Icing Cakes Cake Decorating and Baking Tutorial

Paul takes us through each step in great detail covering cutting, ganaching and creating sharp edges with sugarpaste. A must watch for any new cake designer.

Paul is adding dark chocolate ganache to this cake but of course for children especially you may want to use milk chocolate ganache. If you are unfamiliar with ganache then click here for an indepth tutorial on using ganache. You will need a large palette knife to apply the ganache to the side of the cake and don’t hold back. Put plenty on and once you covered the whole side of the cake get a metal cake scraper, wet it and then place against the cake card and apply equal pressure as you scrape around the cake. Remember and create a nice tall lip at the top as this will help you in the next section. To test whether it is equal all the way round just place the scraper against the card and see if you can see any uneven gaps between the cake and the scraper.

You will now see why you needed that lip at the top of the cake. This helps you create a nice sharp edge at the top of the cake. Get a jug of hot water and dip your clean palette knife in it and make sure at least half of it is wet. each time you cut away a section of the lip. You may find it handy to have a turntable for this section to save you having to constantly maneuver around the cake. When using the metal ruler at the top of the cake think of a plane taking off from a runway as you near the edge and slowly bring it up to create a slight ramp.

This is the final stage of ganaching the cake and it is so incredibly satisfying. This will surely convert all buttercream users! Again you will need a jug of hot clean water and an equally clean palette knife. Dip the palette knife in the water and then gently go around smoothing the ganache. Once you have done this get a clean pastry or large soft brush and dip it in the water and go around the cake smoothing it even further.

In this lesson Paul uses 1.5kg of sugarpaste which ends up giving a lot spare but it actually makes the whole process easier as it creates longer and easier to work with pleats as you will soon see. Paul also advises that rolling out the sugarpaste to about 3mm in thickness will be thin enough to create a sharp edge and thick enough to not be damaged too easily. When creating the sharp edge if you are feeling confident and have clean hands you can even use your index fingers to sharpen it even more. Just be careful not to dig into it too much.

In this lesson Paul gives some further advice on stacking the cake showing where to place cake card and dowels to add support to a tall two tiered cake. We hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and stay tuned for some more fantastic tutorials.