How Do You Practice Your Techniques??
Decorating By PennySue Updated 15 Jul 2006 , 3:53am by nicksmom
I am wondering how you all practice your decorating techniques. I love practicing but don't necessarily want to bake (and be forced to eat 
) so many cakes. Do you use cake dummies? Are they reusable? Any thoughts will really be appreciated.
Thanks!!!
It depends on what you're trying to practice...cornelli lace, writing, and piping you can just do on a plastic board (they used to make disposable cutting boards a couple years ago, and I just use those) and then you can scrape the icing off back into the bowl. I've read on here, that you can cover your dummy cake with saran wrap, and practice icing, and fondant covering, etc. Then with that you can practice borders and side work as well. And after you're done, you just peel everything off and you're good to go again. Hope this helps a little.
What I'd really like to practice is working with fondant. I have an extensive library of books now and I'm dying to try all of the beautiful decorating techniques I see.
Typically I won't eat mine either when I'm working, but I'm off for the summer now. I've sent a few with my DH to his work and they have loved them. You are right, it does make one very popular. I'm not a real cake eater per se, but sometimes I give in.
I am like you when i want to decorate, that is exactly what i want to do, not wait to bake the cake. However I also sometimes want to bake and not decorate... so when this happens, I bake a few cakes and wrap and freeze for later. Seems to work well-most of the time 
there is always exceptions.
Leily
If I'm feeling cheap, I practice border techniques and all that on a plastic cutting board I have...I just keep scraping off the icing and reusing it. Most things I prefer to practice on a real cake because working on cake can be so different than a board or a dummy, especially when you're working with fondant. I thought it was so easy to drape a cake with fondant when I was doing it on styrofoam. The real thing was much different.
I have never eaten a single piece of a cake I've baked, I give my practice cakes away or just toss them.
Something you might want to try that I did for my lamb cake. I was so freaked that I would not do a good job of piping his face and the wool that I actually piped on the pan. You could try this with a round or square pan that you turn upside down. That way you could try swags or string work as well. HTH.
You can practice on a cake board, practice board, wax paper or the bottom of your pan. 
Hey Leily....kind of off the subject, but how much time does a frozen cake need to thaw before you icing it? Great tip by the way. I'm like you...sometimes I want to decorate and sometimes I just want to bake.
Tx,
Becky
I like to try and give it about 8-10 hours (overnight while sleeping, or while i'm at work during the day) However if I forget I just take out when I get home and let it thaw for about an hour or two.
If it is still frozen I Take the back of my flower nail (sharper side) and poke holes all over the cake. I learned this from a decorator I use to work with. In theory (not sure if this is actually why) It gives the cake a place to expand as it thaws. So if you ice it it will expand into the holes you made instead of expanding your buttercream.
So not really sure what the right answer is, but hopefully these tips help you. If you have more questions please let me know.
Leily
Well not that I'm remotely in the same boat as the rest of the posters here who charge (and deserve to lol), as I just play around with baking cakes for the kajillion family members- I can't trust my own judgement on what cake recipes taste fine as my sense of sweetness is totally different than the average joe- and what I think tastes fine (like most muffin/cake recipes I cut sugar in half lets say because I didnt eat any white sugar growing up, so I'm not really 'normal' in that sense lol), have to pass the recipes around to make sure they're edible before making 'the cake' - so I try out new recipes by cutting them in half and making minicupcakes like say a recipe of 12, and that gets me enough feedback to say 'go back to the drawing board' or 'that's a keeper'
My local hobby store has a 50 percent off sale til end of month so i'm going to dig into grocery money tomorrow and splurge and stock up on stuff lots of decorator tips and maybe even practice boards (so I can practice this technique stuff you speak of LOL)
if you do fondant on the dummy i recommend covering them with plastic wrap before you put the fondant on. Those you will be able to take it off even if it is rock hard and practice more. I have a really hard time getting it off of the ones I didn't cover in the plastic first and i usually have to throw those away. Also i use wilton brand for that because it's cheaper than the stuff I use on my real cakes.
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