What is the most interesting thing while making a holiday cake? Of course, decoration. Decorating a cake with your own hands at home is a very interesting and exciting activity. However, it must be said that in addition to the original or complex design, a sweet dessert should also be tasty. Decorating a cake with your own hands at home is not at all as frivolous as some beginners might think.
Basic rules for registration
If you are skilled at baking air biscuits, sand or puff cakes and you like this thing, then sooner or later you will definitely want to not just sprinkle the sides and top with crumbs from the cakes, although it looks very cute and homely, but also tinkering voluminous compositions from mastic, draw patterns and display inscriptions.
Do-it-yourself cake decorating at home can be done using fresh or canned fruits, jellies, various creams, mastic, fudge, whipped cream, etc. There are several rules that are very desirable to follow. For example, it is believed that decorating a cake by at least 70% should consist of those products from which the base of the dessert is made. Do-it-yourself cake decorating at home for children should not contain alcoholic components. And if the little hero of the celebration asked for a cake with a decoration in the form of a machine, and you can’t cut it out of biscuit, put it in mastic or draw, then come up with something simpler, but similar subjects.
If the child does not like butter cream, then do not fill the entire perimeter with volumetric roses, although you personally like them and get you especially well.
These rules are rather arbitrary. Obviously, decorating a cake with your own hands at home for a child is always a manifestation of love for his baby, no matter how old he is, as well as a desire to please a dear child with a delicious and intricately decorated delicacy. Therefore, we will not take away your time with detached descriptions of etiquette, but we will tell and show how to make various decorations and mixtures for sculpting them.
Proper decoration of the cake with your own hands at home requires compliance with one prerequisite - the cakes should not be visible. They must be carefully masked with cream or mastic.
Whipped cream
Do-it-yourself decorating a cake with cream at home is the easiest and fastest way to decorate. In addition, whipped cream perfectly combines with all types of dough, impregnation, toppings and creams. Using various nozzles, you can experiment with patterns. If there is no special pastry bag, then you can coat the cake with a thick layer of cream and apply drawings with cutlery, as shown in the photo.
Whipped cream for voluminous jewelry is made from fat cream, at least 33%, and powdered sugar. First, cream is whipped to soft peaks, then powder is gradually introduced and whipped to solid peaks. The finished mixture is transferred to a pastry bag and squeezed out in accordance with the design.
Butter cream
Decorating the cake with your own hands at home with a cream of butter is carried out in the same way as from whipped cream, that is, using the same tools and the same methods. But there are still more cream options. Compared to whipped cream, it is more stable.
To make it, you need very good 100% butter - 522 g, powdered sugar of the finest grinding - 280 g, high-quality condensed milk without vegetable fats and preservatives - 209 g, vanillin powder - 5 g, cognac - 2 g, boiled semolina porridge - 65 g.
Beat softened butter at the smallest speed. Five minutes after the beginning of whipping, pour in a thin stream of powder. Turnovers gradually increase. Put semolina porridge, condensed milk, brandy and vanillin into the cream. Beat at high speed for 10 minutes. This cream when stored in the refrigerator does not deteriorate for three days. It is very good to make flowers out of it, draw directly on the cake, using different nozzles on a pastry bag, write congratulations.
Dry stains, cocoa powder, cuttlefish ink, etc. are used to color the cream.
Melted Chocolate Decoration
On a soft creamy coating, melted chocolate figures look very good. To make them, you need a pastry bag with a small hole, a bar of chocolate and foil. Melt the chocolate in a water bath and pour into a bag. Squeeze a thin stream onto the foil. Drawing on the foil must be applied in advance. These may be structural elements for a house, car, ornate border, intricate curls, flowers, etc. Wait until the chocolate hardens again. Carefully separate hardened figures from the foil and stick into the cream.
