Please post any lessons learned or best cake decorating practices here! If you have any time saving tips, please post. If you have pictures to show step-by-step, post too! For example, on the "How to" forum, someone posted a time saving tip their instructor taught them. It was putting icing in plastic wrap before putting it in the icing bag. Great tip.

This will help all of us cake newbies greatly!

One tip that always saves me time when I have two flavors of frosting on one cake is this......I will make a double batch of buttercream frosting, and then take half of it out to another bowl. Then, I will add my flavoring ingredients for the other flavor, such as cocoa for a chocolate buttercream, or fruit flavors. This saves time on the cleanup AND the time.

Here's a couple I learned in class:
1. When smoothing icing instead of using a spatula I use a paint splatter shield out of the hardware section. It is very inexpensive and covers a larger area than a spatula.

2. When torting cakes, use sheets of plexiglass which can be purchased at Home Depot in various sized cheaply, place between the layers and lift evenly without tearing.

Sumer,

I've never thought about two flavors for one cake. How does that work?

A money saver: A friend of mine told me not to buy the plastic flower formers but to use the cardboard paper towel cores. Cut them in half and you have the flower formers. This friend ran the local cake decorating supply store, so she actually lost a sale by giving me this tip!

Maybe everyone knows this, but I only recently discovered that warming up fondant slightly in the microwave makes it soooo much easier to work with! This also helps when using it in a clay gun.

Also, Hershey's Special Dark cocoa makes chocolate buttercream nice and dark. I mix in 3 or 4 unsweetened squares per batch, but this only makes it light brown, and adding the Special Dark cocoa make it look and taste so rich and chocolatey.

Speaking of chocolatey - adding black color to chocolate icing or fondant makes it so quick and easy to make black buttercream or fondant - and it tastes a hundered thousand times better than all the color you have to add when making black from white. And saves time, of course!

And I can save anyone time and money who's just starting out with fondant - don't bother buying the Wilton fondant. It tastes SOOOO nasty. It might be worth it to buy one box to get the feel of it, but then make your own -MMF is easy and cheap to make. THe Wilton is so gross - I would always have to apologize for the taste. It even smells horrible. There's other brands of fondant that taste much better but they're expensive and hard to find, unless you have a cake decorating store nearby.

Hope some of that will help!

Melissa

I learned so many tips here on CC but one of my favorites has to be using garden shears to cut my dowels. I used to saw and saw with a utility knife, or sometimes just try and chop them with a large butcher knife which most often would cause the dowel to go flying through the air.

Oh, and of course discovering MMF has to be right on up there with my favorites!

And how to make black icing by starting out with chocolate, then adding the black. And also red icing, by starting out with pink, then adding the red!

I could go on and on but this will take up too much room.

Thanks everyone for posting your tips.

This was a great thread!

OMG ... I have learned soooooo many wonderful things here! I'd have to say that off the top of my head, FBCT's are the best thing I've learned here. I have just recently started doing them, and they are AMAZING!!!!!!

My 2 favorite things learned on this site...

1---VIVA papertowel method---It has to be the greatest lesson so far. LOVE IT!!

2---Chocolate transfers---just like FBCT but with chocolate melts....I love doing these, very easy and they look fantastic!!

Cindy

I like to cut candy sticks with a garden shear, I use them for smoke stacks on vehicle cakes and stuff and always had a problem cutting them with a knife.

I love FBCTs, Viva paper towels, and MMF too.

I was just thinking last night we needed a thread like this. I'd have to say Viva for smoothing is awesome, FBCT so much easier than piping gel and using a flower nail as a heating core, no more soggy middles on the big cakes. That's what's been most helpful with cakes. Cookies (I've been studying up on for my first bouquet) Roll your dough between silicone mats, or parchment and they don't get tough and rolled buttercream placed on a warm cookie is instant icing that tastes great. These are the ones that are freshest in my memory I know I've learned so much more....Thanks CC