
colourings. If using a liquid colour, bear in mind that adding too
much liquid may give a sloppy buttercream, so if you want a very
strong colour I recommend using a strong professional food-
colouring paste. Once the colouring is added, either beat in an
electric mixer (this is the quickest and easiest method) or take the
required amount into a bowl and beat with a wooden spoon.
Follow the basic vanilla buttercream recipe (see here), but when you
cream the butter, add the grated zest of 2 fresh oranges. (You can still
include the vanilla, if you wish, or you can omit it if you prefer.) The
zest will infuse into the buttercream to make a delicious orange-
flavoured filling.
LEMON BUTTERCREAM
For a fresh raspberry kick and the summery taste of strawberries, add 4
tablespoons of the following fruit coulis to the basic vanilla buttercream
(see here). You can then use as you wish to fill any cakes. A great
combination is to split a vanilla sponge twice and add one layer of
vanilla buttercream and another layer of the berry buttercream – not
only does this look really appealing when cut, but it tastes divine!
STEP 2 Place the pan on a low heat and bring the purée to a gentle
boil, then leave to cool. Or you can use a microwave for this stage.
This will give you a perfect chocolate buttercream that’s ideal for filling
the Belgian Chocolate Truffle Cake (see here) or even the Very Vanilla
Sponge (see here) if you like. It can also be used as a cake covering. Once
again, start with the vanilla buttercream recipe here. As always, you
can increase the quantities by doubling, etc.
STEP 1 Put 200g fresh double cream and 400g good-quality plain
Belgian chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids – either chips or a
bar broken into small chunks) into a microwave-proof bowl and
heat on medium power for a minute at a time, stirring periodically,
until the chocolate has melted into the cream to form a smooth,
velvety ganache. Alternatively, you can do this in a heatproof bowl
over a pan of gently simmering water until you achieve the same
melted result. Leave to cool.
STEP 2 Once cooled, stir the ganache into the buttercream. Be sure
that it’s completely cool, as warm chocolate will make your
buttercream oily and unusable!
CUPCAKE BUTTERCREAM
When icing and decorating cupcakes, I used to find that if I topped them
with buttercream, the next day they would go a bit crunchy, and the
buttercream would crystallise on top. So I tried out ways to combat this
problem and discovered a way to prevent it.
To prolong the life of your buttercream and keep it soft for longer, add a
quantity of cream cheese to it. This makes it taste lovely too. Once
again, begin with the vanilla buttercream here, then add 150g cream
cheese, a good-quality one, slowly beating it into the finished
buttercream. You can then flavour the buttercream as normal. This is
ideal for cupcake covering, but can also be used to decorate a whole
cake.
TIP
If you are making it in advance, keep the
buttercream in the fridge for up to a week.
Make sure to get it out and leave at room
temperature for a couple of hours before
use.
ROYAL ICING
Once you have mastered this recipe it will be a loyal friend to you in
your cake-decorating quest. We use it every day at Fancy Nancy, for
piping messages, trims, borders and patterns, covering cakes or making
run-out decorations (see here) to go on cakes and cookies. We also use it
for sticking cake tiers together, attaching decorations and images, filling
gaps and even for covering up mistakes. It’s invaluable.
You can also buy ready-made royal-icing mix from most supermarkets;
you just add water to it. It works well on cookies and can be coloured
and used in the same way described here.
STEP 1 Place the icing sugar in a large bowl or use an electric mixer
with the paddle attachment. Add the egg whites and whisk by hand
or run the machine on its slowest speed to start mixing them in.
Once it starts to amalgamate, add the lemon juice, then mix by
hand or on the slowest speed for 5 minutes.
STEP 2 Adjust the icing to the consistency that you need, by adding
more icing sugar or liquid. See here for more details on how to
achieve stiff-peak, soft-peak or runny consistencies of royal icing.
STEP 3 Once ready, cover the bowl with a clean, damp tea towel or
cloth, to keep the icing from going hard. If exposed to the air, it
will begin to skin over after just a few minutes. This is not good;
even if you stir the flaky bits in, they always block up your piping
nozzle.
Although you can make fondant icing yourself, there are also some
amazing ready-made products available that work really well. You
simply add hot water to these. I like to use Tate & Lyle fondant icing
sugar; it’s quick and has a good finish. You can also buy good-quality
fondant from specialist stores, including suppliers like Squires Kitchen;
you can order online, theirs is a particularly good one. If you wish, you
can flavour your fondant icing with oils or essences such as vanilla,
orange and rose water – I have even been known to add a dash of
Absinth!
STEP 1 Pour the fondant icing sugar into a bowl and add a few
splashes of hot water. Take care: you want it to be just the right
consistency, not so runny that it won’t set, and not so stiff that it
won’t drop off the spoon. You are looking for a treacle-like
consistency, so that it clings to the spoon but will still drop off. Stir
slowly and smoothly until you reach the right consistency, have
eliminated all the dry sugary bits and are left with a smooth
fondant. Avoid using a whisking motion or you will get too many
bubbles in the fondant, which can spoil the finish of your cakes.
STEP 2 If you want to add colour, add a tiny dab of the paste or
liquid to the fondant. I like to use the lightest colours first, as you
can sometimes change these into new colours without having to
wash the bowl out. Save time wherever you can.
STEP 2 Leave to cool slightly. The ganache is now ready to use (see
here).
QUIPMENT :
itchen thermometer
STEP 2 In a small pan, gently heat the glucose syrup or golden syrup
separately, also to 40°C, so that the two mixtures are at the same
temperature.
STEP 3 Pour the syrup onto the melted chocolate and stir vigorously
until thoroughly amalgamated.
STEP 4 With the mixture still in its warm, viscous state, pour it
carefully into a large, heavy-duty freezer bag. You might need help
with this, or you can place the bag in a bowl or pan with the top of
the bag rolled over the sides to keep it open, to avoid any spillage.
Leave to cool overnight at room temperature. It will set into a paste
that can then be kneaded until pliable and used in the same way as
sugarpaste or marzipan.
See here for using the chocolate coating as a covering on your cake.
WHITE BELGIAN CHOCOLATE PASTE
This amount covers a 20cm (8in) round cake and you will probably
have some left over that you can re-use. It keeps well at room
temperature, wrapped up in a food bag, for up to 2 weeks and it freezes
for up to 3 months. If you are making a larger tiered cake, you can
multiply the recipe accordingly. To begin with, you need to make a
sugar syrup. The syrup recipe makes double what you need, but it’s hard
to make it in a smaller quantity. Just freeze whatever you don’t use; it
will keep for up to 3 months.
STEP 4 Pour the liquid cocoa butter into the melted white chocolate
and stir gently until thoroughly amalgamated.
STEP 6 Pour the syrup mixture into the large bowl of melted
chocolate and work these together using a wooden spoon with a
fast, deep, beating motion. You need to work it quickly to avoid
ending up with any lumps of unmixed chocolate or cocoa butter in
your final cooled coating.
STEP 7 Now, while the coating is still in its warm, viscous state, pour
it carefully into a large, heavy-duty freezer bag. You might need
help with this, or you can place the bag in a bowl or pan with the
top of the bag rolled over the sides to keep it open, to avoid any
mishaps.
STEP 8 Leave to cool overnight. It will set into a paste that can then
be kneaded until pliable and used in the same way as sugarpaste or
marzipan.
STEP 9 If you will be decorating your entire cake with moulded
chocolate ruffles, flowers etc., just one coat of this paste will
suffice. But if you wish to have lots of the coated surface on show, I
recommend two layers of this covering for the cake to look its best.
See here for using the chocolate coating as a covering on your cake.
Once your lovely sponge cake is baked to
perfection, you can now fill it with some delicious
buttercream (see here) chocolate ganache (see
here) or anything else that takes your fancy. This
will bring your sponge to life! The sponge and
filling recipes I’ve given in this book are tried and
tested at Fancy Nancy, and work really well for
cake decorating. You can mix them up in any way
you like or, of course, you can use other recipes in
countless different flavours. Everyone has their
favourites!
So, you’ve made your sponge, baked it a bit higher than your tin and
achieved a nice flat top by popping the sponge back in the tin and slicing
off the excess. Now it’s time to split the cake and fill it, to create a
sound foundation for decorating. It is well worth spending the time at
this point to get the base sponge right. I know you want to whizz along
to the fun bit of decorating, but if you start with a great base, your
finished product will look extra special and you’ll be glad that you took
your time.
For layering the Very Vanilla sponge, I like to slice it twice and fill it
with two layers of buttercream, one of Vanilla Bean Buttercream (see
here), and another of Fresh Raspberry and Strawberry Buttercream (see
here), as this tastes delicious and the two layers look really pretty when
the cake is cut. Of course, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to
or are in a hurry. You can simply split it once and layer with whatever
filling you fancy. For the Lemon Drizzle cake, you only need to split it
once. You’ll need approximately one batch (750g) of buttercream for
layering a 20cm (8in) round cake.
STEP 1 When you slice a cake, no matter how precisely you measure
it, or even if you use a cake leveller for cutting, there will always
be slight undulations in the sponge, so sometimes when you
sandwich it back together again, the two halves don’t fit back in
exactly the same position and you end up with a slightly wonky
cake! My dad, George, came up with a great idea to help with this:
before you slice the cake, take a serrated knife and score a line all
the way down one edge of your cake so that you can line it back up
again when you put the two halves back together. Now, when you
split your cake, even if you go a bit wonky, you will be able to fit it
back together in exactly the right place, like a jigsaw, using the line
as a guide.
STEP 2 Cut little marks into the sponge around the edge of your cake,
measured out with a ruler at 5cm (2in) intervals to indicate the line
to which you will slice through. Mark roughly in the centre for the
Lemon Drizzle (see here) or a single-layer Very Vanilla cake (see
here). If you’re using two layers of filling, mark roughly one-third
and two-thirds up the sponge. If you have a cake leveller, set it in
the centre for one layer, or at a 2.5cm (1in) depth then at a 5cm
(2in) depth for two layers. Then slice right across your sponge once
or twice.
STEP 3 At this stage, I like to add a little drizzle of syrup to the cut
side of the cake so it can soak into the sponge before adding your
filling and sandwiching together. Apply the syrup with a pastry
brush or trickle it from a jug; you don’t want the cake to become
soggy so apply just enough to keep the cake nice and moist. The
syrup will also extend its shelf life. (If you followed my cake
recipes, you should have some sugar syrup left over for this. If you
used a different cake recipe, see here and here for how to make
sugar syrups.)
STEP 4 Now you need to adhere the bottom portion of your sliced
sponge cake to a cake board the same size as the cake. I find that a
large splodge of buttercream directly onto the board is the best way
to stick on the cake and prevent it from sliding around.
STEP 6 If you have only sliced the cake once, take the top piece
(again you can drizzle the cut side of this too if you wish with some
syrup) and invert over the layer of buttercream filling, lining up
your guiding knife mark. (If you are doing two layers of filling,
place the middle piece of sponge on top of the bottom, line up the
knife mark, then drizzle over a little more syrup and top with the
next layer of filling. Place the top piece of sponge over the middle
piece, again using the knife mark as a guide, so that you have a
perfectly level and even cake.)
STEP 7 Once your sponge is filled and sandwiched together, you can
smooth over with more buttercream, or you can simply brush with
jam and add icing straight onto the sponge, but it does look better
if you give it a smooth buttercream covering first.
TIP
If you do a lot of cake decorating, you
might want to invest in a cake leveller; I
swear by mine for this task. With this
really handy tool, I just measure the depth
I need and then slice away; it cuts off the
top and leaves you with a perfectly level
cake on which to work.
TIP
Sticking the cake to the board stops it from
sliding about when you add marzipan and
icing, which would make the job very
tricky and probably result in a bad finish.
LAYERING THE RICH BELGIAN CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE
CAKE
STEP 2 Leave the cakes with the base parchment on and then turn
them back over by placing another wire rack or cake board on the
up-facing base of the cake, then carefully flipping over again so
that the crust is now on top.
STEP 3 Carefully slice the top crust off each sponge. As a general
guide, I like to work on cakes with an 8cm (3in) depth, so ideally
you should measure 4cm (1½in) up the side of each cake and slice
off at this point. (You can use a normal ruler for this, and mark all
around the edge at intervals of about 5cms. This will help to ensure
that you don’t cut the sponge off at a wonky angle.)
STEP 4 Once both halves are ready, take the appropriate-sized cake
board (for example, a 15cm (6in) sponge needs to go on a 15cm
(6in) cake board) and spread a little of your chosen buttercream or
filling onto the board to help the sponge to stick.
STEP 6 Take the other half of your sponge and carefully invert over
the bottom cake, so that both cut sides are facing each other in the
middle and the top of your cake is the nice straight-edged base of
that half.
STEP 8 Once you have a level sponge, take a palette knife all the way
around the edge of your cake to smooth off the filling.
STEP 9 From this point on, I like to work with the cake on a large
round cake board that’s 5–8cm (2–3in) wider than the cake on its
base board. This is easier than working directly onto a worktop or,
especially, a turntable, because when you are spreading
buttercream, etc. around the sides, the cake board will prevent any
mess from going onto your turntable or worktop. Working on a
board also aids spreading and covering, as it allows you to easily
spin the cake round using the board underneath.
STEP 10 You can now ice the cake as it is, or you can add an entire
layer of thin buttercream to the outside if you wish – it makes the
chocolate sponge taste wonderful. To do this, take a splodge of
buttercream on your palette knife and spread it all around the sides
of your cake. Also spread a layer of buttercream over the top,
making sure the surface is completely covered and there are no
holes where the sponge is still showing. You don’t want a thick
coating; just a thin all-over spreading of buttercream (a scraping is
enough).
STEP 11 If you have a side scraper, you can now use this to scrape off
excess buttercream, leaving you with a perfectly straight, thin,
smooth coating. Hold the side scraper at a 90-degree angle to the
cake board and facing in towards the cake, at about a 30–45-degree
angle to the surface. Rotate the cake whilst pulling the scraper
towards you. If you don’t have a side scraper, you can use a small
15cm (6in)plastic ruler – a wider one works best. Its straight, flat
edges do the job pretty well.
STEP 12 For the top of the cake, scrape off the excess using a straight
edge tool (a ruler-type tool that is used for royal icing. If you don’t
have one, you can improvise with the straight side of a long bread
knife – be careful of your fingers! – or use a regular 30cm/12in
plastic ruler). Bend down so that your eyes are level with the top of
the cake, then drag the buttercream from the back of the cake
towards you, holding the tool at a 45-degree angle. This will leave
a smooth top.
TIP
When layering your cakes, use the top, cut
edge as the bottom of the cake and use the
bottom of the sponge (the bit that was in
the tin) as the top. This will give you a
firm, smooth surface rather than a crumbly
surface.
LEVELLING THE RICH BOOZY FRUIT CAKE
This is the easiest cake to construct, as although the recipe and method
is more involved, there is no splitting and filling to do, so you can get
pretty much straight on with the covering stage.
As with the other sponges, use the top baked edge of the sponge as
the bottom. Invert it over the cake board to reveal the flat, bottom
part of the fruit cake, which will be smoother and more level as the
top of your cake.
It’s useful to stick the fruit cake to the correct-sized board by
brushing with a little boiled jam and a sticking a few small pieces
of marzipan to the board to prevent the fruit cake from sliding
around when you come to cover it.
However, if your fruit cake isn’t quite level or has any holes in
the edges etc., it’s a good idea to sort all this out before you start
covering, so that when you add marzipan or icing, you won’t get
any lumps or bumps.
You need to get the sides and top as square as possible to get the
best finish. If you have any holes in the sides of your cake, plug
them with marzipan. Also, fruit cakes sometimes shrink a bit, so
when you invert the sponge to get the flat base on top, there might
be a gap around the bottom. Fill this with a sausage of marzipan or
sugarpaste, going all around the base, so that when you ice the
cake, the covering will sit nice and flush with your base board, and
you won’t be left with an unsightly indent in your finished cake.
If the top of the fruit cake is not level, you can build up the dips
with marzipan. Roll out a piece of marzipan to the approximate
thickness, then, by eye, cut out a patch of marzipan to place onto
the dipped part, building up the top until it is flat. It’s a bit tricky
and might take several minutes but if you want your covering to be
even it’s worth doing this at the base level.
DECISIONS FIRST – WHAT TO USE TO COVER YOUR CAKES AND
CUPCAKES?
Now that you are ready to cover your cake, there
are so many different ways in which to do this. So
how do you make your decision? All coatings and
coverings have different tastes and looks, but you
need to consider which is most appropriate for the
design you want to give your cake creation. For
example, you can’t hand-paint onto a glossy
chocolate ganache surface, royal icing or
buttercream.
You can also use liquid icings that set on the cake,
including classic royal icing (see here), chocolate
ganache (see here) and fondant icing (see here),
which you can also buy easily in the supermarket –
you simply add boiled water to it and it’s excellent
to work with.
ou will need:
cake, split and filled and adhered to a base board with buttercream
pricot jam
cing sugar
Marzipan (see chart here for amount)
quipment:
Greaseproof paper
astry brush
lastic icing rolling pin
Guide sticks (optional)
op smoother (optional)
side smoothers (optional)
mall, sharp knife
in tool or pin
urntable
ake board, 5–8cm (2–3in) larger than the cake
(See the step-by-step photographs, here)
STEP 3 Dust the worktop with a little icing sugar and knead the
marzipan until it feels soft and malleable. How long this will take
depends on the amount you are using, but as a guide, if you are
covering a 15cm (6in) cake, you’ll need approximately 650g
marzipan and at normal room temperature it should only take a
minute to knead until it’s ready for use.
STEP 4 Dust the worktop with more icing sugar and roll out the
marzipan from the middle outwards; try to keep a round shape by
turning it as you go. Make sure you sweep plenty of icing sugar
under the marzipan as you go along, so that it doesn’t stick to the
worktop. You can dust the top of the marzipan with just a little
icing sugar so that your rolling pin doesn’t get stuck, but try not to
use too much or it might dry out, making it more likely to rip and
crack when you put it on the cake.
TIP
NEVER flip the marzipan over like you
would for pastry; it will cause it to become
much too dry. Just continuously turn it
and make sure you have enough icing
sugar underneath.
