For beginner cake decorators, one of the hardest things to overcome is uneven icing. It takes some practice to attain a nice smooth finish to the buttercream on the cake.

Working with a chilled cake makes things much easier. I chill the cake after it’s baked and again after it’s filled. This gives the filling time it need to settle, so if filling is going to come out of the sides, it’s better to let it do that before you ice the cake. Then you can remove the excess instead of having to deal with bulging cake sides.

A lazy susan is a very useful tool to have, allowing you to turn the cake while icing it. This makes the job of frosting the cake faster and you’ll be able to smooth the sides with less effort. Before you get started icing, you may want to cover your cake with a crumb coat. It can either be a thin layer of buttercream or apricot jam. Using buttercream, you’ll want to make it very thin so it spreads easily. For apricot jam, thin it with hot water and strain it before using it. The jam is applied with a pastry brush. After either method, chill the cake for at least an hour before frosting it.

A quick way to get the icing on the cake is to use a large cake decorating tip to pipe it all over the cake before spreading it. The #789 Wilton cake decorating tip works great for this. It’s such a big tip that you’ll need to devote a cake decorating bag to it because the hole is much too big to hold a coupler. Once you cut the hole, just drop the tip right into the bag. If you’re not using this tip then carefully place the icing on the side of the cake and push from the middle of the icing outward. You don’t want to drag the spatula across the cake. That pulls crumbs into the icing and can tear the cake. Medium consistency buttercream works best. If it’s too thin, it will slide off the cake. Too thick and it will tear the cake and be very difficult to spread.

Using the #789 tip, pipe a line around the base of the cake, holding the tip so the flat side is facing outwards. Continue piping all around the cake coming up the sides and a little bit past the top of the cake. This icing rim at the top of the cake will make it easier to create a nice crisp edge to the cake. Use either a bowl scraper, a spackle knife or a long metal spatula to smooth the sides of the cake. Hold it vertically and at a 45 degree angle against the cake. Smooth the icing as you turn the lazy suzan. Scrape any excess icing off the spatula and repeat until the icing is evenly spread.

Now pipe icing on the top of the cake. With your spatula, pull the icing from the edge towards the middle of the cake, scraping off the excess icing as you go. Once you’ve done this to the entire top of the cake, hold the spatula flat against the cake and pull it straight across from one end to the other. If icing sticks out off of the edges, carefully scrape it away with the spatula.

The next step is best suited for crusting buttercream, which means the buttercream becomes firm upon standing. After frosting the cake, allow the buttercream to set until it doesn’t come off the cake when you touch it. Using either a Viva paper towel, wax paper, or parchment paper, you will smooth out any remaining flaws in the icing. Lay the paper towel along the side of the cake and go back and forth over it with the spatula to smooth the frosting. Move the paper towel over to the next spot and repeat. Do this over the entire cake. Wax paper and parchment paper and not as flexible as the paper towel, but do work if you can’t get Viva. Viva is the only paper towel that doesn’t have a pattern, so don’t use any old paper towel to do this.

Theresa Happe is a baker, cake decorator and co-creator of CakesWeBake.com, a social network for cake decorating where you will find thousands of cake ideas , cake photos, cake decorating videos, a live chat and forum.

Tags : Baking, cake decorating, frosting, icing
Categories : Baking