HI all, I have seen so many beautiful cakes with scrollwork and filigree work on the sides of cakes. How do you all do this so perfectly? Or almost perfectly. I can't pipe a scrollwork to save my life. I have two cake requests with nothing but scrollwork and I was hoping to get some great advice, tips, suggestions ....etc. I have been practicing and it is okay...but when I do it on the actual cake....well that is where I need help.

WHat tips do you use? What consistency of icing? HELP!

Thanks

Another question?

Does anyone know of a good tutorial, or a book on the subject of piping? I would love to buy something or take a class on it.....

While I have never done the scrollwork, my cousin gave me all her cake decorating supplies and she had an old wilton press set that included scrolls. You press in the cake to make the impression and then follow with your icing.

I have the presses too. Haven't tried them to much yet. My Wilton instructor said to use thin const. icing...maybe thin it out with piping gel if you want. Also she reccommended tip #2...really depends on style of pipework I think. HTH!

Yeah, I have those press patterns from Wilton too. They help a little, but not really what I'm looking for. I'm looking more of a filligree scrollwork that is on most wedding cakes. These are done free hand. I would love to take a class on this..........

I just did a wedding cake with scroll work that I designed myself. I drew it out and then used the pin-prick method to transfer it to my buttercream iced cake. I used SugarVeil icing for the piping, but it could have been done with buttercream or royal icing. I don't have the pic in my gallery yet, but it's on my website at www.creativecakesandcookies.org. The white on white cake in the upper right corner of my home page.

I've done scrolls in royal, IMBC, or regular BC with no problem.

You could also try the tilting turntable from Wilton. I have one and only just tried it last weekend for the first time, and I really liked it, but you would want to be careful how you put the cake on it, so it can't slide off, because I've heard people hate that turntable for that reason.

For all the scroll cakes in my pics, I did piped them by sitting in front of the cake, without it tilted. I've always used the Wilton presses to start my scrolls and embellished them from there. I just sit down and pipe with a #2-4 size tip with a steady hand. Oh, and I always use a wrist brace because my hand shakes if I don't. You want to make sure you're not going to fast, or the icing will break, and not too slow or it will look unsteady. It's sort of a "feel" thing.

For any scrolls that I don't use the presses, I just take a tooth pick and lightly trace the imprint of where I want the design to be, then pipe over that as a guide.

Hope that helps.

Hi there!
I have done several wedding cakes with scroll work on them and find that if I use a fairly thin consisitancy buttercream and tip #3, I get the best results. I put my cake on my big turntable and sit in a chair so that the cake is at eye level. I pipe with my right hand and steady my wrist with my left hand. I find that I just "do it" rather than hesitating and this way it's not so shaking looking.

Good luck!
KimAZ