TIP
When rolling out marzipan, sugarpaste or
any roll-out covering, you need to keep the
same even thickness over the whole piece,
not so thin in any place that it might rip,
and without any bumps. It’s easy to do this
by eye, but if you want to make your life
even easier, I really recommend investing in
a pair of guide sticks or marzipan spacers.
They guarantee an even thickness, thus
giving a smooth, level surface on the cake.
STEP 5 You need to roll the marzipan large enough to cover both the
top and the sides of your cake. Once it’s rolled out, to check if you
have enough without having to lift it up and place it on the cake,
hold a tin or board the same size as your cake over the middle of
the marzipan. As long as you have at least 8cm (3in) excess around
the edge of the circle, you have enough to cover the entire cake.
STEP 6 Once the marzipan is rolled and ready, roll it gently over the
rolling pin. This will make it easier to lay the marzipan on the cake
without tearing it. It will also allow you to take a few seconds to
line it up in the centre, rather than having to stretch it over both
arms to lay it on the cake. Another benefit is that you can roll the
marzipan onto the cake slowly, which helps prevent air bubbles
becoming trapped underneath it.
STEP 7 Now hold the rolling pin above the cake, with the centre of
the pin positioned roughly in the middle of the cake. Lift the
marzipan up and start to unroll it, leaving just enough hanging
down on the side facing you and rolling the rest away from you
over the top of the cake. The excess should drape around the sides
of the cake and go right down to cover the base board that is
adhered to the bottom of your cake.
STEP 8 Work as quickly as you can to smooth the marzipan onto the
cake, using your hands to smooth the top, from the centre outwards
towards the edges, making sure to press out any air that may be
trapped under the marzipan. To guarantee a very smooth finish,
you can use a cake smoother to gently press and smooth over the
top of the cake.
TIP
I wouldn’t be without my cake smoothers –
if you are planning to make a few cakes,
they are well worth buying as they make
light work of the job and give a much
better finish. Ideally, you need a top
smoother, which has rounded edges, and
two straight-edged smoothers for the sides.
STEP 9 Once the top is smooth, gently press around the top edge to
fold the marzipan down over the sides. Be careful not to pull it
down or it may rip, and don’t press so hard that you leave
fingerprints. Smooth the marzipan onto the sides, taking care not
to create any folds or creases; if you do get these, gently lift the
marzipan back up again just where the crease is appearing and push
out the fold towards the base of the base board.
STEP 10 When your cake is covered with the marzipan, use a small
knife to cut away as much of the excess as you can, leaving just a
small border of marzipan lying on the worktop; around a 2.5cm or
so. You can save the trimmings for another use; immediately pop
them into a food bag and seal, as marzipan dries out fairly quickly.
There is no need to refrigerate this.
STEP 11 For the next part, you need to lift the cake up to ensure you
get a perfectly straight edge at the bottom of the marzipan, as
opposed to cutting off the remaining excess directly on the
worktop. Carefully lift up the cake and hold underneath the centre
of the base board.
TIP
Lifting the cake can be difficult, especially
if it is large and heavy. If you don’t have a
turntable, use a few stacked cake boards a
couple of inches smaller than the cake to
elevate it from the worktop so that you can
work with it at eye level and move it
around more easily. Otherwise, find
something in your kitchen that you can use
to lift up the cake – a can of beans is
perfect under a 10cm (4in) cake, or use an
upturned bowl or pot. Whatever you use, it
needs to be at least 2.5cm or so smaller
than the cake itself.
STEP 12 With the cake raised, use either the flat of your hand or,
preferably, a side smoother, to gently press the marzipan onto the
sides of the cake, right down to the edge of the bottom of the cake
board, so that there is marzipan hanging lower than the base of the
board. Press all the way around the cake until you are happy that
the marzipan is smooth and even.
STEP 13 Now take a small, sharp, clean knife and, holding it at a 90-
degree angle to the sides of the cake, run it all the way around the
underside of the cake board. Do this carefully, trimming off all the
excess marzipan and allowing it to drop onto the worktop.
STEP 14 You now have a perfectly trimmed cake, with straight sides
that are coated right down to the bottom of the cake board. Place
the covered cake onto a cake board at least 2.5cm (1in), or ideally
5cm (2in), larger than the cake.
STEP 15 Now you can pay more attention to the cake’s surface and
sides. Check for obvious air bubbles under the surface; if you notice
any, gently insert your pin tool or pin into them and expel the air
by gently pressing it out through the hole, then gently smooth over
the hole with your fingers.
STEP 16 Bend down so the cake is at eye level, allowing you to judge
the straightness of the top and sides more accurately. Smooth over
the top, sides and edges as best you can, either with the flat of your
hand or with side smoothers if you have them, until you are pleased
with the finish. If using smoothers, you can press quite firmly to
eliminate any bumps, but take care not to press too hard if using
your hands, or you’ll create fingerprint indentations.
STEP 17 Check once more for any air bubbles and expel using the pin
tool or pin as before, then press lightly with your top smoother to
ensure the surface is even. Sometimes, inevitably, you will miss
these bubbles and return the next day to see a huge bulge under
your icing or coating – incredibly frustrating. All you can do is pop
with the pin tool and gently smooth over with a side or top
smoother. You will always get the odd lump and bump and it really
doesn’t matter too much as you will be covering this layer with a
layer of sugarpaste.
STEP 18 Once you have covered your cake with marzipan, it is best to
leave this to dry until the next day so that it can ‘skin over’ and
will hold its neat shape when you add the sugarpaste layer.
TIP
Sometimes, especially in warm weather, if
there’s too much buttercream inside a cake,
you get a really unsightly bulge that
appears in the middle of the cake and can
be seen through the icing. This is known as
the cake ‘blowing’. If you have already
covered the cake with marzipan and this
happens on the following day, you can at
least try to trim away some of the bulge
before you ice the cake. To help prevent the
cake from ‘blowing’, use a pin tool (or a
clean pin, but be careful not to leave it
lying around) and prick several holes
around your cake.
SECOND COAT: SUGARPASTE
On the second day, you need to apply the next coat, this time of
sugarpaste. You’ve already done the hard work – you’ve made sure your
cake has a great base level, tweaked it if needed, and covered it in
marzipan or an initial coat of sugarpaste, so adding this final coat
should be easier.
ou will need:
cake (adhered to a base board), covered in marzipan or a first layer
of sugarpaste
randy, vodka or cooled boiled water
ugarpaste (see chart here for amount needed), in your choice of
colour
cing sugar
quipment:
alette knife, or large normal knife
Greaseproof paper
astry brush
lastic icing rolling pin
Guide sticks (optional)
op smoother (optional)
side smoothers (optional)
mall, sharp knife
in tool or pin
urntable
ake board, 5–8cm (2–3in) larger than the cake
STEP 1 Carefully lift up the cake from its base board using a palette
knife or large normal knife, until you can get your fingers
underneath and gently lift it completely off the board (it might
stick a bit but be confident; it will lift away). Place the cake on a
piece of greaseproof paper to save on mess.
STEP 2 Brush the marzipan or first sugarpaste layer all over with
brandy or vodka (or, if you don’t want to use alcohol, with cooled
boiled water), using a pastry brush. You might intend to keep this
cake for a while, or will be taking a few days to stack and decorate
it, so you need to minimise any risk of bacterial growth under the
iced surface.
STEP 3 The cake is now ready to receive the next layer of covering.
Knead the sugarpaste until pliable, using plenty of icing sugar on
the worktop beneath the icing. When ready to roll, you can also
dust the top of the sugarpaste with just a little icing sugar to stop
your rolling pin from sticking, but try not to use too much or the
sugarpaste can become dry and may crack.
STEP 4 Flatten the ball of sugarpaste, and start to roll out evenly
from the middle outwards, turning it regularly to prevent an
uneven shape; you want a nice round piece to lay over the cake.
Take care to roll out with even pressure so that your sugarpaste is a
good, uniform thickness of approximately 5–6mm. You can use
guide sticks if you have them.
STEP 5 In the same way as described for the first coat of marzipan or
sugarpaste (see here, steps 7–18), roll the sugarpaste over the
rolling pin, line it up over the cake, smooth over, and trim off the
excess, again placing the cake back onto the cake board and
elevating it, to enable you to smooth down the sugarpaste and
make the cake surface as smooth and straight as possible. Leave
your cake to dry and skin over.
TIP
If you get too much icing sugar on the
surface of a dark-coloured sugarpaste,
especially black, the icing sugar will cause
white blotches that spoil the iced surface
and are very hard to remove. If this
happens, re-knead the sugarpaste and
begin again.
TIP
Like anything in life, the more you practise
this, the better you will get. If you are a
real perfectionist, then you could practise
with a polystyrene cake dummy (see
stockists here) before moving onto a cake.
You can use and re-use the sugarpaste
several times. It’s a good idea to attempt a
more basic or easier project on your first
go, and once you have got the hang of
working with marzipan and sugarpaste
(you do get a feel for it after a while, like
many other food mediums or craft
techniques), you can then try a bigger,
more elaborate or stacked cake project.
COVERING MINIATURE CAKES WITH MARZIPAN AND
SUGARPASTE
Once your cake is baked, leave to cool, then (unless it’s a fruit
cake) slice once horizontally and fill with buttercream or your
chosen filling. You are now ready to create and cover your
miniature cakes.
ou will need:
23cm (9in) square cake, split and filled with a layer of buttercream
(unless it’s a fruit cake). This will make 9 mini cakes
pricot jam
cing sugar
.25 kg marzipan, sugarpaste or chocolate paste
randy, vodka or cooled boiled water
quipment:
ound cookie cutter (or round sugarcraft cutter, diameter 5cm/2in),
or a long, sharp knife if making square cakes
cm (2in) round or square cake cards (or pre-cut circles/squares of
greaseproof paper or card)
astry brush
lastic icing rolling pin
side smoothers
alette knife (or small normal knife)
in tool
harp knife
STEP 1 Carefully cut out your little cakes. This is easiest if the cake is
at room temperature. For round ones, press out with a cutter. For
square ones, slice the cake into strips 5cm (2in) wide, then cut
across these at 5cm (2in) intervals to give cubes. Pop them all onto
a large cake board and place in the fridge, as it’s easier to cover
them when cold and firmed up.
STEP 2 Start by covering just four small cakes at a time, until you get
quicker, especially when using sugarpaste, as it dries out fast. Brush
each cake all over with boiled apricot jam (see here) and spread
them out so that you can work on each one.
STEP 3 Take some of your covering – for four cakes, 500g is enough
– and roll out as described in the method for marzipan (see here,
steps 3–5), to at least 30cm (12in) square.
STEP 4 Cut the covering into small squares, each one large enough to
cover a little cake morsel – about 15cm (6in) square is enough.
Place a square on top of each cake.
STEP 5 With your hands, roughly smooth over the top and sides until
each cake is covered. They will end up a bit rough, but you will
finish these off with smoothers. (Smoothers are a must for these
cakes; you can’t make perfectly iced mini cakes with just your
fingers and hands I’m afraid.)
STEP 6 Using a sharp knife, cut off the excess covering very close to
the base of each cake.
STEP 7 If your cakes are round, press your pair of smoothers against
opposite sides of the cake and run the smoothers all around the
edge with a backwards-and-forwards motion, until the edges are
smooth and neat. Pat the top down so that it looks straight and
level, and keep pushing the sides and patting the top until you have
a good upright shape.
STEP 8 For square cakes, just pat the cake by pushing the smoothers
on opposite sides, pressing the covering onto the cake, then switch
to the other sides until you have moulded a rough square shape.
Also pat down the top, to make sure it’s flat and level.
STEP 9 Once you have finished smoothing, lift the cakes carefully
with a palette knife or small normal knife and place on a large cake
board or baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper to dry
overnight.
STEP 10 The next day, line up your base cards or cut-out greaseproof
pieces, and use a dab of boiled apricot jam to adhere the cakes onto
the bases. Chill in the fridge for about an hour, so that they set nice
and firm. This will ensure that they hold their shape and will make
it easier to cover them with the next layer of sugarpaste (if the
cakes are left at room temperature, the marzipan can become
crumbly and be easily pressed out of shape.)
STEP 11 Cover with a second coating in the same way, but this time
using brandy, vodka or cooled boiled water, instead of jam, to stick
the second coat to the base coat. Leave to dry overnight before
decorating. (See here for some design ideas for mini cakes.)
COVERING WITH ROYAL ICING
TIP
If you are trying this for the first time, you
may want to think about decorating your
royal-iced cake with lots of floral
decorations, etc. That way, it won’t matter
too much if the surface isn’t completely
smooth as there won’t be lots of it showing.
You can cheat by hiding imperfections!
ou will need:
cake, covered in marzipan (see here)
oyal icing (see here); slightly thicker than soft peak is ideal – stiff
enough to apply and smooth out, but not so soft that it loses shape
(you need approx. 800g for a 20cm/8in round cake)
quipment:
ake board, 5–8cm (2–3in) larger than the cake
urntable
alette knife
traight edge tool (or plastic 30cm/12in ruler)
ide scraper
harp knife
astry brush
STEP 1 Have your royal icing ready at the right consistency and cover
it with a clean, damp cloth to stop it from skinning over.
STEP 3 For a round cake (I will explain how to cover a square cake in
a moment), use the palette knife to place a large blob of royal icing
onto the side of your cake. Spread it evenly around the edge in a
generous layer with a gentle pushing motion, paddling the icing
from side to side in small movements to spread it out to an even
thickness. Turn the cake on your turntable as you go, until all of
the sides are covered with a layer approximately 5mm thick.
Paddling in this way helps to push out and displace bubbles from
the icing. (If you are a perfectionist, you can paddle out the icing
on the work surface first to remove bubbles. It depends on how
you’ll be decorating the cake as to how smooth your icing needs to
be.) Don’t worry about getting it really neat; just get an even
amount on there, as you will smooth this over in a moment.
STEP 4 Hold the side scraper at a slight angle (about 15–20 degrees)
against the side of the cake. With your other hand, take hold of the
turntable at the back of the cake, just behind the scraper. Slowly,
but without stopping, revolve the cake a full circle in one
continuous motion.
STEP 5 When the entire surface is smooth, lift the scraper away from
the side. This will leave a visible take-off mark, but the more you
practise – and after further coats of icing – the less this mark will be
noticeable. If you are unhappy with your first attempt, then re-
paddle the sides and have another go. When finished, clean the
scraper.
If you are covering a square cake, apply the royal icing to two
opposite sides and let these dry for at least 2 hours, before coming
back to your cake and covering the remaining two sides. Complete
these in the same way as for the round cake by palleting on a thick
layer with the paddling motion, then scraping over the royal icing
with the side scraper set at an angle to smooth.
STEP 6 If there are any excess peaks protruding from the finish point,
use a sharp knife to drag down that side to remover the snags.
Clean off any icing left on the board using a sharp knife and a
clean, damp cloth. Clean the palette knife.
TIP
If you are a beginner with royal icing, leave
the iced cake in a dry atmosphere to
harden for a couple of hours before starting
on the sides. It is possible to ice the top and
sides together, but it is easier to do them
one at a time, especially when you’re just
starting out, or things can get a bit messy.
STEP 7 Using the palette knife, place a large blob of royal icing on
top of the cake. Spread it evenly over the top only, with a gentle
pushing motion, paddling the icing from side to side in small
movements to spread it out to an even thickness. Turn the cake on
your turntable as you go, until the top of the cake is covered, keep
paddling in this way to push out the bubbles from the icing, as you
did on the sides.
STEP 8 At this point, don’t worry too much about any icing spilling
over the edges (unless it’s going all over the place!) as you can
carefully scrape this off. Once you are happy that there is an even
coat on the top, of approximately 5mm thickness, stop and clean
the palette knife.
STEP 9 Hold your straight edge tool (or ruler) at both ends, at an
angle of 45 degrees to the surface of the cake. Starting at the edge
furthest away from you, at the back of the cake, draw the tool
forward across the cake, towards your body, in one continuous
movement. Make sure not to press down too hard, just glide
confidently over the icing.
STEP 10 Any icing collected on the straight edge tool can now be
scraped back into the bowl. If you are not happy with your surface
(it takes practice and patience) then you can just scrape it off the
cake and start again. You can do this as many times as you like
whilst the icing is still wet and not crusting; however, it will go
crusty quickly – after about 5 minutes. As long as the first coat is
level, you’re doing fine. Clean the straight edge tool after each
attempt to prevent dry lumps getting into the icing.
STEP 11 Once you are happy with the top, use the palette knife to
remove any icing from the sides of the cake by carefully holding it
vertically, running it along the sides and knocking off the excess as
you go. Throw this excess away as it will have started to dry out.
STEP 12 Before adding the second or third layer of royal icing, make
sure the first layer is dry. Using a sharp knife, carefully scrape off
any rough edges, excess snags and peaks. Use a pastry brush to
remove any loose particles of icing that could get caught up in the
next coat.
STEP 13 Now repeat all the steps for the next layer of coating. This
layer can be a little thinner; about the consistency of whipped
cream.
COVERING WITH BUTTERCREAM
quipment:
ake board, 5–8cm (2–3in) larger than the cake
urntable
alette knife
traight edge tool (or plastic 30cm/12in ruler)
ide scraper (optional)
harp knife
STEP 1 Place your cake on the cake board and position centrally onto
your turntable.
STEP 2 With a palette knife, put a large blob of buttercream onto the
top of the cake and spread it evenly over the top surface. Use a
pushing motion and wiggle the knife from side to side, paddling
down with a backwards-and-forwards movement, turning the cake
on the turntable as you go. (If you are not using a turntable, just
spin the cake round on its board on the surface, although it’s not
quite as easy.) Don’t worry about any buttercream spilling over the
edges as you will be icing the sides straight away. You should have
a coating that’s not too thick, but enough to cover any lumps and
bumps; around 5mm is perfect.
STEP 3 Now take some more buttercream on the knife and start to
apply this onto the sides of the cake in thick blobs, roughly
spreading it around the sides. Use the palette knife to spread
around the sides until you have a rough all-over covering with no
holes showing and the cake is covered entirely.
STEP 4 If you don’t have a straight edge tool and scraper, try to
neaten off the coating as best you can by smoothing all around in a
sweeping motion with the palette knife, until all sides are equal
and smooth. You can run the knife along the top edge to neaten
any bits of buttercream that have pushed up above the top of the
cake. Leave the cake to set.
