Upside Down Frosting Technique

At first this made NO sense to me until I saw an actual video tutorial by Jessiecakes (check her out if you want to see this in action it’s FABULOSO!). I made my own photo tutorial because I added a step (that made sense to me…maybe not you but, to each his own! .

List of Materials

• Tape
• Wax paper or Baking Paper (I find baking paper works better as if it gets wet it won’t rip)
• Wide Turntable (bought mine form IKEA for $8 bucks)
• Leveler (Can find at any hardware store)
• Bench Scraper ( or something with a long, flat, sharp edge for smoothing icing) Can find at most baking supply section in stores or go to Hobby Lobby or Michaels
• Large or Small Offset Spatula (your preferrence)
• Hot Water (For Spatulas and Bench Scraper)
• Cake boards (the size of your cakes
• Lots of Frosting

Place a small piece of rolled tape under cake board that matches the size of your already crumb coated cake. Place in center of turntable.

Cover that with a piece of Wax or Baking paper (I’m using baking paper in the photo but I used both just to see the difference).

Tape all the edges down so they won’t get in your way as you smooth, turn your table once you put the frosting on. You can actully cut it the size of your turntable if you want.

Put a good amount of frosting on, using your offset spatula smooth the frosting down (as level as you can get it) while using the underside cake board as a guide to how far out it needs to go. This was the extra step I added due to if you have more than one cake to frost, you won’t be able to sit your cake/turntable in the freezer and wait for the frosting to stiffen enough to take the cake off.

At this point take your crumcoated cake from the freezer and with a gloved hand (or not, I just don’t like frosting all over my hands) place that hand on top of your cake and the other under the bottom. Carefully flip your cake over and center it on the frosted board/turntable.

This is where you add a TON of frosting around your cake, fill it in really good (even over fill…your scrap off later).

After that’s done I used the plastic scraper I had (metal would work better I’m sure). I put my scraper in warm water, wiped it dry and with my left hand slowly spinning the turntable while using my right, resting the scraper on my top and bottom boards (or just make sure it’s straight up and resting flat on the icing) only moving the turntable (not your right hand ) and take off the extra icing. I found with the additional step I only a few time had to smooth the paper down under my right hand because it is raise just a tiny bit with that extra board underneath) Hope that made sense .

Once that’s done, slip a knife (or anything long/flat) under the paper and go around the edges to free your paper from the turntable. (cut the paper down around your cake if you want). Then carefully lift up the paper so you can see the board underneath, slip a knife under that board, gently lift it up (helps if the object your using is long), slide the cake off the turntable (leave in the upside down position on the cakeboard) and freeze or refrigerate until icing is stiff enough to flip the cake over. With paper still on, smooth over it with your scraper gently (if needed) and slowly, remove your paper. If too much icing comes off, it’s not ready, put it back in the fridge/freezer for about 25-30 minutes (if you have an hour as Jessie said, that’s even better). You may find bubble holes on top but since your icing is hard just put your spatuala in really hot water, grab a dab of frosting, fill the holes and smooth with the hot spatula (dry the water off prior if you want, I rarely do I just tap off the water and use). For the edges (if the frosting is sticking up or out to far from being upside down) I use my hot spatula, lay it flat on the upper sides, turning my wrist toward the cake, while moving the spatuala up to the top of my cake and gently over the top and smooth out the frosting.