I am new to cake decorating and have become inspired from some of the pictures. I tried my first cake this weekend and have a couple of questions. First off, I had a really hard time icing my cake. I am practicing to make individual square presents for christmas. I started with 9" circle cakes and cut out smaller square. when I started to ice the cakes the icing wouldn't really stick and my cake started to fall apart. I'm sure I did something wrong but I'm not exactly sure what. If anyone could help I would be greatful.
Maybe try chilling your cakes a bit in the fridge before you begin icing. You have to make sure that your cake has completely cooled or it will be extremely diffucult to work with. Hope this helps!
Make sure you cake has completely cooled before icing. Crumb coat, then ice.
If your cake was sticky, then it may have been undercooked.
It might help to use pound cake. Also, carving cakes when they're frozen helps reduce the amount of crumbs and it will keep them from falling apart.
To frost them, you might try using the icer tip or cover them in MMF.
Dale what exactly is crumb coat?
I am not Dale, but I can answer that.
Crumb coating is applying a thin coat of buttercream or icing of choice in order to "seal" the crumbs and keeping them from siticking to the final coat on your cake.
Let the thin coat of icing dry up and then apply a second coat.
You should have a flawless, cake crumb free iced cake!
I really recommend using square pans. Whenever you cut into a cake, you lose a lot of the stability of the cake and it tends to fall apart, plus you get so many more crumbs.
Hope that helps!
Also, make sure your icing is not thick consistency. That was the biggest mistake I made when I first started out. It'll peel back from the cake as you are trying to spread it.
yep! I agree, for all those new to the art of sugar crafting, if you're going to cut up a cake before frosting it, you'll have much better luck if you use a dense cake (fruit cake, pound cake, madeira cake, etc.) these are the least crumb-less when you sculpt them. Again, yes, a completely cooled cake and even cold works well to limit crumbling. If you use a too thick icing you will inevitably push too hard on the cake and therefore you will crumble the corners and edges; so make sure your frosting is very smooth, fluffy, and easy to spread (and not too thick - too thin isn't good either!). A crumb coat is a must. I have had the best luck with spackling spatulas (Like 8" wide!) for getting a smooth, even final layer of frosting on my cakes. I have big hands but an ailing grip so for applying the frosting to ice a cake this works well for me. Also, I agree, if you're cutting cubes out of a cake, then you should start with a square or rectangle shaped cake, this way some of the sides of your cubes are already there for you and you have less shaping to do.
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