STEP 5 If you do have a straight edge tool (or are using the ruler
instead), hold it at both ends and position it at the back of the cake,
the edge furthest away from you, at an angle of 45 degrees to the
surface. Draw it across the cake towards your body in one
continuous movement. Make sure not to press down too hard, just
glide confidently over the buttercream. This will give you a clean
finish.
STEP 7 When the entire side surface is smooth, lift the scraper away
from the buttercream. If a few snagging bits of buttercream are
poking up above the flat top, hold a sharp knife level with the top
of the cake and run it all the way around the edge to carefully take
off any excess.
STEP 8 Now leave the cake to set – you may want to pop it in the
fridge for an hour or so to help it firm up. Once the buttercream has
set, you can lift the cake off the cake board that you worked on (as
it will have buttercream all over it) and place it on a clean board,
cake stand or iced board ready to finish your gorgeous cake.
Decorate in any way you fancy.
TIP
If chilling this cake, allow it to set before
you pop it in the fridge, so that you don’t
smear the coating. Once set, wrap the cake
up in cling film to protect it from drying
out in the fridge. When you want to bring
it back to room temperature, unwrap
whilst it’s still fridge-cold, so that the
buttercream doesn’t stick to the cling film.
COVERING CUPCAKES WITH BUTTERCREAM
ou will need:
2–16 cupcakes
batch of buttercream (see here) will cover 12–16 cupcakes
quipment:
alette knife
STEP 2 Hold the cake in your hand and, with your palette knife at an
angle of 45 degrees to the cake, sweep around in a circular motion
using gentle pressure, turning the cake as you go, until the top is
coated.
STEP 3 Once all your cupcakes are topped with buttercream, you can
finish them with sprinkles, sweets, sugar flowers or whatever takes
your fancy. They look divine when topped with a sugar or
chocolate rosebud and leaves.
PIPING BUTTERCREAM ONTO CUPCAKES
You can also pipe buttercream onto your cupcakes, which looks fab
and is fairly simple to do. Different-shaped nozzles, such as star,
leaf-tip or petal-shaped produce a range of effects.
Take a large plastic piping bag (the non-slip variety is best),
snip off the end and drop in the nozzle of your choice. (In the
pictures, I am using a large Wilton 1m nozzle.) Hold the bag with
the top folded over your hand – this stops it getting into a slippery
mess. With a spoon, fill up the bag halfway. Hold the top of the bag
firmly and shake down the buttercream so it drops to the bottom,
near the nozzle. Bunch up the bag above the filling and twist it
until it is tightly sealed and you can feel pressure. Now you can
start squeezing the buttercream out! Be sure to keep a firm grip and
twist the bag tight as you use up the buttercream.
STAR NOZZLE
A simple star nozzle is relatively easy to use and gives a lovely
whipped effect, similar to a whippy ice-cream. Start at the outer
edge of the cake and, in one continuous spiral motion, gently
squeeze out a trail of the star-shaped buttercream until you reach
the centre. Lift off and up to give the top a peaked finish.
PETAL NOZZLE
Piping ‘floral’ buttercream onto cupcakes can give a lovely rose
effect. It’s a bit trickier than the star-nozzle method, so try it first
on some paper, or just have a go with a cake – if you’re not happy
you can scrape the buttercream back into the bowl and re-use it.
STEP 1 Hold your petal-shaped nozzle against the top of your cupcake
in the centre with the fat side touching the sponge and the tapered
petal edge at the top.
STEP 2 Squeeze a small, cone-shaped ‘centre petal’ onto the cake and
stop. Twist the cupcake round as the icing comes out, rather than
trying to move the nozzle; it is much easier to turn the cake than to
turn the piping bag.
STEP 3 Now squeeze out another petal to ‘cup’ around the centre
one, beginning a layered rose-petal effect.
STEP 4 Repeat by piping a third petal around the two centre ones,
then continue this by going around in a circle, building up petals,
squeezing each one out and then stopping once it is formed, until
the entire surface is covered with a pretty, buttery, sugary rose.
LEAF NOZZLE
Piping buttercream ‘leaves’ around a flower or centre decoration is
straightforward with a leaf nozzle – it’s all about the squeezing
technique and knowing when to stop and drag away. (See pictures,
here.)
STEP 1 Place the tip of the leaf nozzle onto the cake against where
you want the leaves to ‘grow’ out from.
STEP 2 You want the leaf to be fatter and wider at the start, then
tapering off to a point as you finish. Squeeze the buttercream out to
begin the leaf, then, still squeezing, pull away from the base and
gently release the pressure until you stop. Drag the tip of the
nozzle up and away from the cake.
STEP 3 If you want the leaves to look ruffled, you can move the
nozzle slightly up and down while you squeeze out the
buttercream; have a practice a few times onto the worktop, or onto
greaseproof paper so that you can re-use the buttercream.
COVERING WITH FONDANT ICING
Covering a cake in fondant gives a slightly more messy look and does
take some skill, but it’s great for certain designs. If you wish to decorate
a whole cake with fondant icing, you can pour the entire bowl of icing
over the cake on a wire rack in the same way as described for the glossy
chocolate ganache (see here).
COVERING CUPCAKES WITH FONDANT ICING
ou will need:
2–16 cupcakes
00g pack of fondant icing sugar
few tbsp hot water (boiled then cooled slightly)
aste colours (optional)
quipment:
Wire rack
Greaseproof paper
in tool
alette knife or metal spoon
POURING
Make the fondant as described here or follow the instructions on
the packet. They vary a bit, but ideally you want a consistency that
is runny enough to pour but not so runny that it doesn’t set well –
you are looking for the consistency of treacle, so that it will slide
off your spoon onto the cake. If you prefer, you can fill a plastic
disposable piping bag with the entire amount of fondant and snip a
small hole in it, to give you a bit more control. However, a spoon
works perfectly well. You’ll need a generous tablespoon of fondant
for a standard-sized cupcake.
STEP 1 If you wish to colour the fondant, tint with the colour of your
choice. Cover the bowl with a clean, damp tea towel to keep it from
drying out.
STEP 5 Check the finish and if you notice any tiny bubbles appearing
in the icing, pop them quickly with your pin tool, then tap the cake
again to flatten. Leave to set for 24 hours until the icing is hard.
You can then pipe onto the fondant (such as a message, name or
number) or embellish with flowers, push-mould decorations, etc.
TIP
Ideally, if you are planning to cover
cupcakes with fondant, it is important to
bake them with the right amount of batter
in the case, so that the sponge rises to just
under the top of the case. This makes it so
much easier to cover the cakes with
fondant. I find that filling the case to just
under halfway usually works out about
right. If the baked sponge pokes up or rises
above the top of the case, you can, of
course, trim it flat, but it’s easier if you
start with a sponge that’s just under the
top edge. This enables you to pour in the
fondant and for it to be contained within
the cake case rather than trickling over the
edge, which looks messy. Your fondant will
then sit nice and flat, making it much
easier to pipe onto, or add pictures or cut-
out shapes to.
TIP
To take it slowly but still get a perfect
result, lay a damp tea towel over your bowl
of fondant so that it doesn’t form a skin
and leave you with flakes in your smooth
topping.
DIPPING
Another way to apply fondant to cupcakes, particularly if you
prefer to bake your cupcakes with a domed sponge top, is to hold
the cupcake by its case and invert it over the bowl of fondant,
immersing the top just far enough into the icing to coat the sponge,
and taking care not to let it smudge onto the case. Again, the
fondant will set touch-dry after a few hours, but it’s better to leave
the cakes until the next day, to totally dry out, before decorating
them.
TIP
If your fondant has a thin consistency, it’s
best to let a thin coating dry for a couple of
hours, before going back and dipping the
cakes again to ensure a good coverage
without any sponge showing through.
COVERING WITH GLOSSY CHOCOLATE GANACHE FOR
POURING
The glossy chocolate ganache covering here can be used on both larger
cakes and cupcakes. It is relatively simple to do and quite fun too!
When you are working with chocolate ganache, ideally you need a
stable room temperature. At Fancy Nancy, we are lucky enough to
have an air-conditioned room to work in during the warmer
months. Most people won’t have that luxury at home, so if it’s a
steaming summer day, you will probably get into a melty, sticky
mess. It might be best, therefore, to work in the evenings or to
stick with sugarpaste or chocolate paste! Also, be warned that if you
keep a ganache-covered cake for a few days and the temperature
keeps changing, you might see matt white patches appearing on the
surface.
ou will need:
round cake, split and filled, and covered in buttercream if you wish
(see here) and adhered to a base board
Glossy chocolate ganache for pouring (see here, recipe will cover a
15cm/6in round cake)
quipment:
Wire rack
Greaseproof paper or baking parchment
Measuring jug with lip (optional)
alette knife or metal spoon
mall, sharp knife
iping bag and No. 3 nozzle (optional)
STEP 1 Place your cake onto a clean wire rack set over a large piece
of greaseproof paper or baking parchment – to catch the excess
ganache that pours down the sides of the cake.
STEP 2 Now, with your ganache in a measuring jug with a lip for
ease (or you can pour from the bowl), pour it liberally over the
cake so that you have a big shiny puddle of chocolate on the top of
your cake.
STEP 6 When you are ready to place your cake onto a board, or cake
stand, use a palette knife to lift up the cake from one side, just
enough to get your hands under it (you will get chocolatey hands!).
STEP 7 Hold the cake up to eye level carefully on one hand (with
whichever hand feels the most comfortable). You might find this a
bit tricky, but try to position your hand in the centre underneath
the cake board, and splay out your fingers to help balance it. You
will see a rough edge of chocolate along the bottom of the cake
where it was against the wire rack. Take a small sharp knife, and at
a 180-degree angle to the sides, flush with the flat base, run the
knife away from you to trim off that chocolate and neaten up your
edge.
STEP 1 While it’s still warm, pour just a dash of the ganache onto the
top of each cupcake. Don’t overfill – you can always add more, but
you don’t want it to spill over the edges of the cupcake case. I find
it helpful to pour the ganache from a jug with a lip, so that it’s
easier to control.
STEP 2 Once the ganache is poured on, take each cupcake in its case
and gently tap on a surface to encourage the chocolate to spread to
the edges and sit flat. Don’t worry if your sponge is a bit domed;
once you decorate it with sprinkles, gold leaf or a white-chocolate
rose it will look beautiful.
STEP 3 Continue until your batch is covered, then leave to set.
COVERING WITH CHOCOLATE PASTE
ou will need:
cake, split and filled, and stuck to a base board
pricot jam
cing sugar
hocolate paste (for amount, see introduction)
quipment:
Greaseproof paper
astry brush
lastic icing rolling pin
Guide sticks or marzipan spacers (optional)
op smoother
side smoothers
mall, sharp knife
urntable
in tool or pin
ake board, 5–8cm (2–3in) larger than the cake
odka, brandy or cooled boiled water
STEP 1 First, you need to make the surface of the cake sticky so that
the chocolate will adhere to it. The best thing to use is apricot jam.
Microwave the jam for a couple of minutes until boiling, just to be
sure that no bacteria becomes trapped between the cake and the
chocolate. If you don’t have a microwave, bring the jam to the boil
in a pan on the hob.
STEP 3 Dust the worktop with a little icing sugar and knead the
chocolate paste until it feels soft and malleable; how long this takes
depends on the amount you are using.
STEP 4 Begin to roll out the chocolate, from the middle outwards,
and turning it regularly to keep the shape round. Make sure to
sweep plenty of icing sugar under the chocolate so that it doesn’t
stick to the worktop. Also dust the top of the chocolate with just a
little icing sugar so that your rolling pin doesn’t stick, but don’t use
too much or the chocolate might dry out, making it more likely to
rip or crack when you put it onto the cake.
TIP
NEVER flip the chocolate over as you
would for pastry; it will become much too
dry. Just make sure to turn it and ensure
there’s enough icing sugar underneath; this
way you will be sure to keep a smooth,
gleaming coating.
STEP 5 You need to keep the same even thickness over the whole
piece of chocolate, without any bumps, and don’t let it get too thin
in places, or it may rip. Again, I really recommend investing in a
pair of guide sticks or marzipan spacers, which enable you to roll
the entire piece of chocolate to the thickness of the sticks, giving
you a smooth, even surface. But, of course, they’re not essential, so
if you don’t have them, just take care to apply gentle, even
pressure over the chocolate as you roll.
STEP 7 Once it’s ready, roll the chocolate gently over the rolling pin.
Hold the pin above the cake with the centre of the pin lining up
roughly with the middle of the cake. Leave just enough chocolate
hanging down on the side nearest you and then roll the rest away
from you over the top of the cake. The excess should drape around
the sides of the cake. Work slowly and away from yourself to help
prevent air becoming trapped under the coating.
STEP 8 Use the flat of your hands and fingers to smooth the top of
the chocolate, from the centre out towards the edges. Make sure
you press out any air that may be trapped underneath, ideally with
a top smoother to ensure a flatter finish.
STEP 9 Once the top is smooth, gently press around the top edge to
fold the chocolate down over the sides, being careful not to pull
down and tear the coating. Press the chocolate gently onto the sides
of the cake; but don’t press so hard that you leave finger marks.
STEP 10 Smooth all around the sides with your hands, taking care not
to cause any folds or creases in the coating. (However, if you will
be applying a second coat, a couple of creases can be smoothed out
later – they disappear quite well, as the layers of chocolate coating
merge together more easily than marzipan and sugarpaste because
they are not as dry.) If it looks like the chocolate is going to crease
or bunch up quite a lot, gently lift it away from the cake just where
the crease is appearing, then push the crease out towards the base
of the cake.
STEP 13 Once you have finished smoothing down the sides, run a
small, sharp, clean knife all the way around the underside of the
cake board, at a 90-degree angle to the sides of the cake, to
carefully trim off the remaining excess chocolate onto the worktop,
until you have a perfectly trimmed cake, with straight sides and
coating that goes right down to its base. Place the covered cake
onto a clean cake board 5–8cm (2–3 in) larger than the cake.
STEP 14 Now you can pay more attention to the cake’s surface and
sides. If you notice any air bubbles, use the pin tool to puncture the
coating and smooth the air out through the hole.
STEP 15 Bend down until the cake is at eye level, so that you can
judge the straightness of the top and sides more accurately. Smooth
the top and sides as best you can, either with the flat of your hand
or side smoothers if you have them, until you are pleased with the
finish. If you are using smoothers, you can press quite firmly to
eliminate bumps, but if you are using your hands, take care to not
press too hard or you’ll leave finger impressions.
STEP 16 Leave this first coating to dry overnight, then continue the
next day, applying a second coat in exactly the same way, but this
time using vodka, brandy or cooled boiled water to stick on the
coating, rather than jam. Take extra care not to crease or fold the
coating as this will be your top and final layer.
STEP 17 You now have a smooth, chocolate-coated base cake that you
can decorate in a more elaborate way, adding chocolate or sugar
embellishments, shapes or flowers. You can also paint onto this
surface. What a great chocolatey alternative to sugarpaste!
There are several ways in which you can build
tiered cakes. They all have their pros and cons,
and it’s always best to have a trial run if you are
planning on making a really special cake, such as
a wedding cake. The days of stacking cakes with
those white plastic (and rather naff!) pillars are
mostly gone. (However, some people do still use
this method, and it can look quite retro, which
does suit some designs, so I will include instructions
for this method anyway.)
Before you decide on a method for stacking, think about a few key
questions to help make up your mind on the best approach.
Can you decorate the tiers separately and stack them at your
venue? Think about the weight of a finished five-tier cake. They
are very heavy when fully decorated; a five-tier cake weighs about
30kg! Imagine the difficulty of carrying a delicate cake like this all
by yourself and keeping it level.
Are you able to transport your stacked cake? If so, how? If your
cake is more than two tiers high, it won’t fit into some models of
car. Cakes must be placed in the boot on a flat base. NEVER place
on a seat!
TIP
Always take a repair kit with you if you
are setting up a tiered cake. If you find
hairline cracks or larger cracks on the
lower tiers, it means you haven’t used
enough dowels. CAKETASTROPHE! Never
fear, if the cracks are small you can fill
them with royal icing and they will
magically disappear. See here for dealing
with caketastrophes.
STACKING A ONE-PIECE CAKE USING DOWELS
You can build your tiered creation to any height, but you must
support the weight of your cakes inside, to prevent them from
collapsing through the cake below. Cakes are quite heavy when
finished, so if you just placed one cake on top of another, the
weight would force down and eventually squash the cake below or
create big cracks and bulges. It’s easy to prevent this from
happening by using cake dowels; you can buy clear, white plastic or
wooden dowels. You can also buy heavy-duty dowels; I favour these
myself. They are more expensive but well worth it to prevent all of
your hard work from collapsing.
STEP 1 Use a cake board as a guide to mark out a circle or square the
same size as the tier that will be sitting above. For example, if you
are stacking an 18cm (7in) round cake on top of a 25cm (10in)
round base cake, use an 18cm (7in) round cake board as a guide.
Put the board onto the base cake, and mark around it with a scriber
tool or the tip of a sharp knife. You can then easily see where you
need to place dowels, i.e. within this outline. Do the same for all
your tiers except the top one.
STEP 2 By eye, insert the cake dowels into the cake, pushing them
right in until they touch the board underneath, taking care to put
them in straight, not leaning at an angle. Place them all around the
inside edge of the outline and then a few in the middle just to be
safe. I recommend being over-cautious and adding plenty of these
dowels, particularly to the base tier if there will be more than one
other tier above it. However, for a tiny top tier that doesn’t weigh
much, you won’t need many dowels under it – for example, four
regular dowels is plenty for supporting a 10cm (4in) cake – so do
use your judgement.
STEP 3 Once all the dowels are inserted into your cake, you need to
put a mark on each dowel (I find a pencil with a retractable lead
most accurate here), level with the iced surface. Mark them all,
even if your surface is pretty straight, as there will be slight
undulations and you will see that when you remove the dowels and
line them up together against a flat edge, the marks will vary a tad.
STEP 4 To ensure your next cake will sit level, you then need to re-
mark all of the dowels at the same point as the tallest original
depth mark. This way, the next cake won’t be pressing anywhere
on the cake below, which could cause cracks. Now cut all the
dowels down to the marks – you can do this with a small hacksaw
or a serrated knife but take care. Then place the cut-down dowels
back into your cake, ready to receive the tier above.
