Read The Busy Girls Guide to Cake Decorating Online
Authors: Ruth Clemens
The Busy Girls Guide to Cake Decorating (9 page)
4 Wrap in cling film (plastic wrap) and allow the colour to develop. Colour intensifies over a period of ten minutes or so. Unwrap and knead gently, checking that the colour is even. Your coloured sugarpaste is now ready to be used.
Alternatively you can wear latex gloves and knead the colour through the sugarpaste, but be careful not to stain your work surface.
To support the top tier of a stacked cake and to stop it sinking into the lower layer and ruining all your decorating work, you will need to dowel the cake. To do this you will need four cake dowels. These come in a variety of forms but by far the best (and quickest) are plastic dowels.
“Remember to tell whoever the cake is for that the bottom tier contains plastic dowels so that they can be removed before serving!”
1 Take the bottom tier of your cake, ready covered and mounted on its board. Insert four dowels, equally spaced vertically down through the sugarpaste (rolled fondant) to the board. The position of the dowels needs to stay within the area of the smaller tier above so that they will not be seen.
2 Mark the dowels with a pen level with the surface of the sugarpaste.
3 Remove each dowel and lay side by side. With the ends of the dowels aligned, tape them together using a piece of masking tape. You will see that the marks are not all level, you need to work to the highest mark. This ensures that the tier will sit level and not wonky. Remark all the dowels to the same level.
4 Un-tape the dowels. Take a sharp knife and score on the marked position.
5 Holding each dowel in turn firmly between your two hands, âsnap' the dowels to the correct length. The snapping method is preferable to using a hacksaw or pair of snips as it creates a clean, level break in the dowel.
6 Re-insert each of the snapped dowels into the cake.
7 Spread a little royal icing or buttercream in the centre of the cake between the dowels.
8 The next tier must be mounted onto a cake card or board and be ready covered. Place the next tier on top of the first. You can repeat this method to create three, four or even five tiered cakes (though as we're busy girls, two tiers will suffice!).
If there is a slight gap between the two tiers, this can easily be covered by clever positioning of a ribbon or by adding decorations.
To create the wired fountains that adorn many beautiful cakes you will need a posy pick. These are pointed plastic holders that come in a variety of sizes and are safe to use with cakes. Never push wires directly into cake, as they will corrode and contaminate the cake.
1 Take lengths of florists' wire and create the fountain you require. Secure the wires at their base using a further piece of wire wound around them.
2 Insert the wires into the posy pick. If they don't sit in there securely, take a small ball of sugarpaste (rolled fondant) and insert into the posy pick followed by the wires. This should hold it steady.
3 Constructing the fountain can be tricky â to hold it still, try inserting it into an apple or potato with the base cut level so that it sits steadily on your work surface.
4 When it's ready to be put into the cake, push the posy pick down vertically into the centre of your cake.