Blue Moon Bakery in Cary, Sweet Memories Bakery in Apex and Miel Bon Bon in Carrboro whip up delicious cakes. These decadent treats are excellent for the discerning and sophisticated palate. Kids will enjoy such goodies too, but if you are in a time or money crunch, here are some tips to make your own cake.
In case you need to decorate a quick cake on the fly, here is a never-been-used-before technique by this examiner. Having decorated cakes since her college years, you will find this tip invaluable.
Cake decorating is time consuming and can be quite messy when you have to fill a cake decorating or piping bag, especially when your cake calls for many different colors.
Here is the best thing you can do to make cake decorating and filling a piping bag a breeze. You can use frosting, stiff ganache, firm mouse or even pate choux. Pate choux dough is the dough used to make cream puff shells.
Step 1
Whip up your frosting for piped decorations then divide the batch into bowls according to the number of colors you will need. Leave the white frosting that you need for piping decorations in the mixing bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly over the other bowls of frosting to prevent it from drying until you are ready to color them.
Step 2
Start with the white frosting first. Unravel a sheet of plastic wrap measuring about 18 to 24 inches. Spoon the white frosting into the center of the plastic wrap in a diagonal direction from the upper left corner to the lower right corner; the frosting should be a mounded, oval shape. Use no more than 1 ½ cups of frosting.
Step 3
Grab the lower left half of the plastic and fold it over the mound of icing. Press the top layer of plastic gently around the mound of frosting.
Step 4
Roll the wrapped mound over the rest of the plastic, somewhat like a hard-sugar candy is rolled.
Step 5
Twist each end of the plastic starting at the side of the mound, working your way out. Tuck each end under the mound and set aside.
Step 6
Uncover one bowl of frosting and color it. Wrap the mound of frosting as described above. Continue this process until you have colored and wrapped all of your frosting.
Step 7
Fill the cake decorating bag one bag at a time. Untuck one end of your wrapped frosting. Cut that end as close to the mound of frosting as you can without actually cutting into the mound. Hold the mound in both hands and squeeze it just until you see a bit of frosting coming through. Open your decorating bag then slide the frosting, cut-end first into the bag.
Step 8
Give the bag a shake so the mound of frosting slides down. Twist and hold your decorating bag as you normally would, then pipe your decorations.
Step 9
Pull out the plastic wrap once you finish with the first mound. Slip another mound of the same color into the bag as described above.
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