TIP
My dad, George, had a clever idea for
safely cutting the dowels. He got a short
offcut of garden decking with lined ridges.
You can lay your dowels snugly in the
ridge to prevent them slipping around on
the worktop while you are cutting through
them. This avoids injuries and also makes
life easier.
STEP 5 Once all your cakes have their dowels, you can lift up the
upper tiers with a palette knife and safely position each onto the
cake below. Before you add each tier, apply royal icing to the
middle of the cake underneath to act as sugary cement to adhere
them together, making sure they set fast and stay put.
STEP 6 If there are any gaps between your tiers caused by dowels
that rise above the surface of the cake, they can be filled with royal
icing, or hidden with ribbon if it’s used in your design. Most cakes
will have ribbon to finish the tiers; it disguises any inevitable rough
edges at the bottom of your cake. You can also use pearl piping as a
decorative trim around the tiers (see here); it, too, will disguise any
gaps.
SEPARATED STACKED CAKES
STEP 1 Place the board or dummy on top of the base cake as a guide,
and mark around the edge with a scriber tool or sharp knife so that
you can see the outline inside which you need to place dowels.
Repeat with the other tiers, using the appropriate column as a
guide.
STEP 2 Now continue in the same way as described for the one-piece
stacked cake (see here, steps 2–4), placing your dowels into the
cake and marking, then cutting and inserting back into your cake.
STEP 3 Once all of your cakes have their dowels inserted, it’s simply
a matter of stacking the cakes like building blocks. You can do this
at the party or venue very easily. You don’t have to stick them
together, as the weight of the cakes should be enough to hold them
in place, but it’s not a bad idea to stick them with some royal icing
as it will be safer, particularly if the cake is anywhere near a
springy dance floor, etc.! It can also be helpful to stick each
polystyrene or cake-board column onto the cake below in advance,
so that they are all ready to go when you come to stack the cake.
CONSTRUCTING ICED SUGAR DISPLAY STANDS FOR
CUPCAKES
ou will need:
0cm (8in), 25cm (10in), 30cm (12in) and 35cm (14in) round cake
boards, pre-iced and left to dry for at least 24 hours) (see here)
lengths of ribbon, 15mm (1/2in) width, for the board edges
0cm (4in), 12cm (5in) and 15cm (6in) polystyrene cake dummies,
8cm (3in) in depth (these are used to create your ribbon-covered
columns to separate the iced cake boards)
pprox. 4 metres of ribbon, 25mm (1in) width, for the separators
tiff-peak royal icing (see here and here)
quipment:
Glue (Pritt Stick is best as it doesn’t bleed through ribbon)
cissors
in or sharp knife
STEP 1 One at a time, apply glue to the edges of the cake boards and
neatly attach the narrower ribbon by wrapping it all the way
around, keeping it straight and flush to the worktop, until the silver
edges of the boards are completely covered.
STEP 2 Glue around the edges of the first cake dummy. Wrap the
wider ribbon neatly around the cake dummy overlapping it slightly
as you go. Take care not to leave any white polystyrene showing
through. Once you have covered the whole cake dummy, snip off
the end of the ribbon and secure with a dab of glue. Continue until
all three dummies are covered. Now you have your three ‘ribbon
columns’ ready to give you height between each cake board.
STEP 3 Take the largest board: this will be the bottom of your stand.
Place your largest column in the centre of the board. I like to
measure the space in front, behind and at either side to be sure it is
central. Once it’s in the right place, mark each side with a little
pinprick, or indent with the tip of a sharp knife, to save you re-
measuring.
STEP 4 Remove the column and spread a dab of royal icing over the
middle of the iced board inside the marks you made; this will secure
the column in place.
STEP 5 Find the ribbon joins on your board and on the dummy. Line
them both up – this can be the back of your stand. Press the column
onto the royal icing, checking that it’s within your marks and that
both ribbon joins are still facing the same way. Repeat with the
next two boards and columns. The smallest cake board will sit on
top of the final column. Leave them all to dry overnight.
STEP 6 Assemble the stand by placing the base level on your table (or
wherever you want to display your cakes). Position the ribbon joins
at the back so that the stand looks perfect. Arrange your cakes for
this level around the column.
STEP 7 Continue in the same way for each level, placing the next tier
centrally (you can measure to double check) then loading with an
array of gorgeous cakes until you finish with the top tier. You have
created a fabulous centrepiece for your event!
STACKING WITH PILLARS
If you want to stack your cake using pillars, it’s best to use good-
quality, substantial, heavy-duty ones. This method is very similar to
the previous ways of stacking cakes, and you still need your trusty
old dowels. It is done in exactly the same way as the one-piece cake
(see here), but you need to be much more neat and precise about
where you put the dowels, as you will be able to see the pillars
between the cakes. You also need much longer cake dowels, as they
will need to be cut to the top height of the pillars.
STEP 1 For each tier, consider the size of the cake above it. You want
the cakes to look like they are supported on the pillars, even though
it’s actually the dowels that are supporting. (The pillars are purely
decorative and shouldn’t be used as support; they would sink down
into the cake below.) If you have a 25cm (10in) base cake with an
18cm (7in) cake above it, your smaller cake should be sitting on a
23cm (9in) cake board, giving you a couple more inches to work
with.
TIP
You can do this without an additional iced
board underneath the upper cakes but the
construction won’t be as stable. However,
your cakes must still have their hidden
base boards sealed inside the bottom of the
trimmed icing, as this is necessary to
prevent the top of the pillars going through
into the cake above. You can also use other
bases on which to display each tier instead
of iced cake boards, such as Perspex cake
plates for a contemporary look, mirrors or
even china plates.
STEP 3 Slide the pillars over the dowels that are poking out of your
cake. Mark the point of the dowel that is level and flush with the
top edge of the pillar. Take care to be accurate with this, so that
your pillars will sit neatly between the cakes with no gaps at the
top.
TIP
It’s a good idea to place a cake board on
top of the pillars and check the level with a
spirit level. Just so that you know
everything will be right when your cake
arrives at its venue!
STEP 4 Once they are all marked out, remove, adjust all the marks to
match the longest/tallest measurement and cut them down (see tip
here). Then place the dowels back into the cake and slide the pillars
onto them. Stack the cakes and check everything is level. If it isn’t
level, then you may have made a mistake, so you’ll need to unstack
the cakes, remove all the dowels and check them again – it’s
therefore quite important to ensure everything is level before you
stack your cakes.
STEP 5 You can transport all the tiers separately, with the dowels and
pillars pre-cut but kept separate, ready to insert and assemble at the
venue.
There is an abundance of different techniques that
you can use to decorate your cake, cupcakes or
cookies and this chapter will show you how to do
lots of them. They are used in many of the designs
later in the book, and once you’ve mastered them,
you can adapt them to try out different patterns or
effects. It’s all about practice. Of course, some of
them are easier and quicker to execute, but if you
are baking- and cake-mad like me, I am sure you
will want to give them all a bash.
I’ve been decorating cookies and cakes for around 15 years now, so
I’m pretty nifty with a piping bag, but I do remember in the early
days how frustrating it could be when trying out some of the
trickier icing techniques – particularly using royal icing to create
run-outs (see here) or cookie decorating (see here). Royal icing is
perfect for decorating once you get the hang of using it. It’s easy to
control, holds its shape and dries hard so you can pipe patterns
including lace, flowers, beads, straight lines, swirls etc.
You may also find piping patterns onto the sides of a cake tier
can be tricky when you first try it, because you are at an awkward
angle and fighting against gravity. It’s definitely easier to pipe
onto a flat surface or the top of a cake. In the beginning, I could
never get the piped designs as neat as I wanted, but after a bit of
practice I found ways to make the job easier and get a better finish.
Hopefully my tips will ensure you find decorating with royal icing
both easy and fun. The most important thing with royal icing,
whether for piping or creating run-outs, is to start with the right
consistency for the job. The different consistencies are refered to as
‘stiff peak’, ‘soft peak’ and ‘runny’. (See here for royal icing
recipe).
TIP
Practise on the side of a cake tin or blank
cake dummy first, just to get the feel of
piping with royal icing. After a few tries,
you will begin to feel more confident and
ready to pipe directly onto your cake
without the worry of potentially spoiling its
icing.
STIFF PEAK
This is when the royal icing is stiff and paste-like, so that when you
lift a spoon from the mixture you get a stiff ‘peak’, or peaks,
forming. It means that whatever you pipe will hold its shape. Stiff
peak is used for some types of decoration, including snail trails,
beads and other piped shapes. Sometimes you may need to add a
few extra drops of water so that the icing is easy to push out of
your nozzle without having to squeeze so hard that it hurts your
hand, but you still want the icing to hold its shape.
SOFT PEAK
You can loosen the royal icing with a few drops of water, or egg
white (pasteurised) if you prefer, so that it can flow freely from
your icing bag. It’s not runny, so the line will still hold its shape,
but if you were to pipe a pearl trim with it, the dots would begin to
sink into a wavy, blobby line. To get the consistency right, add just
a few drops of water at a time until the icing feels looser and easier
to stir. Don’t make it too runny! This is used for piping messages
onto cakes, outlining shapes on cookies and piping the outlines of
run-outs.
RUNNY ICING
A more liquid consistency of icing is used for ‘flooding’ outlines on
run-outs or cookies to create coloured sections. My preference with
runny icing is that the surface smooths over at about the 10-second
mark. You don’t want it too thick or it won’t flood, but I still like it
thick enough to hold its shape and so that it doesn’t run too quickly
from the piping bag. If you find that it doesn’t settle quite flat,
either shake the cookie gently or, if you are doing run-outs on a
film or acetate surface, pop the film onto a cake board (tape the
edges down) and gently bang this on a worktop to encourage the
icing to sit neat and flat.
MAKING RUN-OUTS WITH ROYAL ICING
STEP 1 Make up all the icing that you need for the soft-peak outlines
and runny ‘flooded’ areas, using royal icing (see here) and liquid
food colours or colour pastes. For the designs in the photo ( here),
the colours I used were egg yellow, dark brown, pink, liquorice and
tangerine, plus white.
STEP 2 Put the soft-peak outline icing in a piping bag with a No. 2
nozzle, and pipe over the edges and sections of your design (see
here).
STEP 3 ‘Flood’ your sections with the runny icing in your chosen
background colours, then allow to dry at room temperature for at
least a few hours or overnight. There is no need to refrigerate.
STEP 5 Attach the run-outs to your cake with a small dab of white
soft-peak royal icing.
TIP
For small details, run-outs or even large
cake toppers, it really helps to ‘trace’ over a
picture, especially if you are not a
naturally gifted artist! For the ‘Robot’
ganache cake (see here), I printed off a
picture of a toy robot and traced around it
onto A4 paper, then popped this into a
clean plastic document wallet. This made it
easy to follow the outlines and fill in the
designs; it also keeps the paper nice and
still.
TIP
It helps if you rub a small amount of
vegetable fat or a tiny bit of sunflower oil
onto the film, acetate or plastic, to help the
icing release easily once it’s dry. Just rub a
tiny amount between your fingertips and
smooth over; not too much, you don’t want
any lumps or splodges of oil.
TIP
If you are using a very dark colour for an
outline, with a lighter colour for flooding, I
recommend leaving the outline to dry for
24 hours before flooding it, or else you
might get a caketastrophe if the dark
colour seeps into the light one.
CREATING MARBLED, SWIRLED OR FEATHERED DESIGNS
STEP 1 Begin by piping an outline onto your cookie or, if you are
making run-outs for cakes, over your picture in a plastic document
wallet (see tip here) taped to a cake board.
STEP 2 You can now flood the outline straight away with just one
colour; this will make the outline disappear once it’s all dried. Take
care not to knock it with your flooding bag or nozzle. Once you’ve
filled in the whole cookie or section of icing, shake gently left to
right on your worktop, to help smooth the icing out.
STEP 3 Add your second colour (or more colours if you are using
them) into the background colour that you’ve already piped. Work
as quickly as you can before the icing sets.
STEP 4 Drag a cocktail stick or skewer through the icing. You can
play around if you want. For the one in the photo I used an S-shape
motion over the surface. You can make heart shapes by dragging
through the centre of a dot. This looks really effective.
STEP 5 For some designs you may wish to add a border or finish the
edges with another outline. For example, if making a patterned
heart-shaped cookie, you may like to ice the edge with a different-
coloured snail trail of stiff-peak royal icing, or if you are making a
funky floral or animal design, you may wish to go over the outline
in a clashing colour to enhance the detail.
STEP 6 Now let your marbled cookies or run-outs dry, add packaging
and ribbon if they are for gifts, or use for cake decorating.
TIP
If you write your message in white royal
icing first, it’s not a big deal if you make a
mistake as you can remove the icing with a
sharp knife and start again without having
stained the cake or board. Once the white
icing message has set (after 1 hour) you
can then go over it in your chosen colour.
This also makes the letters stand out more,
as they are lifted from the surface.
PIPED DESIGNS AND LETTERING
For this, it’s easiest to work with royal icing; ideally of a soft-peak
consistency (see here). (You can also pipe with melted chocolate,
but this is a little more difficult to control.) Get the right
consistency by adding a few drops of water, pasteurised egg white
or lemon juice to stiff icing. Stir in until peaks are still present but,
rather than being stiff and spiky, they droop down. This will allow
the icing to flow easily from your piping bag and nozzle, whilst
still being firm enough to stay in place on the cake. If the icing is
too runny, it may sag or drip down the cake, especially if you are
decorating onto the sides.
For writing a message or piping onto the cake (or cake board)
in a pattern, I recommend using a No. 2 nozzle, which will give a
good thickness of line – not too thick or too thin. For a larger cake,
you can use a No. 3 nozzle if your lettering or font is going to be
larger than 4cm (1½in) in height; for anything smaller, stick with a
No. 2 nozzle.
You can write out your message exactly as you would with a
pen. Make sure you have the piping bag tightly folded at the top so
that when you squeeze it, the icing doesn’t burst out of it. You’ll
need to press the bag fairly firmly. Have a go on your work surface
first to check how much pressure you need to apply for the icing to
flow. The gentler the pressure, the slower the flow of icing. When
you finish a letter, stop applying the pressure to your bag and lift it
away from the cake’s surface. If you get an icing ‘tail’ or ‘snag’
you can pat this down with a damp paintbrush to neaten the finish
if you wish.
Everyone has different handwriting, so if you are a messy
writer, you may prefer to print out a message first and mark it out
on the cake to use as a template. Place the printed message over the
iced surface and prick out dots along the lines with a pin. You can
then follow these dots to make a neater inscription. Or you could
first pipe the message on your worktop, just in front of your cake,
so that you can see where to place the letters.
PIPING PEARL BEADS
You can pipe delicate iced beads for all sorts of designs – as single
details, or a trail of them lined up against each other to create the
effect of a bead trim or frame. A trail of individual beads resembles
a string of pearls – add pearl or metallic lustres to this and it looks
amazing, like edible jewellery! Alternatively, you can create a
‘snail trail’, which has a different, more joined-up look. See
instructions here.
To pipe an icing pearl, use stiff-peak royal icing (see here) in a
piping bag with a No. 3 nozzle. Pipe directly onto the surface of
your cake or board, facing straight on. Take your time, squeezing
the bag until the pearl is the desired size (I like them approximately
5mm in diameter); when you are happy with the size, stop pressing
and pull the nozzle away from the pearl.
When you pull away, you might get a tiny ‘tail’ or ‘snag’ (we
like to call them nipples in the trade!). If you do have some tails,
don’t worry; just have a small paintbrush and some cooled boiled
water to hand. After every few pearls, dampen your brush and
lightly touch and press on the peaked bit. It will then sit flush with
the pearl and won’t stick to your brush. However, although this
does looks better, most people won’t notice these little points,
unless they are beady-eyed cake enthusiasts!
PIPING ‘SNAIL TRAILS’, SHAPED TRAILS OR PEARL-BEAD TRIMS
Royal icing is perfect for piping trims around the base of each cake
tier, around their top edges, or around sugar details, to enhance the
design, and also to hide any joins. These trims can be made using
different piping nozzles, including round, star or shell-shaped
nozzles, to create particular finishes.
To create a classic rounded ‘snail trail’, use stiff-peak royal icing
in a piping bag with a No. 3 nozzle. Begin at the back of your cake
or at a convenient starting point if you are framing an image or
sugar detail.
Begin by piping a pearl (see here) with gentle pressure. Once
your first pearl is extruded, release the pressure on the bag and
draw the piping nozzle away from the pearl to one side. This will
create a little tail of icing on the surface of your cake or iced board.
Now pipe another pearl just slightly overlapping that tail, next to
the first pearl, to begin the trail. Pipe like this in a continous line or
trail all around your cake or design until you have a gorgeous sugar
pearl-bead trim or frame. This is a classic ‘snail trail’.
If you prefer a more structured bead trim (almost like a string of
pearls) You can pipe each pearl onto the cake seperately, patting
down any peak to round the top of the pearl and continue by
piping each pearl next to the previous one, almost touching its
neighbour. These pearls look gorgeous if painted with a pearl lustre
once dry.
PRESSURE PIPING
Royal icing can be used to pipe lace patterns and texturised designs
onto the icing on your cakes. It looks beautiful when finished and it
is fairly simple to do. You’ll need soft-peak royal icing and either a
No. 2 or 3 nozzle for most of the patterns below.
BRUSH EMBROIDERY
If you want to enhance your lace piping, you can try a technique
called brush embroidery. It involves piping out a shape – floral lace
works really well – then using a small, damp artist’s brush to gently
press onto the outer edges and draw inwards. This creates an
embroidered effect, with the pattern slightly raised at the outer
edges. It can hide a multitude of sins on the cake’s surface, plus if
your piping is a bit wobbly, once you have brushed it down you
won’t be able to notice any shaky edges.
FILIGREE
Simple filigree really is just squiggly lines. If you are good at
drawing, you can do it freehand and when it’s all finished and
together, you can’t see any particular parts of the pattern, so you
don’t need to be precise. It’s a good technique to use if you are
fairly confident with piping freehand. If not, then stick to
decorating with a pattern which you can mark onto your iced
surface.
