Hi guys. I am brand new to cake central and to cake decorating. In fact, tonight I am starting the first cake that will actually be decorated "outside" of the pan. (hanging my head in shame)

Anyway, I bought some wilton cake boards to use to plate my cake and I don't know what to use to cover them. The wrap says to cover with foil but aluminum foil will be too shiny I think. Do I use gift wrap? parchment paper?

Also, do I cover the board and then put strips of wax paper around where the cake will sit? Then I can pull the wax paper off after I ice the bottom? Or should I ice the bottom and then place it on the board.

Thanks for any advice.

Lacey

Hi
Wilton has foil to cover to cake boards they come in silver and gold. Michael's has them or any cake decorating store and you can get them in other colors. I've even used the one's in the floral section also. I hope that would help.

Oh far as icing you can do it two ways. You can ice the cake first and put the cake on the board or you can ice the cake right on the foil board with a cardboard round underneath. But me personally like to ice first and put tape or buttercream on foil and then put my cake on top.

Thank you sugarcheryl!

I use the Wilton Foil, but for alot of my sheet cakes I have wrapped my boards with freezer paper. IT works great! Shiny side up. Its plain white but works like a charm. For alot of my round cakes- on a round board I use the silver/gold wrap. But the freezer paper is alot cheaper and you can cover alot of boards with the large roll and I believe its under $5. The Wilton wrap the last time I bought it was $7.99 a roll and I can't cover too many large boards with one roll.

One of my favorite things to do is to cover with wrapping paper to match the cake and then cover with clear contact paper. Walmart has I think for 2 bucks a roll or even less these really bright colors, so I bought a roll of each color and keep them in my cake pantry. I also like using the freezer paper when I just need white.

Okay Wilton foil has been covered as has aluminum foil. I have also use decorative paper (scrapbooking or gift wrap) then covered with parchment paper, so you see a light design or color through the paper.

Maybe a little advanced (but never too early to try) is covering your boards with fondant, and you can imprint designs on it or make it whatever color you want.

Really anything that is food safe.

I use contact paper a lot of times as well as the Wilton foil. You can buy contact paper for about $2 a roll and it comes in some cute designs also you can put the clear over wrapping paper or stickers to match the theme of your cake.

Don't hang your head in shame about the cakes decorated in the pan...if you did a poll, I am SURE at least half of the people on here started that way. There was a thread once about worst cakes and one person posted about how she would being her sprinkle laden cake in the pan into all her family parties and would almost trip over herself whenever she heard anyone ask who made the cake so she could be there to say I DID I DID. I think about 5 or 10 people posted after her that they were the same...and I KNOW I was too. LOL. Welcom and GL tonight.

Before I accumulated many different colored rolls of fancy foil, I used regular ol' contact paper. Its alredy sticky and they come in many designs and patterns.

You can also use plastic tablecloth to cover your board. I got a really cute baby shower one at wal-mart. I also like to cover mine with scrapbook paper and then cover that with contact paper. Some say that contact paper isnt food safe, but I use it anyway.
HTH!