Making pastry with sweet mastic
Decorating a cake with your own hands at home with mastic is a very simple matter, much easier than fussing with cream cream. However, the dessert, covered with mastic, gives the impression of the work of a professional pastry chef. There are many ways to make mastic. We will talk about a few. If you are going to decorate the cake with a close-fitting or figures made of mastic, then pay attention to the fact that:
- mastic can be prepared long before baking cakes; it is stored in the refrigerator for several months, provided that it is tightly wrapped in several layers of polyethylene;
- powdered sugar should be finely ground; it must be sieved before work; if during rolling in the mastic there appears a small solid fragment, it will tear the entire mastic web;
- when connecting individual parts, such as flower petals, at the joints, the mastic should be slightly moistened with water;
- the mastic web is applied to the cake, covered with a frozen butter cream, ganache or marzipan; if you put a mastic over a moist biscuit soaked in syrup or sour cream, it will dissolve;
- powdered sugar is the basis of mastic, its quantity in recipes is conditional; much depends on humidity and ambient temperature; the powder is mixed into the mastic until it stops sticking to the hands;
- It is most convenient to roll mastic between two durable plastic bags; some cooks advise doing this on a table sprinkled with powdered sugar or starch.
Milk mastic
It is the cheapest and easiest to manufacture. However, due to the yellowish tint it is not suitable for those cases when you need white or blue color.
To make it, powdered milk, powdered sugar and condensed milk are required. 250 grams of milk powder should be mixed with the same amount of powdered sugar, then pour 250 ml of condensed milk. Stir first in a bowl and then on the table until it stops sticking.
Classic gelatin mastic
10 g of gelatin should be poured with ten tablespoons of hot water and left to swell. After 40 minutes, put gelatin in a water bath and bring to complete dissolution. Cool at room temperature and in a slightly warm solution in small portions lead powdered sugar (about 900 g). This mastic can be painted with all dyes. You need to store it in the refrigerator, tightly wrapping with two layers of cling film. It is suitable for the manufacture of both the thinnest flower petals, and for voluminous figures - houses, people, fruits, etc.
Marshmallow Mastic
Marshmallow mastic is the most popular of all. Probably because it is made easier. You need to take a pack of white marshmallows or other marshmallows like these, put them in a dish suitable for the microwave, add a tablespoon of lemon juice and put in the microwave for 20 seconds. The mixture will become liquid and can be mixed with a suitable food coloring. By mixing powdered sugar, turn the candy mixture into a plastic dough mastic. Then you can roll the mastic into a layer according to the size of the cake and cover it with dessert, or you can mold figures corresponding to the theme of the holiday from it.
Marzipan
Almond flour, 225 grams, must be mixed with 250 grams of icing sugar, a teaspoon of lemon juice and one or two egg whites (see egg size and marzipan consistency). Roll out the finished dough 2-3 mm thick into a layer slightly exceeding the size of the cake. Smear the cake with apricot jam and cover with marzipan. Carefully level and trim the excess. Marzipan coating is a good dissolution protection for mastic and fondant. Figures from the same marzipan are a fun DIY cake decoration at home. Photos illustrating the use of marzipan crafts in the design of children's cakes, clearly demonstrate how such desserts look original.
Ganache
With a very simple composition - dark chocolate and heavy cream in equal amounts, preparing ganache is not fast. Chocolate must be broken into pieces. Boil one third of the cream and pour into chocolate. Stir until smooth and clean for six to eight hours in the refrigerator. After this time, you need to slightly shake the chocolate mixture, whip the remaining cream into a strong foam. Pour the chocolate mixture into small cream in small portions.
Ganache is applied with a brush on the entire surface of the cake. This is the perfect base for mastic. Dark chocolate and sugary-sweet mastic are perfectly combined with each other.
Ganache can be used not only for mastic, but also for glazing fresh fruits, such as strawberries. In this case, powdered sugar should be added to the cream.
Do-it-yourself cake decorating at home with fruit is shown in several photos. Fresh fruits can be dipped in black or white ganache and placed in tiers, alternating with unglazed fruits.