PIPING STRAIGHT LINES
Piping iced lines is a great way to add detail to your cake. You can
use this technique to decorate the tiers of a large cake – or on one
‘statement tier’ – or to decorate mini cakes for presents or
weddings. If you’re feeling adventurous, try using lots of shades of
icing to create an ombre effect around your cake – funky! It can be
tricky at first and it helps if you have a steady hand – don’t try this
with a hangover…it won’t turn out well!
ou will need
our cake (or cakes), covered in sugarpaste
Greaseproof paper
urntable (optional)
tiff-peak royal icing in a piping bag with a No 3 nozzle (use one bag
per shade if you are trying multi-colour or ombre-effect piping)
mall, clean paintbrush
ooled boiled water
STEP 1 Choose your starting point on your cake. Gently squeeze the
icing bag against the cake with a light pressure, so that the icing
begins to flow out and attach itself to the cake. Now lift the nozzle
away from the surface and continue piping in a straight line just
above the cake; don’t drag the icing along the cake’s surface as the
line will come out wobbly. If you are piping straight lines down the
sides of a cake, lift the nozzle away from the cake slightly so that
gravity pulls the icing down. This will keep the icing lines nice and
straight.
STEP 2 Once you reach the end point on your design, very gently
push the nozzle back towards the cake until it touches the surface,
then stop squeezing and pull away. If you see a little tail or snag
poking up from the piping just pat it down with a paintbrush that
has been dampened with cooled boiled water.
STEP 3 Continue all the way around your cake edge or across the top
of your cake or cake board to create your design.
TIP
To get to grips with this trickier technique,
try it out first on the edge of a blank cake
dummy, upturned mug or upturned cake
tin – especially if it’s your first attempt.
USING CUTTERS
ou will need:
mall amount of sugarpaste or chocolate paste (approx. 50g)
cing sugar
unny royal icing, vodka or cooled boiled water
quipment:
lastic icing rolling pin
utter or plunger cutter in your chosen shape
all tool or cake dowel (optional)
mall paintbrush
STEP 1 Roll out your chosen paste using plenty of icing sugar to dust
the worktop.
STEP 2 Press down with your cutter, through the rolled-out paste,
until the cutter edge reaches the worktop. Press firmly so that all
the edges are completely cut through and you don’t get any rough
snags of icing around the shape.
STEP 3 If you are using a plunger cutter, release the shape by using
the mechanism to pop it out onto the worktop. If you are using a
basic metal or plastic cutter, push the shape out with your finger or,
if the opening is very tiny, use a ball tool or the end of a cake
dowel to push the shape out.
You can use cutters or plunger cutters with petal paste for creating
finer details to which you wish to give a 3D effect (for example, to
create fluttering butterflies or petals lifted from a cake’s surface).
Remember that petal paste is very stiff and elastic, so work it until
it’s pliable and easy to roll. You’ll find it is quite stretchy – use firm
pressure to roll it out as thinly as possible, until you can just see the
worktop showing through if it’s a light colour. It should be almost
as thin as an actual petal.
ou will need:
cing sugar
etal paste, in your choice of colour
quipment:
mall plastic icing rolling pin
loppy mat (or book wrapped in cling film)
utter or plunger cutter, in your chosen shape
oam or gel pad
all tool
ormer (or see tip for alternatives)
STEP 1 Dust the worktop with icing sugar and knead the petal paste
until soft and pliable. Roll out with a small rolling pin (a smaller
one is definitely easier here) using a firm pressure. Continue
rolling, keeping the worktop dusted with a little icing sugar to
make sure the paste doesn’t stick.
STEP 2 Cover the majority of the petal paste with your floppy mat (or
book in cling film), to prevent it from drying out. It goes dry very
quickly and once it’s crusty you can’t achieve a nice finish.
STEP 5 If the petals begin settling back into a flat shape, you’ll need
to use something to hold the shape for an hour or so, until it has set
hard. A former is ideal, or see the tip over the page for alternatives.
However, because petal paste is so stiff and sets quickly you may
find you don’t even need to leave the flowers on a former. Small
daisies will usually just hold their shape once you have pressed up
the petals.
STEP 6 Repeat the steps to cut out and shape the next daisy. The petal
paste dries quickly, so it is best to do one at a time, so that you
shape the petals before they become too stiff.
STEP 7 Once dry, you can simply pop the flowers on top of
buttercream-covered cupcakes or attach to an iced cake with a little
royal icing. You can pipe colourful centres into the daisies once
they are stuck onto the cake.
TIP
‘Formers’ are handy for setting larger
shapes in place; you can buy these easily in
sugarcraft stores or online. If you don’t
have a former, there are a few alternative
things you can use. You can make your
own former by using a block of sugarpaste
and making an impression or well for each
shape with your fingers or the end of a
rolling pin. Lay some cling film over the
former to prevent the shape from sticking.
Another useful alternative is to use the
wells in a paint palette or cover balls of old
sugarpaste in cling film and lay the flowers
over them to dry. Even pieces of foil will
suffice if you can make little wells with
them.
OTHER TYPES OF FLOWERS
There are many types of flowers you can make with cutters: two of
my favourites are blossoms and hydrangeas.
Blossoms are made in exactly the same way as daisies, the only
difference is that you use a plunger to eject the blossom. The centre
of the plunger pushes out the middle of the floral shape, creating a
more cup-like shape as opposed to a flat cut out shape. It’s a very
quick and easy way to create a more detailed flower and it means
there’s no need to use a ball tool.
Hydrangeas are slightly different; it’s necessary to use a silicone
mould to give them their papery, veined surface. The shape is cut
with a metal cutter, then the flower is placed between the two sides
of the mould and pressed firmly.
Leave these blooms to dry on formers or on crinkled pieces of
foil. Once set, dust the centres if you wish.
Another handy use for cutters is to emboss shapes onto your iced
surface. This will give a visible outline, which you can then paint or
pipe over without having to worry about freehand work. This is
really handy for brush embroidery or when piping shapes onto
icing. You can buy embossers especially for this purpose or indeed
you can use any cutter to mark out a shape. Make sure to do this
while your sugarpaste or chocolate surface is still fresh as the
embosser will not press well into dry icing.
MOULDING AND MODELLING
PUSH-MOULD ROSES
This makes gorgeous sugar rose decorations that look like they are made
from china, perfect for a vintage feel.
ou will need:
00g sugarpaste in your choice of colour
tsp gum tragacanth (optional – it will make your sugarpaste stiffer
and slightly easier to release from the mould)
cing sugar
quipment:
ose-shaped silicone mould
astry brush
xtra cake board (or chopping board)
STEP 1 Dust the mould with a little icing sugar and tip out any excess.
STEP 2 Dust your worktop with a little icing sugar and knead the
sugarpaste until pliable. Break off a small piece. For a medium-sized
rose, you need an amount the size of a hazelnut. If you’d prefer to
make tiny roses, you’ll need a piece the size of a large pea, or for
large roses, the size of a grape. The same mould can be used for
making different sizes; for smaller roses, fill just the centre part of
the hole.
STEP 3 Gently push the sugarpaste into the mould. Push it in just
enough to mark out the detail on the shape; don’t force it in too
hard or it may stick and clog up the mould.
STEP 4 Turn the mould over and flex it in a couple of directions until
the sugar rose drops out onto the worktop. It should pop out easily
provided the mould was dry, clean and dusted with icing sugar.
STEP 5 Repeat until you have the number of roses you need, lining
them up as you go. If there is excess icing sugar left on the roses,
wait until they have dried out overnight and then simply brush
them over with a pastry brush to remove it.
STEP 6 Once dry, you can use these roses for many different design
ideas on your cakes, cupcakes or even cookies.
HAND-MOULDED ROSES
ou will need:
cing sugar
ugarpaste, marzipan or chocolate paste (see here or use ready-made)
gg yellow paste colour (optional)
odka or cooled boiled water (optional)
quipment:
lastic document wallet
cissors
mall, sharp knife
alyx-shaped cutter (optional)
STEP 3 Roll the piece into a long sausage – the fatter the sausage, the
bigger the rose: approximately 1cm (½in) diameter for a tiny rose,
2cm (¾in) diameter for a medium rose, and 3cm (1¼in) or more for
bigger roses. Don’t make them too large or the weight of the petals
will pull the rose apart.
STEP 4 Cut the sausage into discs – these will form the petals. When
you cut into your sausage, the bottom of it will flatten slightly
where it has pressed against the work surface – this is normal and
at this stage the shapes don’t need to be completely round. Try to
cut the discs roughly equal in thickness; approximately 3–4mm,
whatever the size of rose. You can make different-sized roses by
putting different amounts of these discs together.
STEP 5 Lay the plastic document wallet open on the worktop and
lightly dust the inside with icing sugar to prevent sticking. Shake
out the excess, or it will show up on your finished roses or dry out
the sugarpaste. Now lay the discs down with the flattened edge (the
edge that was pressed on the surface) facing towards the seam. The
reason for this is that the side facing the seam will be pressed
flatter than the other to create the delicate petal edge. Line the
discs up inside your document wallet in rows of 3, giving you 9–12
petals. Close the wallet.
TIP
If you find you are very slow, you may
decide to just make five or six petals at a
time to prevent them drying out, but as you
get quicker, you can cut out more discs at a
time, flatten them all and bring together in
groups.
STEP 6 With the base of your thumb (just above your wrist), gently
push down on each disc to begin flattening out.
STEP 7 You now need to thin the discs on one side to create a petal
effect. Gently sweep your thumb over one edge (on the side nearest
the seam, so that when you open the wallet later the delicate
flattened side won’t pull up as you open the wallet). Press from the
bottom to the top, smoothing with gentle pressure to thin it out.
Make sure to do this on one side only; leave the other half alone.
STEP 9 Carefully peel back the top of the wallet and pick up one
petal, holding it at the fat base so as not to damage the thinned-out
petal edge. You’ll notice that the petal will be curling to one side.
Hold up the petal in front of your face with the edge curling
towards you.
STEP 10 Make the centre of the rose by curling the petal back away
from you and rolling horizontally into a tight cone. Still take care
not to touch the thinner top edge; just press the bottom part
together gently to fix. You will be left with a tightly curled ‘petal’
centre. This might take a few attempts, but will soon become
easier.
STEP 11 Now you need to envelope the centre petal with the second
one to create a bud. Lift the next petal off the plastic and hold it up
to the centre petal. Have the edge curling away from the rose’s
centre, not pointing in towards it. Line up the seam or join of the
central petal with the middle of the second petal. Sit the second
petal just a fraction higher than the first one, to create an effect
where the outer petals are lifting up and out, rather than the
central petal sticking out furthest like a trumpet.
STEP 12 Gently press the bottom of the second petal in, pinching it to
the first petal so that their bases mould together. Again take care
not to press the top part or you will spoil the natural curling effect
of the petals.
STEP 13 You will now have a lovely rosebud, which can be used for
decorating cupcakes or for including in arrangements along with
larger roses. If you want to use it at this size, cut away the excess at
the base just below where the petals are joined. Leave the bud to
dry overnight then use it to decorate your cakes.
STEP 16 To finish the rose, use a sharp knife to slice off the chunky
base of excess sugarpaste, chocolate or marzipan. Set your flower
aside on a cake board to firm up for at least a few hours but ideally
overnight.
STEP 17 You can then use the roses as they are or, if you prefer, you
can add a green calyx to the bottom. To do this, colour a small
amount of sugarpaste, chocolate psate or marzipan with green paste
colour, roll out and cut out a calyx with the appropriate size of
cutter. Adhere this to the bottom of your rose with vodka or cooled
boiled water.
OTHER TYPES OF ROSES
There are still more ways to make roses, including using petal
paste, making simple quilled-style curls or using sugarpaste to make
romantic silk-style roses. I prefer the hand-moulding method on the
previous page, but you may wish to have a go at others.
PETAL-PASTE ROSES
ou will need:
etal paste, in your choice of colour
cing sugar
odka or cooled boiled water
quipment:
ocktail sticks
ive-petal rose cutter
oam or gel pad
all tool
mall paintbrush
loppy mat (or book wrapped in cling film)
STEP 1 You first need to make small cones out of petal paste, one for
each rose; ideally do this a day in advance. By hand, roll some of
the petal paste into a ball then pinch the top to mould a cone shape.
The size of the cone will determine the size of your rose. The cone
should be just slightly smaller in length than the size of the petals
on your cutter. Poke cocktail sticks into the bottom of the cones,
about halfway in, then stick them into a polystyrene cake dummy
or a block of old, dry sugarpaste and set aside to dry overnight.
STEP 2 Dust the worktop with icing sugar and roll out the petal paste
very thinly. Cut out the five-petal roses using your cutter and place
on a foam pad.
TIP
You can buy five-petal cutters in lots of
different sizes. Whatever size yours is, just
remember that the central cone of the rose
should be a little bit smaller in length than
the size of the petals.
STEP 3 Press firmly around the outer edges of each petal with the ball
tool to start frilling the edges. Flip the whole shape over and repeat
this process. This will give you lovely ruffled petal edges.
STEP 4 With a small paintbrush, dampen the centre of the flat rose
shapes and paint halfway up each petal with vodka or cooled boiled
water, to enable the petals to stick together.
STEP 5 Take a cone on its cocktail stick and skewer through the
centre of a sugarpaste rose, with the cone on the wet side.
STEP 6 Bring the petals up to the cone and wrap one of the petals
around the cone to create the central bud.
TIP
I keep old sugarpaste that is no longer
suitable for use, and store it in a food bag,
as it’s handy for making formers (see
here), the bases of cupcake bouquets or for
sticking wired flowers into, etc.
STEP 7 Now with the opposite petal, overlay the central one by
wrapping the second petal around the middle part. Because the
lower half of each petal is damp, they will stick to the base of the
cone, while the upper parts will curl freely away from the
cone/rose centre.
STEP 8 Continue to wrap the next three petals over the previous ones
then leave to dry overnight. Repeat with the rest of the cones and
rose shapes.
STEP 9 You can gently twist these buds off the cocktail sticks after
they have dried, but take care as the petals will be brittle. The roses
can be used to decorate all kinds of cakes. They are much harder
and less palatable than a sugarpaste rose, but are more delicate to
look at.
TIP
If you wish to make much larger roses in
this manner, you can continue building up
more layers of fine petals, using larger,
single, cut-out petals, until the desired
effect is achieved.
DECORATING COOKIES
Pipe all the outlines first, and any sections that you want to stay
separate. Then you can begin flooding with the runny coloured
icing. If different-coloured sections are right next to each other, you
need to leave the first one to dry for a few hours before flooding
another colour right next to it, otherwise the two colours may get
mixed up and it will look messy. While waiting for the first colour
to dry, place a clean, damp cloth over the piping bags to prevent
the ends or nozzles drying out and clogging up.
There are also some fun techniques to learn if you wish to create
more colourful and interesting designs. For example, by dropping
another colour of icing onto a wet, runny section and dragging a
cocktail stick through the two colours, you can create little heart
shapes, swirls or a marbling effect (see here). It’s really fun to do
and you don’t have to be precise as it’s intended to be a bit of a
messy pattern. Or you can simply drop in lines to create a colourful
pattern on your cookie. Like everything, it’s all about practice.
TIP
If you want to make quick cookies and
aren’t too worried about perfection (e.g. if
you are making quick kids’ cookies, rather
than wedding favours for your best friend’s
wedding), you can simply use a white
outline for everything then flood with the
different colours. The white won’t really
show once you’ve filled in the shape.
DECORATING COOKIES WITH SUGARPASTE
This is the simplest and easiest way to decorate your cookies, but is
still really effective and your cookies will look like those of a pro!
This way is definitely easier technically than decorating with royal
icing, so try out both methods and see what works best for you and
your design idea.
Simply roll out the sugarpaste, in any colour you wish, on a
worktop lightly dusted with icing sugar then cut out the icing with
the same cutter as you used to make the cookie. The icing shape can
then be stuck to the surface of your cookies with a little royal icing.
You can even cut out the same shape from two different colours of
sugarpaste, then cut both in half or into sections and mix and match
to get multi-coloured shapes and details. You can add details with
royal icing to finish the cookies.
I also use this method for adding edible images (see here). If
you want to try this, simply roll out your sugarpaste and brush with
a little vodka or cooled boiled water to make the surface slightly
damp – not too wet, just sticky. Lay the printed edible paper over
the tacky sugarpaste and the image will stick to the icing. Once the
image is on your icing, you can simply cut out the shape by
pressing the cutter through the sheet and sugarpaste, and pop it on
top of your cookie with a little royal icing. Finally, you can add
royal-icing details over the image if you like.
CHOCOLATE-COATED COOKIES
COOKIES
There are just too many ways in the world to decorate cookies! At
Fancy Nancy we mostly ice our cookies with royal icing, as
described here. But we also cover them in sugarpaste, using cut-outs
made with the same cutter that we used to cut out our dough. Or,
for a truly unique cookie design, the idea here uses printed edible
paper over your sugarpaste for fabulous detail.
PRINTED COOKIES
ou will need:
2 vanilla cookies (see here), in dress shapes (ideally made with
cookie cutters that can also be used to cut the ‘edible print’
sugarpaste to match)
cing sugar
00g sugarpaste, in white, ivory or a pale colour that won’t show
through the print
× A4 sheets of edible paper, printed with your chosen designs (see
here)
0g white soft-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with the end snipped
off or a No. 3 nozzle if you prefer
odka or cooled boiled water
quipment:
lastic icing rolling pin
alette knife
mall, sharp knife (optional)
astry brushes
Alternatively, if you are just trying this technique for the first time,
or only occasionally need a couple of sheets, you should easily be
able to find a local company that can produce printed edible paper
– look online or in the Yellow Pages. There are also many national
companies that offer a quick service if you email them your photos.
This is a bit more expensive than producing single sheets yourself
(as a guide, expect to pay around £7–10 for a single A4 sheet, so
having your own printer is fairly cost-effective if you are a regular
cake-maker), but obviously means you don’t need to buy a new
printer or edible-ink supplies if you’re not going to need them
again. Also, the maintenance on an edible-ink printer can be quite
involved!
STEP 1 Dust the worktop with icing sugar, and roll out the sugarpaste
into a rectangular shape large enough to take your A4 sheets of
edible print, rolling from the centre outwards to get a uniform
shape. Make sure to turn the icing as you go and periodically
swoosh plenty of icing sugar underneath so that when you come to
cut out your shape it doesn’t stick to the worktop. (If it does stick,
once you have adhered the edible paper to the icing it’s likely to
tear and be damaged and I’m afraid you can’t fix this. The edible
paper sheets do tear quite easily as they are very delicate, so use
plenty of icing sugar underneath.)
