Recipe: The Easy Way to Begin Decorating Cakes and Buttercream Icing

THE EASY WAY TO BEGIN DECORATING CAKES
Source: Workbasket; October, 1974

Even those who feel perfectly at home on the range, who can turn out gourmet meals and delicious baked treats, sometimes hesitate to try cake decorating.

For some reason, picking up a pastry bag and pressing out flowers and frills with it, seems to belong to the realm of a professional. This is certainly not so. With a few simple tools and patience to practice, almost anyone can turn out an attractive decorated cake.

Tier cakes are actually miniatures - made with specially-sized pillars, cake plates and cake pans that take just one cake mix (for all three)! They add a very festive touch to small parties, yielding 12 servings. The decorations that trim them are among the first that new decorators learn.

To get started, you need a decorating or pastry bag, a few decorating tubes and a batch of buttercream icing. To practice designs that trim cakes, you will not even need a cake. Just pipe your trial designs on back of a cake pan. Then scrape icing off and use it again and again until you feel you are gaining control and producing neat trims.

You need a 12-inch size decorating bag of washable plastic and the following decorating tubes - a number 3 writing tube, a number 104 petal or ribbon tube, a number 16 star tube for borders and drop flowers. And for leaves on one tier cake, you will need a leaf tube number 67. At least three basic food colors - red, yellow, blue - will be needed to tint icings, a short and a long spatula for icing cakes and filling decorating bags. Later on, as you grow in skill, you need more, but at its most complex, cake decorating takes less investment than almost any other craft or hobby. All the things named above can be found in inexpensive cake decorating kits (click here), assembled for beginners.

With tools at hand, all that remains is to make a batch of icing. This recipe will yield two cups and can be doubled or tripled, or course, as needed.

BUTTERCREAM ICING

This is a delicious icing, sweet and rich with a very creamy texture. It easy to manage with a medium consistency that pipes out into firm flowers and borders. For writing messages, piping icing strings or spreading on cakes, it can be thinned with a few drops of water.

2/3 cup butter or margarine, cold and firm
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 or 4 tbsp milk or cream

Place butter in a small bowl and, using an electric mixer, beat several minutes until creamy. Add sugar, about 1/2 cup at a time and beat well after each addition. Add vanilla, then milk or cream, a little at a time and beat well. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator and whip up before using again. For snow-white icing, use white vegetable shortening and butter flavoring.

You can also make an acceptable decorating icing from a regular icing mix. Just use about 1/3 less liquid than specified on package directions. To get good decorating results, icing must be right consistency. A good rule of thumb for medium icing that pipes out into sharply detailed flowers and borders is to be sure it peaks at least 3/4 inches high on spatula.

TO BEGIN PIPING - Now drop a number 3 writing tube into a decorating bag so it protrudes from tip (you may have to cut tip slightly so tube fits). Then turn back top of bag into a deep cuff, holding it with fingers tucked under cuff. Take up some icing on spatula and fill bag 3/4 full. No more, or icing might ooze out top when you squeeze bag. Then unfold cuff, twist it tightly until bag is firm and full. Grasp twisted top with thumb of right hand, press out icing with four fingers of same hand. Use left hand to guide bag only.

FIRST PIPE A DOT - Hold decorating bag straight up with tube resting lightly on surface. Begin to press out icing, raising hand slightly as icing mounds. When dot is formed, stop pressing and move hand away to right. If done correctly, dot will be nicely rounded, not pointed. Practice until you achieve this look.

TRY ICING STRING - Squeeze out remaining icing in bag and refill bag with icing that has been softened with a few drops of water. This icing should be soft enough to flow quickly out of bag but firm enough not to break off. To test it, lift bag up as you press and let icing "drop". If it forms a long string that does not break, it is probably correct for stringwork.

Now drape string. Prop pan at a slant against wall, or use a slanted board. Hold tube straight out, pointed directly at surface. Touch surface and press to attach icing, then pull tube straight back, still pressing and let icing drop in long strand out of tube. As it drops, move hand directly to the right. Do not move it down with icing. Touch surface to attach icing about two inches further on and you will have a curved drape of icing string. Practice until you gain control.

TRY A SHELL - Fit decorating bag with tube 16, fill with icing and hold at a 45 degree angle, slanted toward surface of pan. Press out a wide base, holding bag still while icing fans out. Then lift bag slightly and come straight down, gradually decreasing pressure as you move hand away to draw icing to a point. Practice until it looks like shell pattern.

TRY A GARLAND - With same bag and tube, practice curving a garland. Press out icing evenly as you move tube in a curve, down, then up, across pan. As you go, move hand up and down slightly to produce a zigzag effect. Do this until you can make a row of neat, evenly spaced garlands across pan.

TO MAKE A DROP FLOWER -Use same bag and tube again, hold bag straight up as you did for dot. Press heavily, stop pressing, lift hand and move away. Result will be a perfectly formed "flower". For swirled petal effect, turn hand all the way left first, then as you press, turn it all the way right.

COLORING HINTS -
To tint icings, mix color into a small portion of icing first. Try for a slightly darker shade than desired, then blend with rest. Begin with just a dot of color on a toothpick, more can always be added. Remember, pastels are the most appetizing; deep colors are best for accents.

A neat, easy way to tint coconut. Place coconut in a plastic bag and add a few drops of food coloring. Twist bag tightly closed and knead for a few moments until coconut is evenly tinted.