The Busy Girls Guide to Cake Decorating (2 page)

My recipes always use large (US extra large) free-range eggs, which are my preferred choice for baking. Always break eggs cleanly into a separate bowl to ensure that no shell gets into the mixture.

This is not only a raising (leavening) agent, but also reacts with the natural acidity in a recipe and intensifies the flavour and darkness of the cocoa.

Try out different types of cocoa until you find a brand you are happy with. Ideally it needs to be a good dark colour and flavoursome, otherwise chocolate cakes are too pale and poor in taste. It doesn't need to be expensive to be of good quality.

Semi-skimmed (-skim) and whole milk is preferable for baking giving a much richer consistency than skimmed (skim) milk.

This is used in combination with milk to replace buttermilk, which can be difficult to source.

Try soaking your fruit in a little alcohol or hot water overnight to plump it up and improve its tenderness before you bake with it. If you have forgotten to do this, or if time is short, add the fruit to a pan with a little hot water and heat gently for ten minutes until the fruit is plump and the water has been absorbed.

This gives fruit cakes a warm, spicy flavour and a truly scrumptious scent.

You will need this to make buttercream and royal icing, and for dusting the work surface to make it non-stick. Sift to remove any lumps before use.

This is the basis for all the cake and cookie designs in this book. It is possible to make your own but it is a complicated process and far too time-consuming for us busy girls! Visit the baking aisle of your local supermarket to pick up ready-made sugarpaste. White is the only colour you'll need, as this can be coloured to any shade you want at home (see
Colouring
).

When baking a large cake to decorate, it is important to prepare your tins (pans). Lining the sides and base of tins prevents the cake from sticking, and good, complete edges are required for the best decorated cake. It also helps the cake to retain moisture.

1 Draw around the base of your tin onto greaseproof (wax) paper.

2 Cut out the circle, just inside the line so that it will sit neatly in the base of the tin.

3 Take a long piece of greaseproof paper, sufficient to sit round the circumference of the tin. It needs to be approximately 5cm (2in) taller than the height of the tin.

4 Fold up 2.5cm (1in) from the base along the length of the paper and unfold.

5 Snip into the marked strip at 2cm (
³
⁄
₄
in) intervals all the way along.

6 Grease the cake tin lightly with a little butter or oil.

7 Fit the long length of lining into the tin around the outside edge. The snipped section should sit flush on the base of the tin.

8 Add the circular piece of greaseproof paper to the base of the tin and fill with the cake mixture.

Before we can decorate we need to bake something delicious! You can use your own recipe or use one of these to get started.

The quantities given in the chart opposite will create a cake approximately 4cm (1
¹
⁄
₂
in) in height once levelled. For a deeper cake than this, bake two (one at a time), level and stack together when filling (see
Levelling and filling a sponge cake
). Baking the cakes separately means that the baking time doesn't turn into hours on end and the crust stays nice and pale. Trust me, piling double mixture into one tin (pan) won't save you time!