TIP
To get a uniform shape, always roll from
the centre outwards. Place your pin in the
middle of the sugarpaste and roll away
from yourself. Then place the pin back in
the centre and this time roll towards you.
Don’t just roll in one direction or you get
an irregular-shaped bit of sugarpaste, as
opposed to the rectangular A4 shape you
need to accommodate the icing sheet.
STEP 3 Now you need to stick your printed sheets onto the
sugarpaste. When you are first starting, it’s best to do just one
sheet at a time so you don’t feel under pressure to rush and so that
the rest do not start drying out or sticking to the surface. Take one
of your printed sheets out of its packet and release it carefully from
the backing paper using a palette knife or a sharp kitchen knife (if
you don’t have a palette knife, leave it on your worktop, dusted
with a little icing sugar to prevent it sticking).
STEP 4 With a pastry brush, dampen the rolled-out sugarpaste with a
little drop of vodka or cooled boiled water; don’t over-wet it or
your images will start to dissolve, just make sure that your brush is
damp and be sure to cover all of the sugarpaste so that the printed
sheet sticks to it completely, with no areas left dry or the image
may lift off.
STEP 6 Now cut out your printed shapes: take the cutter(s) that you
used for the cookies, and punch out the shapes by pressing the
cutter down onto the printed sheet and sugarpaste – press all the
way through to get a neat finish. If you are using a card template,
cut slowly and carefully around the edge either with a clean craft
knife or a small, sharp knife. (I do recommend investing in cutters
if you can though; they are very cheap and make the job easier and
neater.)
STEP 7 To stick the decoration to the cookies, use the royal icing to
pipe a rough outline just inside the edge of each cookie and a little
splodge in the middle.
STEP 9 Leave to dry for 24 hours, then dust off any excess icing sugar
with a clean pastry brush. Now you can display, use as a cake
decoration, eat or package the cookies as required!
ICE CREAM COOKIES
Being from Leigh-on-Sea, right on the seafront, I’ve got a soft spot for
seaside-themed cookies and cakes. I love the jauntiness of seaside stuff! I
am also a bit obsessed with Rossi’s, a famous ice-cream parlour on the
seafront. So it didn’t take me long to come up with the idea for these
fabulous fun cookies. They are great for kids’ parties or as summer
wedding favours. To create them, follow the photographs here, and play
about with the colours and sprinkles to make them your own.
ou will need:
2 vanilla cookies (see here), in ice-cream cone shapes
aramel-coloured soft-peak royal icing (see here), in a piping bag
with a No. 3 nozzle
ale-pink, yellow, mint-green and white stiff-peak royal icing, in
piping bags with star nozzles
Multi-coloured sprinkles and chocolate vermicelli
STEP 2 Next, pipe parallel diagonal lines across the cones, from one
side to the other, in one direction only. Then pipe parallel diagonal
lines in the opposite direction to create the lattice effect of a waffle
cone. It doesn’t matter if it’s not neat at the top; in fact, continue
the cone up a little into the ice-cream section, as this will later get
covered over with the swirly ‘ice cream’.
STEP 3 Using one colour per cone, pipe the pink, yellow, green and
white royal icing onto the top part of the cookies to form the ‘ice
cream’. (Or you could choose to do a three-colour ice cream to
create a Neapolitan effect!) Start at the bottom, next to the cone,
and pipe in a sweeping motion from one side to the other, then
back again, all the way up until you have filled the space with
swirled-effect horizontal lines. Finish with a peak at the top by
pulling the nozzle away from the cookie while still squeezing for a
moment.
Gorgeous little push-mould roses give a pretty look that can be used on
cakes, cupcakes and cookies. They are really quick to make (see here)
but look very impressive as there is so much detail on them. These
cookies make lovely presents for Mother’s Day, wedding favours or for a
garden party. A perfectly pretty, flowery treat for all kinds of occasions.
ou will need:
2 circular vanilla cookies (see here), covered in a circle of vintage
pistachio-green sugarpaste (see here)
large, 12 medium and 21–28 small push-mould roses (see here) –
sizes vary, so judge what looks best
ark-green stiff-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a leaf nozzle
STEP 1 Attach all the roses to the discs of sugarpaste on the cookies,
by piping a tiny dab of the green royal icing to fix them in place.
Leave to dry for a couple of hours. Use 6–7 roses per cookie,
depending on the size and uniformity of your roses. If they vary a
great deal in size, just cover as much of the surface as possible.
I love to add edible glitter to cakes and cookies; what’s not to like about
glitter!? Add to your royal-iced cookies by gently tapping the glitter over
the icing surface while it’s still wet. Try making these star and cool
Britannia cookies.
ou will need:
2 vanilla cookies (see here), in a star shape
lue soft-peak royal icing (see here), in piping bags with No. 2
nozzles
lue runny royal icing, in piping bags with the ends snipped off (no
nozzles needed)
lue non-toxic glitter
quipment:
Greaseproof paper
pastry brushes (1 for each colour)
STEP 2 Outline the cookies with soft-peak royal icing to create frames
that you can then fill in.
STEP 3 Fill in the outlines with the same colour of runny icing.
STEP 4 Dip your pastry brush in the glitter. Hold this over the top of
your wet icing and tap your fingers on the brush to lightly dust
glitter all over the cookie. Repeat with the rest, then dry for a few
hours.
ou will need:
6 cupcakes (chocolate or orange sponge is best – see here and here),
baked in gold foil cases and covered in chocolate ganache (see
here)
mall amount of Glossy Chocolate Ganache For Pouring (left over
from the ganache topping) (see here), in a piping bag with a No. 3
nozzle
6 large chocolate-paste roses (see here), in bright multi-colours or
chocolate shades if you prefer (alternatively, 16 sugar snowflakes
cut from caramel-coloured petal paste with a plunger cutter,
decorated with gold lustre dust or spray – great for Christmas!)
STEP 1 Make sure that once you have poured the chocolate ganache
covering over your cupcakes, you leave them to set for a few hours,
otherwise the decorations may sink into the topping.
STEP 2 When the ganache cake covering is set, pipe a small pearl of
chocolate ganache onto the centre of each cupcake.
STEP 3 Attach the chocolate roses or snowflakes to finish.
ou will need:
6 cupcakes, covered in buttercream applied with a palette knife (see
here)
6 hand-moulded sugar roses (see here), in muted vintage shades or
Marie Antoinette palette with gold lustre dust or spray if you want
some metallic colouring. For these cakes I have stuck to the muted
pastel shades.
ale-green buttercream (see here), in a piping bag with a small leaf
nozzle
STEP 1 Attach the roses to the cakes by plunging them into the
buttercream topping. They will stick without any royal icing.
STEP 2 Pipe three buttercream leaves (see here) around each rose to
finish the detail.
CORSAGE FONDANT CUPCAKES
I’ve decorated these cupcakes with print corsages and sugar push-mould
buttons. If you don’t have a rose-shaped cutter, you can use different
small cutters, e.g. hearts, circles or wavy cutters. The cakes look great
displayed on a coloured stand, or a stand covered in edible print. You
can also simply stick wrapping paper to your cake boards if you wish to
make a colourful stand.
ou will need:
6 cupcakes, covered in vanilla fondant (see here) in various colours
(I’ve used blue, yellow and white)
6 large sugarpaste rose-cutter shapes, circles or hearts, rolled out
thinly with a selection of edible print on the surface (see here, or
use brightly coloured petal paste instead)
mall amount of royal icing, in a piping bag (for attaching the roses
to the cupcakes)
6 small sugarpaste rose-cutter shapes, with a different selection of
edible print (alternatively, use a contrasting brightly coloured petal
paste)
6 push-mould buttons (see here), in a selection of colours
oft-peak royal icing, in your choice of colour or to match buttons, in
a piping bag with a No. 1.5 nozzle
STEP 1 Attach the larger rose shapes (or circles and hearts) to the
fondant cupcake surface by sticking them down with royal icing.
STEP 2 Repeat the process with the smaller rose shapes, attaching
them over the larger ones.
STEP 3 Pipe a small dot of royal icing in the centre of each small rose
(or circle or heart) shape and stick on a sugar button.
These cute, round, playful mini fruit cakes make perfect table presents or
equally great gifts for teachers, family or friends. I started to make these
little spherical brown cakes to make the Christmas pudding cakes (see
the instructions here). The robins are a variation on this idea. Very
cute!
ou will need:
0 fruit-cake balls, covered in marzipan and brown sugarpaste
mall amounts of white, brown, yellow, red and green sugarpaste
odka or cooled boiled water
White, green and red stiff-peak royal icing (see here), in piping bags
with No. 2 nozzles
lack stiff-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a No. 1.5 nozzle
cing sugar
iping gel (optional)
ed non-toxic glitter (optional)
quipment:
mall paintbrushes
hell tool or cocktail stick (optional)
mall, sharp knife
lastic icing rolling pin
mall flower cutter (optional)
mall holly-shaped plunger cutter (optional)
(See the step-by-step photographs, here)
STEP 3 Boil a little apricot jam and brush over the balls to make them
sticky.
STEP 5 When ready to cover in icing, brush the balls with a little
brandy, vodka or cooled boiled water. Repeat all of step 4 using
sugarpaste. If you see a little mark or crack where you have
trimmed off the excess icing, make sure this is on the underside so
it won’t show. Leave to dry ideally overnight before commencing
any decorating.
CHRISTMAS PUDS
STEP 1 Dust a worktop with icing sugar and roll out some white
sugarpaste until approximately 2–3mm thick. Use a wavy flower
cutter – I use a small, floral cookie cutter – to cut out five shapes for
the top of the puddings.
STEP 2 To create a dripping effect, roll a small rolling pin over the
shapes in random directions to flatten and splay out some of the
edges into longer parts that will become the dripping topping on the
puds.
STEP 3 Brush the top of each cake ball with a little vodka or cooled
boiled water, then place a white dripping shape on top of each ball
and smooth down. Allow to dry overnight.
STEP 5 If you wish, once the holly is dry you can paint the leaves with
gel to give them a sheen, and paint over the berries with a mixture
of gel and red glitter, to add some razzle dazzle.
ROBINS
STEP 1 Roll approximately 10g of brown sugarpaste into a small ball.
Cut in half and make two cone shapes. Flatten them into cute,
chubby ‘wings’ for the sides of the robin. With the paintbrush,
dampen the sides of one cake ball with vodka or cooled boiled
water, roughly where you want to adhere the wings, just above
halfway up. Press the wings onto the sides of the robin’s body.
Repeat for the rest of the robin cakes.
STEP 2 To add detail to the wings, use a shell tool to mark out some
feathery lines at an angle, so that it looks like they are pointing
back and down towards the tail. If you don’t have a shell tool, use a
cocktail stick or knife to mark a few lines.
STEP 3 With a small rolling pin, roll out a small piece of red
sugarpaste on a worktop dusted with icing sugar until 1–2mm thick.
Cut out little circles with a round cutter, or use a knife if you don’t
have one – these will be the robins’ redbreasts. Using vodka or
cooled boiled water, stick the red circles in between the two wings
on the lower part of the body.
STEP 4 Take five tiny pea-sized pieces of yellow sugarpaste. Roll into
balls, then pinch one end into a slight point to make mini cone
shapes. Using vodka or cooled boiled water, stick these onto the
middle of the upper part of each cake ball, to make the ‘beaks’. Cut
carefully into each beak with a sharp knife and wiggle the knife
slightly to ‘open’ the beaks, so that the robins appear to be merrily
chirping.
STEP 5 Pipe ‘eyes’ onto the robins, using a small dot of white royal
icing for each eye. Pat down with a damp paintbrush to flatten
slightly. Leave to dry overnight.
STEP 6 Once dry, finish off with a small dot of black royal icing in the
middle of each eye. Make sure to do this the following day, to
prevent the black icing from bleeding into the white.
CUT-OUT PETALS
The idea for these cool structural daisies came to me after seeing the
Marc Jacobs ‘Daisy’ perfume. I once used them to create a gorgeous
three-tier cake for a magazine photo shoot. I like the more graphic
flowers; they are very sculptural looking, more like jewellery than a
natural flower.
ou will need:
2 mini cakes, iced in a pale eau-de-nil shade (I used tiny amounts of
mint green and baby blue to colour white sugarpaste)
00g white petal paste
cing sugar
Old/dry sugarpaste rolled into 12 walnut-sized balls and 24 smaller,
grape-sized balls, covered in cling film
tbsp white stiff-peak royal icing (see here)
tbsp caramel-coloured stiff-peak royal icing (see here), in a piping
bag with a No. 3 nozzle
Gold lustre piping gel
2 lengths of ribbon, in ivory, gold or the same eau-de-nil shade
quipment:
lastic icing rolling pin
loppy mat (or book wrapped in cling film)
flower cutters, medium (5cm/2in across) and small (3cm/1¼in
across)
oam or gel pad
all tool
mall paintbrush
STEP 1 Roll out the petal paste thinly but not paper-thin, to a
thickness of 1–2mm, using icing sugar to dust the worktop. Place
your floppy mat over this rolled-out petal paste to prevent it from
drying out.
STEP 2 Cut out 12 medium flower shapes and place on the foam pad.
Gently press just inside the edge of each petal with the ball tool to
create a curved inner edge.
STEP 4 The next day, decorate the mini cakes by attaching your
flowers using a dab of white stiff-peak royal icing, either with one
large flower positioned centrally, or one larger and two small
structural blooms on the top of each cake, just leaning out towards
the top edges so they protrude over the sides of the cakes. Leave to
set for a couple of hours.
STEP 5 Pipe the caramel centres and once dried, paint with gold
lustre piping gel.
DESIGN IDEAS
SINGLE TIER CAKES
For a chocolate ganache design for a man or boy, a great way to add
colour and detail is to use an iced run-out. Here I have used a retro
robot to sit on top of the cake. The bright, punchy colours really stand
out against the dark-chocolate background.
ou will need:
0cm (8in) round Rich Belgian Chocolate Truffle Cake (see here), split
and filled with Rich Belgian Chocolate Ganache Buttercream (see
here) and covered in Glossy Chocolate Ganache for Pouring (see
here)
5cm (10in) round cake board, iced in sugarpaste (see here)
iced run-out (see here; and for robot template see here)
mall amount of melted white chocolate
mall amount of white stiff-peak royal icing, to attach the cake to the
board (see here)
Glossy Chocolate Ganache for pouring (left over from covering the
cake) (see here), in a piping bag with a No. 3 nozzle
oft-peak royal icing, in your choice of colour, in a piping bag with a
No. 2 nozzle (optional; if you want to pipe a message)
quipment:
astry brush
urntable (optional)
STEP 1 Carefully turn over your iced run-out and, using a pastry
brush, paint the back with cooled melted white chocolate. This is to
prevent the dark chocolate ganache from bleeding through the iced
picture. Build up a few layers to be sure to seal the back of the
icing. Leave to set until dry, for at least an hour.
STEP 2 Put a dab of royal icing in the centre of the iced board, to
stick the cake firmly down, then lift the chocolate cake and place
onto the middle of the board; do this carefully as you can’t move it
once positioned, or the chocolate will mark the board.
STEP 3 With the chocolate ganache, pipe a snail trail (see here) all
around the base of the cake where it meets the coloured board, to
finish it off neatly. It’s best to do this on a turntable but it’s not
essential.
STEP 4 Put your run-out on the centre of the chocolate cake. If you
wish, pipe a message onto the cake or the board using the coloured
royal icing.
GANACHE ROSE CORSAGE CAKE
ou will need:
5cm (6in) round Rich Belgian Chocolate Truffle Cake (see here), split
and filled with Rich Belgian Chocolate Ganache Buttercream (see
here) and covered in Glossy Chocolate Ganache for Pouring (see
here)
5cm (10in) round cake board, iced in pastel-pink sugarpaste (see
here) (optional)
mall amount of white stiff-peak royal icing to attach the cake to the
board (see here)
Glossy chocolate ganache (see here), in a piping bag with a No. 3
nozzle
lunger-cutter rose leaves, made with pale gooseberry-coloured white
chocolate paste (see here)
election of hand-moulded chocolate roses (see here), made with
white chocolate paste (I use Squire’s Modelling Cocoform), in
muted shades of peach, pink and cream
eachy pale-pink soft-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a No. 2
nozzle (optional; if you want to pipe a message)
quipment:
urntable (optional)
STEP 1 If you are using the cake board, place a dab of royal icing
onto the centre of the board to stick the cake firmly down, then lift
the chocolate cake and place in the middle; do this carefully, as
once positioned you can’t move it, or the chocolate will mark the
board.
STEP 2 With the chocolate ganache, pipe a snail trail (see here) all
around the base of the cake where the bottom meets the coloured
board, to finish it off neatly. It’s best to do this on a turntable but
it’s not essential.
STEP 3 Attach the chocolate leaves to the cake with a little piped
ganache, positioning them in the place where you want the
corsage: around 5–7 leaves around the outer part of the corsage is
perfect. If you want to pipe a message on the cake, make sure to
leave some space to one side.
STEP 5 This cake looks lovely just as it is, but if you want to add a
message, use the pale-pink royal icing for this. Alternatively, you
could pipe a chocolate-coloured royal icing message onto the board.
CHOCOLATE CIGARILLOS
There are lots of great edible supplies easily available nowadays that
enable you to create a show-stopping, professional-looking cake with
minimum effort. These delicious Belgian chocolate cigarillos aren’t
cheating; if you’ve spent time baking a gorgeous sponge then added
ganache icing, it’s still created by you … but with the help of some
brilliant ingredients. You can even buy the roses ready-made.
This design is simple but eye-catching and would suit all manner of
celebrations. Imagine it all in pure white for a wedding or
anniversary. The beauty of this design is that it’s very quick and
you don’t have to fuss over making a neatly covered cake. Aim for
a cake that is 8cm (3in) in depth or make sure to measure the
cigarillos that you buy. Ideally, you want them to protrude above
the edge of your cake, so that you can sit the chocolate roses inside
the ring of chocolatey sticks. To check you have enough roses, you
can arrange them on a cake board that’s the same size as your cake,
to see if they fill the space.
ou will need:
0cm (8in) round Rich Belgian Chocolate Truffle Cake (see here), split
and filled with Rich Belgian Chocolate Ganache Buttercream (see
here), and covered in white chocolate paste (see here)
5cm (10in) round cake board, iced in chocolate roll-out paste (see
here), coloured to match the cigarillos
mall amount of white stiff-peak royal icing to attach your cake to the
board (see here)
Melted white chocolate, in a plastic piping bag (no nozzle; simply
snip the end off the bag)
hocolate cigarillos, approximately 60–70
nough hand-moulded white chocolate roses to fill the top of the cake
(approximately 25–30)
Handful of chocolate leaves made with a plunger leaf cutter or a
silicone leaf-impression mould
Organza ribbon to tie the cake
quipment:
urntable (optional)
STEP 1 Put a small dab of royal icing in the centre of the cake board,
to fix the cake down, and place the chocolate cake centrally onto
the board.
STEP 3 Continue in this way all around the cake until you arrive back
at your starting point. Once the cigarillos are fixed, they set
quickly.
STEP 4 Pipe some more melted white chocolate over the flat top and
attach the roses and leaves inside the chocolate ring. Place some
leaves folding over the edges and others nestled in amongst the
chocolate flowers.
For these groovy birthday cakes I’ve used simple, flat, cut-out petal paste
shapes, made by cutting round some templates. You can find shapes
online and print them out, draw sketches, or even use silhouettes of your
own photos. I’ve given instructions for a boy’s cake – a break-dance
design – and a ballet design for girls. Other themes could be tennis,
skating, singing (imagine a glittery microphone and neon musical notes)
or showjumping. This is a fabulous way to make a personalised cake for
children, teens and – even big kids!
ou will need:
0cm (8in) round Very Vanilla cake (see here), iced in powder
blue/grey sugarpaste (for break-dance design) or white (for ballet
design)
0cm (12in) round cake board, iced in a matching colour (see here)
or a cake stand
00g petal paste, in black (for break-dance) or pale flesh (for ballet)
odka or cooled boiled water
5g pale-pink petal paste (for ballet only)
right-lime, pink, yellow (primrose) and orange (tangerine) soft-peak
royal icing (for break-dance) or dusky pink soft-peak royal icing
(for ballet), in piping bags with No. 2 nozzles
White stiff-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a small hole snipped
in the end
iquorice and claret paste colours (for ballet)
iping gel (for ballet)
White non-toxic glitter (for ballet)
ibbon, in your choice of colour
quipment:
lastic icing rolling pin
templates for break-dancers or ballerinas
astry brush
mall, sharp knife or palette knife
mall paintbrushes
utu template (for ballet design only)
oam or gel pad
ocktail sticks
STEP 1 Fix the cake centrally onto the cake board, if using, with a dab
of royal icing to secure. To ensure your silhouettes are evenly
spaced around the cake, wrap some ribbon around the cake, mark
where it meets, then remove and measure it. Divide by eight and
mark at equal intervals with a felt pen. Hold the ribbon back up to
the cake and, above each pen-mark, make a tiny dot on the icing
with a sharp knife, to indicate where to place the sugar silhouettes.
TIP
If your shapes are a bit chunky and are
slipping down the side of your cake once
attached, use a cocktail stick to pierce
through the centre of the shape and secure
it onto the cake. You can remove the stick
and fill in the hole with matching royal
icing once it has dried out.
STEP 6 For the ballerinas, paint shoes, bodices and tiny kissy lips
onto the cut-outs with the paste colours and a small paintbrush. On
a worktop dusted with icing sugar, roll out the pink petal paste
thinly. Cut out eight tutu shapes using your template. On the foam
pad, roll up the bottom half of each tutu with a cocktail stick,
adding gentle pressure periodically to create a wavy frill at the
bottom. This will help to give your design a 3D effect.
STEP 7 Pipe a strip of white royal icing onto the waist of each dancer.
Attach the petal-paste skirts to the figures, securing on either side
with a little more royal icing, and gently pressing to adhere them
to the figures on the cake. Insert a cocktail stick on each side of the
waist to hold the petal-paste tutus in place. Leave to dry overnight.
You can then use different-coloured glitters, lustres and piping gel
to paint on sugary, glittery make-up detail. I also piped beads,
pearls, hearts and shapes of royal icing onto plastic and scattered
glitter over them whilst still wet. Once they had dried out, I lifted
them from their plastic backing and used them to create beaded
jewellery. I’ve made a hair accessory, necklace and earrings, but of
course you can make anything; go for it and experiment. Hilarious,
fun, and a little bit ‘Essex’, and the sparkliness will appeal to
everyone!
ou will need:
0cm (8in) round Very Vanilla cake (see here), iced in pink
sugarpaste (see here)
0cm (12in) round cake board, iced in red sugarpaste (see here)
White stiff-peak royal icing (see here)
ifferent-coloured non-toxic glitters
large edible photo (use an edible-ink printer or see here)
odka or cooled boiled water
Metallic lustres (for the eyes and cheeks)
iping gel
lue soft-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a No. 1.5 nozzle
quipment:
lastic document wallet
iece of A4 card
astry brush
Greaseproof paper
cissors
mall paintbrushes
mall, sharp knife
STEP 1 Begin by making your cake jazzles, so that these can dry
overnight. They will set in a couple of hours but be careful
handling them as they will still be soft inside. (For this cake I used
several different-coloured glitters – EdAbleArt disco white, disco
magenta, neon pink, purple, gold and green – to create the jazzly
jewellery.)
STEP 2 Take the plastic document wallet and pop the piece of A4 card
inside; this makes it easier to pick the wallet up when dusting off
excess glitter.
STEP 3 Begin piping little pearls, beads and hearts (by piping two
beads alongside each other and dragging downwards) of white
royal icing onto the plastic wallet. I also piped some swirly ‘S’
shapes, to make the earrings in the photo. Very OTT!
STEP 4 Pipe one set of shapes at a time, in a line, then dust with your
lightest colour of glitter, by loading up the pastry brush with glitter
and tapping it over the piping on the wallet. You need to add lots
of glitter to completely cover the piped shapes.
STEP 5 Dust off the excess by holding the wallet over a piece of
greaseproof paper, tilting and gently tapping so that the excess
glitter falls onto the paper. You can then use the paper as a funnel,
folding up either side and tipping the glitter back into its pot.
STEP 6 Continue this with the next line of piped shapes and your next
shade of glitter, pouring the excess back into the pots as you go.
Once finished, leave the sparkly, glittering cake jazzles to set.
STEP 7 Attach the cake to the cake board and secure with a dab of
royal icing. Carefully cut around the edge of the edible picture, and
apply centrally to the top of the cake by brushing a little vodka or
cooled boiled water onto the surface to stick the picture down.
STEP 8 Now you can start adding sugar ‘make-up’ to jazzle your
photo. Using a small paintbrush, add some metallic lustre to the
eyelids as eyeshadow, and as blusher to the cheeks.
STEP 9 Add some piping gel and glitter detail to the eyelids and lips
to make them really glittery, so that they stand out. Finish the eyes
with the blue royal icing to create luscious eyelashes.
STEP 10 Now attach your cake jazzles, lifting them off the wallet with
a sharp knife and securing in place with a tiny dot of white royal
icing under each bead, pearl or piped shape.
ou will need:
5cm (6in) round cake, iced in vintage-green sugarpaste (I used
gooseberry paste colour) (see here)
0cm (8in) round cake board, iced in the same colour (see here)
pprox. 100g white sugarpaste
aramel–ivory–coloured stiff-peak royal icing (see here), in a piping
bag with a No. 3 nozzle
× A4 sheets of edible print
ength of any ribbon, 2.5cm (1in) width, to use as a guide
oft-jade satin ribbon, 1.5cm (½ in) width
odka or cooled boiled water
Gold lustre
quipment:
ibbon cutter (or ruler and scalpel)
cissors
mall paintbrush
astry brush
STEP 1 Attach your cake centrally onto the board, with a dab of royal
icing to secure.
STEP 2 Roll out your white sugarpaste to a long sausage, flatten and
roll to a strip wide enough for your fabric wrap piece for the
decorative band (This should be very thin – about 1–2mm). Cut
your edible-print sheets lengthways in half and attach to the
sugarpaste strip, which you have lightly brushed with some vodka
or cooled boiled water. With a ribbon cutter set at the desired
thickness or with a ruler and scalpel, cut your strip out; it should be
approximately 2.5–3cm (1–1 ½in) wide although if you prefer a
thicker band that’s fine as long as there is space for your ribbon
and pearl trims.
STEP 3 Wrap the jade ribbon around the bottom of the cake and
fasten it at the back with a tiny dot of icing. Then, following the
top edge of the jade ribbon, wrap the 2.5cm guide ribbon around
the cake. The sugar print wrap can be aligned along its top edge so
that it will be straight. A good tip is to roll it onto a small pin then
unwrap over the sides of the cake (fasten it at the back with a tiny
dot of royal icing).
STEP 4 Now use the paintbrush to paint vodka or cooled boiled water
all around the cake, just above the guide ribbon so you have a
sticky surface for your print wrap sugarpaste strip.
STEP 5 Attach the strip to the cake, with its best part at the front,
laying it neatly onto the side of the cake, as straight as you can,
just a fraction above the guide ribbon. Unwrapping from a pin is
easiest; continue all the way round until you reach the starting
point and cut with a sharp knife. Adhere by pressing onto your
sticky cake or add a dab of stiff-peak royal icing to be sure it will
stay.
STEP 6 Add pearl detail above and below the strip to finish, piping
equal-sized beads of the caramel-ivory royal icing (see here). Leave
to dry for at least two hours then add gold lustre to the pearls,
mixed with vodka or cooled boiled water and painted onto the
pearls to make them golden and gorgeous.
DESIGN IDEAS
MODELLING
Hand-modelling is a really fun way to make cake decorations.
Sugarpaste is a lovely medium for modelling, as it’s very pliable
and holds its shape well. If you wish, you can add a teaspoon of
gum tragacanth to 500g sugarpaste and this will give you a better,
firmer result, making your model set harder and firmer.
You can also model with chocolate paste and even with petal paste;
they are both good mediums for rolling out, shaping and creating
models. It’s best to have a play around first; after a while you’ll get
the feel for it. Start simply, creating basic shapes that are made up
of just a few parts.
FAIRYLAND MUSHROOM CAKE
ou will need:
0cm (8in) round cake, iced in grass-green sugarpaste (I mixed
gooseberry and leaf-green paste colours) (see here)
0cm (12in) round cake board, iced in matching green sugarpaste
pprox. 700g white sugarpaste, with optional 2 tsp gum tragacanth,
or sugar modelling paste
ed, caramel-ivory and spruce-green paste colours
ength of pink and green ribbon, 1.5cm width
White stiff-peak royal icing (see here), in a piping bag with a No. 3
nozzle
Green soft-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a No. 2 nozzle
ink royal icing, in a piping bag with a No. 2 nozzle
election of pre-made petal-paste blossom flowers (see here), in your
choice of colours
ust colours: green and white
odka or cooled boiled water
election of pre-made push-mould butterflies (see here)
White holographic non-toxic glitter
White soft-peak royal icing
quipment:
xtra cake boards, for modelling and drying
op smoother (optional)
tar nozzle
ocktail stick (optional)
mall paintbrushes
astry brush
STEP 2 Invert, so that the wider base is on a cake board and push
down with your hand to flatten the bottom. Pinch the top so that it
looks more humpy and mushroom-like. Leave to set.
STEP 3 With the remainder of the red paste colour and repeat the
previous steps to make a few more medium and small mushroom
tops.
STEP 5 Make additional stalks in the same way to fit all the small
mushroom tops. Leave them to dry on a cake board overnight.
STEP 6 Add the pink and green ribbon around the base of the cake
(attach at the back with a dot of icing) and then add moss detail, by
colouring approximately 200g sugarpaste with the dark-green
colouring and hand-rolling it to make a few random moss clumps
for around the cake edges. (Save some green sugarpaste for the top
of the cake, too.) Press into these with the star nozzle to texturise
and make them furrier and more moss-like.
STEP 7 Affix the large central mushroom stalk to the top of the cake
with some stiff-peak royal icing. You may also want to use a
cocktail stick in the base stalk to give extra support, but it’s not
essential. (If the cake is for a very young child, who will be eating
it, it is better not to use a stick, but I would recommend using one
if you are transporting the cake any distance.)
STEP 8 Add the top part of the large mushroom, fixing it with more
royal icing, and add some moss detail to the base of the mushroom
and a few bits around the top of the cake in the same way as you
did to the sides. This will also help support the mushroom.
STEP 9 Add some piped tendrils of green royal icing dotted around
the top and sides coming out from where you want your blossom
flowers to be. Affix your petal-paste blossoms and place a few
clumps of blossoms together on the top of your cake.
STEP 10 Affix the smaller mushroom stalks to the top of the cake
board with royal icing, then add the mushroom tops. Leave to dry
overnight or for at least a few hours.
STEP 11 Use a dry paintbrush to dust some of the green dust onto the
moss to give it more depth. Mix the white dust with vodka or
cooled boiled water to make a paste, and paint this onto the
mushroom tops in white splodges.
STEP 12 Attach the butterflies to the large mushroom and the cake
with some stiff-peak white royal icing and leave to set. Pipe
blossom centres with the pink royal icing.
STEP 13 Use stiff-peak white and pink royal icing to pipe bodies onto
the butterflies. Dust the entire cake with a small cascade of white
holographic non-toxic glitter for a magical twinkly finish.
DESIGN IDEAS
MULTI-TIER CAKES
BRUSH EMBROIDERY
If you find that piping with royal icing comes fairly easily (and
enjoyably) to you, why not use freehand brush embroidery to create this
elegant cake? For this classic design I have piped five-petal, three-petal
and blossom freehand details to texturise the entire cake, then joined all
the main floral parts together by piping stems, tendrils and leaves, and
filled empty space with tiny triple pearls as pretty fillers. The tiers are
finished with a satin ribbon.
As always, you can use any base colour to tailor the cake to your
theme. If you find freehand piping tricky, mark out floral shapes
randomly over the freshly iced cake tiers. Use cutters as guides for
your main shapes. This design would also look stunning as a two-
tier cake.
ou will need:
5cm (6in), 23cm (9in) and 30cm (12in) round cakes, iced in powder-
blue sugarpaste (see here)
× 38cm (15in) round cake boards, stuck together with Pritt stick,
iced in matching powder-blue sugarpaste (see here)
he cakes should be stacked centrally on the iced boards so the cake is
set before working on your piped design.
vory soft-peak royal icing (see here; use a tiny amount of caramel-
ivory paste colour), in a piping bag with a No. 2 nozzle
ooled boiled water
vory stiff-peak royal icing, in a piping bag with a No. 3 nozzle
iping gel
earl lustre
quipment:
mall paintbrushes
itchen paper
vory satin ribbon to finish each tier and edge your base boards,
width 1.5cm (1/2 in)
STEP 1 Afix your ribbon around the tiers before commencing. Begin
on the top of the upper tier and use the soft-peak ivory icing to pipe
large five-petal floral patterns, randomly spaced. After piping each
flower, immediately use a paintbrush dipped in cooled boiled water
to embroider the edges (see here). If you leave the royal icing even
for a couple of minutes it will start to skin over, so every time you
pipe a flower, immediately brush in the edges then replace the
brush in the water. Don’t let your brush get too wet; if necessary,
dry with kitchen paper.
STEP 2 After you have piped and embroidered your main large
blooms, begin joining these up by piping stems, tendrils and leaf
shapes. Add some thicker, pressure-piped tendrils in places, coming
off the stems, and brush these down to embroider them onto the
cake. You can embroider the larger tendrils in places, but leave the
stems and leaves as unembroidered piped lines. Pipe centres in the
floral shapes onto the connecting stems.
STEP 3 You can also pipe, and embroider, smaller floral shapes onto
the connecting stems.
STEP 4 Once the top is nicely filled, continue down the sides of the
top tier. Keep checking the space, and think about spacing out the
flowers randomly and considering how they will flow and cascade
over the tiers below. Make sure that some of the stems join up to
the tier below so that the pattern becomes one and appears to flow
even under the ribbon. Continue until all the tiers are covered with
a medium to heavy lace coverage and the entire iced surface is
texturised.
STEP 5 Now go back over the entire cake, checking for spaces into
which you can pipe sets of triple dots. If you get snagging tails on
these, gently press with the damp brush to neaten and round off the
pearls.
BUTTERCREAM
I’ve used a three-tier stand with 20cm (8in), 25cm (10in) and 30cm
(12in) plates, to accommodate my cakes and give me room to
decorate the edges. You can of course make just one tier and place
on a cake stand or an iced cake board at least 5cm (2in) larger than
your cake.
ou will need:
5cm (6in), 20cm (8in) and 25cm (10in) round cakes, iced in peach-
coloured vanilla buttercream (see here)
xtra peach-coloured buttercream, in a piping bag with a No. 3 nozzle
pprox. 30 large, 30 medium and 50 small white petal-paste
hydrangea flowers (see here)
Gooseberry-coloured soft-peak royal icing (see here), in a piping bag
with a No. 2 nozzle
Green dust colour
quipment:
lastic piping bag for the buttercream snail trail
mall paintbrush
STEP 1 If you wish to texturise your buttercream for a special vintage
look, you could scrape a tooth-edged side scraper all around each
tier in one smooth dragging motion, while the buttercream is still
soft, to create horizontal lines. Allow to set for a few hours. It looks
good, but here I went with a flat buttercream covering.
STEP 2 If you are using a stand like mine, attach your cakes to each
plate with a dab of stiff-peak royal icing. If making a single-tier
cake, attach either to your cake stand or iced board (see
introduction).
STEP 3 With your no. 3 nozzle bag, pipe a large snail trail of
buttercream along the bottom edges of the cakes where they meet
the stand or board, to neaten and add a pretty finishing touch.
STEP 5 Dust the centres of the hydrangeas with a little green dust to
add a realistic touch and then finish the centres by piping little
collections of pearls in the middle of the flowers with the
gooseberry-coloured royal icing.
COOKIE EXPLOSION
This is one of the most popular designs that we make at Fancy Nancy.
You can create it in any colour and change the shapes of the cookies to
tailor it for a man; red, white and blue is a great colour combination
for men. This cake is sure to wow guests at any party. We even make
these as wedding cakes sometimes!
ou will need:
5cm (6in) round cake, iced in pink sugarpaste (I mixed pink and
claret paste colour)
3cm (9in) round cake, iced in orange sugarpaste (I used tangerine
paste colour)
5cm (14in) round cake board, iced in purple sugarpaste (I used
Squires Kitchen purple, but you can mix blue and red, or use grape
violet) (see here)
medium heart-shaped vanilla cookies (see here), decorated in
orange, pink and purple with glitter and sprinkles, as shown
small heart-shaped vanilla cookies on sticks, decorated with
sprinkles and glitter
Orange and pink stiff-peak royal icing, in piping bags with No. 3
nozzles
large heart-shaped vanilla cookies, iced with recipient’s name
and/or age, edge details piped in matching colours
election of smaller pre-decorated hearts to scatter over the cake
election of petal-paste blossoms, roses and daisies (see here), in your
choice of colours
tiff-peak royal icing, in a variety of colours, in piping bags with No.
2 nozzles
quipment:
cissors or wire cutters
ocktail sticks (optional)
STEP 2 Fix the two piped cookies to decorate the front of your cake,
attaching them with stiff-peak royal icing on the back of each
cookie. If you find that the cookies slip off, use cocktail sticks under
them to hold them in place until the icing sets.
ou will need:
5cm (6in), 20cm (8in) and 25cm (10in) square cakes, iced in ivory
sugarpaste, pre-stacked a day in advance (see here and here)
5cm (14in) square cake board, iced in ivory sugarpaste (see here), if
required (I used a cake stand)
lengths of black grosgrain ribbon, width 1cm
iced run-outs (see here): margarita cocktail, high-heeled shoe and
handbag shapes
White stiff-peak royal icing
STEP 1 Wrap a length of ribbon around each tier to hide the joins.
Also attach a length of the ribbon to the edge of the cake board.
STEP 2 Attach the run-outs to the cake using some of the white royal
icing to adhere them to the sugar paste icing. Place the shoe on the
bottom-left of the base tier and the handbag just right of the centre
on the middle tier. Finish with the cocktail placed left of the centre
on the top tier. Simple, gorgous and chic!
VINTAGE BUTTON CAKE
This is one of my favourite cake designs. I came up with the idea a few
years ago, inspired by my cousin Abby’s gorgeous Jenny Packham
wedding dress, which was embellished with beautiful mother-of-pearl
buttons. I just knew that a cake decorated with these hand-made buttons
would look lovely; indeed, it is a really popular choice for weddings and
other celebrations. I love the antique-pink colour scheme, but the base
works equally well in ivory for a more traditional look, or you can
choose any soft pastel colour to suit your theme. Making the sugar
buttons is very simple and can be done well in advance. The finishing
touches are the pearl lustre – it makes them look so realistic – and the
final iced stitch, which gives the effect that the buttons are sewn directly
onto the surface of the cake. Stunning! Because the cake is so heavily
embellished with sugar decorations, if you have the odd undulation or
bump, you can cleverly disguise any imperfections with a button and it
will still look perfect.
ou will need:
5cm (6in), 20cm (8in), 25cm (10in) and 30cm (12in) round cakes,
iced in marzipan and antique-pink sugarpaste (I use a tiny amount
of pink paste colour and gradually knead in a tiny addition of egg-
yellow), stacked centrally on the board as a one-piece cake a day in
advance of decorating (see here)
× 40cm (16in) round cake boards, stuck together with Pritt stick,
iced in matching antique-pink sugarpaste (see here)
pprox. 3 metres of ivory satin ribbon, 10mm width
cing sugar
pprox. 500g petal paste
ale pink soft-peak royal icing (see here), in two piping bags (no
more than half-full), with No. 1.5 and No. 2 nozzles
opaz lustre dust (I use Squires Kitchen ‘Moon Beams’)
iping gel
ooled boiled water
quipment:
lastic icing rolling pin
loppy mat (or book wrapped in cling film)
circle plunger cutters: small, medium and large
extra piping nozzles, a No. 1.5 and a No. 2 (old ones are best, as
cutting buttonholes wears them out)
oam or gel pad
all tool
xtra cake board
mall, sharp knife
astry brushes
mall paintbrush (No. 4 artist’s brush)
STEP 2 Dust the worktop with icing sugar and knead the petal paste
until soft and pliable.
STEP 3 You will need to roll out just a small amount of petal paste at
a time, as it dries out very quickly. You will also need to keep the
rest of the rolled-out sheet covered whilst you are working on each
batch of buttons. I recommend a floppy mat for this – a clear piece
of tough plastic that you can lay over the petal paste – otherwise a
book wrapped in cling film will do.
STEP 4 Take approximately 50g petal paste and roll out thinly until
the worktop underneath starts to show through. Aim for no more
than 1mm thickness. Petal paste is very stretchy and goes a long
way, and you need to use quite a bit of pressure to roll it out, as it’s
much firmer and more elastic than regular sugarpaste.
STEP 5 Cut out the buttons with the round cutters; do just one size to
begin with, and just a few at a time so that they don’t dry out.
(Once you get quicker at shaping them, you can cut out more at
once – I do about 20 at a time.) Press the cutter down firmly into
the paste to ensure you get a clean cut with no rough edges.
TIP
I use little plunger polka dot cutters from
Kemper for quickness; they generally come
in a set of five different sizes and I use the
small, medium and large ones.
STEP 6 Once you have cut out a few circles, cover the rest of your
sheet with the floppy mat, then use one of the extra piping nozzles
(No.1.5 for the small buttons, or No.2 for medium and large) to
push out two little holes in each button, equally spaced in the
middle of the circle.
STEP 7 Now take one button and lay it on the foam pad. Using the
ball modelling tool, carefully press around the inside of the outer
edge with gentle, even pressure, moving it around one way then
back the other until your circle has formed a little upturned edge
and looks like a real button. Pick up the button with your fingers,
gently holding the edge, and put it onto a cake board.
STEP 8 Continue in this way, cutting out just a few circles at once,
and covering the remaining petal paste while you cut the holes and
mould the edges. Do all the small ones first, then the medium and
finally the large. Keep them in separate groups and line them up on
the cake board so that they are easy to keep count of.
STEP 2 To apply the buttons to the cake, I like to work from the top
tier downwards, to avoid knocking any buttons off the tiers below.
It takes me a couple of hours to stick all the buttons onto a three-
tier cake of this size, but if you are a beginner, give yourself a bit
longer; don’t rush your masterpiece!
STEP 5 Once you have attached all of your buttons, they can be left
to dry on the cake for a couple of hours before continuing with the
next step.
STEP 7 Now you can begin painting the buttons, using a small
paintbrush to paint over the middle and just up onto the edges of
each button. You don’t have to paint right round the edge, and be
careful not to paint any gel onto the icing, or the cake will look
messy. Start from the top of the cake and work your way down. It
takes me a couple of hours to paint them all; you might need longer
if you’re a beginner.
TIP
Before lustering the buttons, I like to check
that there are no odd bits of icing sugar or
dust on the cake. Use a pastry brush to dust
over the cake and buttons. You must do
this before you pearlise them, as you can’t
use a pastry brush after pearlising because
the gel is quite sticky and pastry-brush
hairs will stick to the buttons.
TIP
If you stir the gel and lustre mixture too
quickly, it goes everywhere, so don’t do it
near the cake! Stir it slowly and gently to
avoid a cloud of shimmery topaz going all
over your workspace.
STEP 9 Once you have added stitches to all the medium and large
buttons, go back over the cake, again from the top downwards, this
time stitching the remaining small buttons with your No. 1.5
nozzle. You are finished, so sit back and marvel at your gorgeous
cake!
TIP
When you get good at piping, you can
avoid getting snags or tails (or nipples as
they are known in the trade!). Until then,
don’t worry if a little bit of icing is sticking
up on your ‘stitches’ – you can make it
look neat by using a small pastry brush
dipped in cooled boiled water. Gently press
the damp brush onto the icing to push
down the icing snugly into the buttonhole
and create the ‘stitched on’ effect.
CAKETASTROPHES!
There are some things that can go wrong when
cake decorating; I like to call these
‘caketastrophes’! In this section I outline cake
mishaps, things to avoid when decorating cakes or
cookies, and how to solve problems where possible.
When cakes go wrong, especially when you are a
beginner, it feels terribly dramatic and scary, and
there’s a sense of panic that if you don’t fix it
quickly, it will be ruined. Or worse, you may want
to throw it all away after hours of painstaking
labour.
HAIRLINE CRACKS
On occasion, once you have stacked your masterpiece and are
starting to decorate, you will notice one or two (or even more!)
hairline cracks. This is an indication either that you haven’t put
enough cake dowels into the cake, or that some may have gone in
at a slight angle. After time, the upper cakes will push down on the
base tier and may start to cause these cracks.
The best way to avoid this happening in the first place is to
never skimp on dowels. The heavier the cakes are, and the more
tiers they have, the more dowels you will need; e.g. for a small
15cm (6in) top tier, you will need at least 5–6 dowels in the cake
below it. But in a 30cm (12in) base tier that has 25cm (10in) and
15cm (6in) cakes above it, you will need 12–14 dowels, and I
recommend that they are the heavy-duty type. It’s easy to forget to
put them in, or to just put too few, but they are really important.
Once hairline cracks have appeared, there are a couple of ways
you can solve or improve them. If your cake is finished, it will
probably be okay, as you’ll have been working on it for a couple of
days and it will have already survived any transportation, so simply
fill over the cracks with royal icing. When done well, this will
almost vanish away the evidence. Another solution is to take some
of the sugarpaste with which you covered your cake (a particularly
good idea if you’ve blended a special colour, as it will be difficult to
match perfectly with royal icing) and work this into a paste with
some cooled boiled water until it has the consistency of soft-peak
royal icing. With a clean finger, smooth the paste over and into any
cracks. Then carefully remove any excess with a small, sharp knife
and good-quality kitchen paper (one that doesn’t shed any bits) or
use a brand-new cloth to do this. Allow to dry and your cracks will
be well hidden or, if you’ve done a good job, almost completely
gone!
However, if large cracks start appearing soon after stacking, this
is a sign that your top tiers are too heavy and you haven’t doweled
the cake correctly. You can either carefully lift the tiers off, using a
knife to cut them apart so that the icing on the tier below isn’t
pulled away from the cake, then add lots more dowels. Bear in
mind that it’s easy to damage the icing at this stage. Or sometimes
it’s a good idea to wait and check the progress, as the cracks may
not get any worse, in which case you can simply fill them with
icing as described above, or if there is a large amount of decoration
going onto the cake, for example a rose corsage, you can
strategically place models or run-outs over the cracks.
CAKE SWEATING
Humidity in the air or changes of temperature (for example, if your
sponge has been chilled in a fridge then quickly iced), can cause a
‘sweaty’ look on the icing, called cake sweating. Don’t be tempted
to dry this or even to touch it or you’ll create smears, marks or,
worse, damage to the decoration.
Move the cake to a room where the temperature is regular and
constant. After a few hours, the surface should dry out again. I’ve
had this happen a few times during summer months and had to
move cakes into an air-conditioned room, as sugarpaste doesn’t
react well to being chilled. Another good idea is to use a
dehumidifier in the room in which you are working on and storing
your cake.
LEAKAGE
On occasion, if you have a really syrupy cake and it’s a hot time of
year, you may notice some juicy, sugary leaks coming out from the
bottom of the cake tiers, either onto the tier below or onto the cake
board. If your cake has ribbon around it, you may find that the leak
has marked the ribbon. You will need to replace it with a fresh
length, but for now remove the ribbon entirely while you fix the
problem. If you have piped an iced pearl trail or bead trim, you’ll
have to carefully cut away the part where the sugary syrup is
leaking out.
To rectify this problem, use good-quality kitchen paper to soak
up the leaking syrup as soon as possible. Otherwise it will start to
eat into the icing on the cake below or the iced board. Take a piece
of kitchen paper and very gently press onto the area to soak up
some of the moisture. Lift the paper away, taking care not to
smudge it onto the cake as you do this. Repeat with fresh pieces of
paper until all the moisture has gone. Keep checking regularly over
a period of time, as it may leak a bit more. If it’s a light-coloured
cake, you can also dust over a little icing sugar to dry out the area.
Once you are certain the leaking has stopped, you can re-attach
the ribbon or pipe back into the space in the pearl trim or snail
trail. If the damage is bad, the best option might be to cover the
area with additional sugar decorations, for example flowers or
butterflies, etc.
COLOUR BLEEDING
This is when one colour of icing runs or spreads into another;
lighter-coloured icings can get stained by stronger ones. This
happens most commonly with combinations of light and dark,
especially on royal icing run-outs or when you pipe onto a freshly
iced surface. To avoid this caketastrophe, make sure that you allow
a colour or icing to dry for 24 hours before continuing to decorate
or fill with a darker colour.
COLOUR BLOTCHES
Sometimes, if you haven’t mixed your paste colours thoroughly,
particularly for run-outs and cookie decorating, strong blotches of
colour can appear. There’s nothing you can do about this once the
icing has dried, but if you notice it happening, split your icing bag
and carefully remix. This is due to under-mixing; make sure you
can’t see any spots of colour and you have a smooth, all-over colour
in your sugarpaste or royal icing.
ALMOND ART
Units 15/16 Faraday Close
Gorse Lane Industrial Estate
Clacton-on-Sea
Essex C015 4TR
www.almondart.com
Tel: 01255 223 322
PICTURETHIS
8 Matlock Way
Canvey Island
Essex SS8 0EW
Tel: 01268 684 547
SPLAT COOKING
Splat Cooking Stuff Limited
PO Box 83
Princes Risborough
Buckinghamshire
HP27 9WB
www.splatcooking.net
Tel: 0870 766 8290
SQUIRES KITCHEN
Squires Group Squires House
3 Waverley Lane
Farnham
Surrey GU9 8BB
www.squires-shop.com
Tel: 0845 617 1810 or
01252 260 260
SUGARSHACK
Unit 12
Bowmans Trading Estate
Westoreland Road
London NW9 9RL
www.sugarshack.co.uk
Tel: 020 8204 2994
KEYLINK
Keylink Limited
Green Lane
Ecclesfield
Sheffield S35 9WY
www.keylink.org
Tel: 0114 245 5400
FRANCIS-DEE
140 Woodside
Leigh-On-Sea
Essex SS9 4RE
www.francis-dee.co.uk
Tel: 01702 520961
BOMBAY DUCK
231 The Vale
London W3 7QS
Tel: 020 8749 3000
www.bombayduck.co.uk
DOTCOMGIFTSHOP
Unit 3–4 Allied Way
London W3 0RL
www.dotcomgiftshop.com
0208 746 2473
ETSY
www.etsy.com
JOHN LEWIS
www.johnlewis.com
Tel: 08456 049 049
PEACH BLOSSSOM
www.peachblossom.co.uk
This book is a dream come true, but it didn’t just happen by magic.
I have so many people to thank for their help in turning it into a
reality. I would not have been able to develop a successful cake
business, let alone write a book, without the support of Simon ‘my
rock, my soul mate and all that cheesy stuff from our fave Steve
Wright Sunday show!’ and his help throughout my cakey career.
Simon, sorry that you had to endure days and days of trawling
through my text before I sent it in to Ebury, but now you are a cake
expert and I am sure find the subject completely thrilling! Thanks
to our gorgeous children, Ruby, Lydia and George for putting up
with my stressyitis, being ever humorous and so understanding.
Then the rest of my family: I want to thank my dad, George,
who is a total legend and helps us all in so many ways both at
home and at the shop, everyday, doing deliveries, washing up,
checking the cakes are level (listening to Django Reinhardt and
drinking all the cake brandy). Thanks to Mum, too, for everything!
My ‘mother-in-law’ Lydia, is one of my best friends and an
inspiration. I can’t thank her enough for all that she does for us,
from childcare, life coaching to the business accounts – and even
clearing out my messy handbag! Thanks to Nancy for being a
FABULOUS sister and super auntie to our kids, especially Ruby,
who is your mini-me.
Thanks to the brilliant Christine Lee, my cake mentor and true
friend, for teaching me so much about the wonderful world of cake
decorating and making it all hilarious fun – we are a great double
act! Big thanks to Dena Robles who worked with me in the early
days to produce amazing cake photos and more; a great friend and
a talented photographer whom we miss very much now that you
have headed back to the USA with your gorgeous family.
The support of my extended family has also been crucial: Auntie
Carol who made cakes for me when I was little, naughty Brenda,
Uncle Fred and all the aunties, uncles and cousins who I don’t see
enough of. Also thanks for the assistance from so many kind
friends, particularly Lucy Norris, my oldest and closest friend, for
her loyalty and calming influence; Ali Harris for her support and
introduction to Wedding magazine and for helping with this book;
the talented and creative Louise Naomi Best for my Fancy Nancy
logo and more; Dan Carter for coming into Fancy Nancy and
making some seriously awesome cakes; Kate and Craig for their
wonderful photography; Michelle and Pete for my website; and
friends-and-ex-colleagues Rosie Shorten and Colin Chih. Thanks to
Mich Turner for giving me a job at Little Venice Cake Company
back in the day – an opportunity for which I am ever grateful.
BIG thanks and hugs to my agents, Jennifer Christie and Jane
Graham Maw, who believed in me, and my baking passions, and
supported me throughout the making of this book. And to all my
staff at Fancy Nancy: Olivia Kerr, Tara Carter, Georgia Coles, Sam
Sains and Ali Penn-Franzolin. Enormous thanks, also, to the team
at Smith and Gilmour: Alex, Emma, Gavin and Rose – and to Maja
Smend for her gorgeous shots, and to the stylist (and stylish!) Ali
Lovett; I have had the best time working with you on this book.
And a big thank you to Paul Tait.
Thanks to magazine editors Victoria Sullivan and Catherine
Westwood for supporting me since the early days. Thanks to Nikki
Stock for allowing me to use her beautiful prints on my cakes and
in this book, and to my wonderfully exuberant TV agents Kim
Farmer and Kirsty Williams of Insanity Management. And grateful
thanks to the enthusiastic team at Ebury: to Kasi Collins, Katie Hall,
Laura Herring and Imogen Fortes.
And, of course, thanks to all my customers, Twitter, blog and
Facebook followers and the readers of my book for all your
support. I would be lost without you.
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Colour origination: Altaimage, London
ISBN 9780091946685