Fruits
The most obvious decoration, always pleasing to the eye and seemingly very simple to implement, can be considered fruits and berries. Place a composition of different pieces of fruit on the cake, add berries here and there, and your appetite is guaranteed.
Fruits can be used whole, cut into pieces, frozen, or even made into jam.
But it won’t do without a nuance:
- To prevent the fruit from slipping, they need to be fixed.
- Glaze is perfect as a basis for fruit fantasy.
It is not too difficult to prepare, it is prepared from simple ingredients:
- Milk,
- Powdered sugar and butter.
Adding cocoa will result in a chocolate glaze.
Flexible lace at home: recipe with gelatin
The recipe for lace icing at home is not at all complicated. Flexible lace can be made from various ingredients: fructose, pectin, molasses, tylose, glycerin... We offer a very simple recipe for flexible lace from available products - flexible gelatin icing.
Ingredients for Flexible Lace
To prepare lace for the cake , you will need:
- water – 2 tbsp. l;
- gelatin – 5 g;
- powdered sugar – ½ tsp;
- invert syrup – 1 tsp;
- food coloring.
Tip: instead of invert syrup, you can use glucose in the same dosage - 1 tsp.
How to make flexible gelatin icing: step-by-step recipe
1. Mix all dry ingredients (including dye if it is dry), add water. If the dye is liquid or gel, it is better to add it after water, thoroughly mixing with the other ingredients.
2. Place the container on the fire, but do not bring to a boil - just let the mixture heat up.
3. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
4. Remove from heat and strain.
Tip: since gelatin gives a yellowish tint, you must add a dye - either colored or white, if you want to get snow-white lace on the cake.
Mastic and marzipan
Mastic is a plastic mass based on marshmallow or “condensed milk” that can be used to cover the entire cake. From it, like from plasticine, you can make various decorations. Such cakes turn out very bright, toy-like.
Photos of mastic cake decor are easy to spot in children's holiday photo galleries. Marzipan is considered a similar material. This nut mass has a delicate taste and is very elastic, which allows you to create any miniature figures from it.
Cream and whipped cream
A widely known method for decorating cakes is buttercream.
- Having painted it with food dyes in different colors, lush flowers, borders, and inscriptions are made using a pastry syringe.
- After the process is completed, the cake should be refrigerated so that the cream hardens a little and holds the desired shape of the decorations.
- You can decorate the cake with whipped cream using the cream technique, also using a pastry syringe.
The difference is that the cream in the decor is lighter, airier and more voluminous.
Icing lace or how to decorate a cake in 15 minutes
Girls, thank you all for your comments, sorry, anyone I didn’t answer - another glitch on the BB?
(there are no comments in the mailbox when I come here(((( Icing lace is one of the spectacular ways to decorate a cake, which many of us have already appreciated. This is a godsend for quick cakes and in situations where “the client is at the doorstep"
Our selection of suitable mixtures for this is limited only to the Sugarveil and Magic Decor brands. there are no fundamental differences between them. Having tried both, I will say that I like working with sugar more, although many consider it capricious. But it did not let me down even in extreme conditions, so I will “sing the praises” of this particular compound, maybe it will become your favorite)))).
Welcome to the cat!
The girls have already tried drying the medzhik in the oven and they liked it, but I honestly didn’t dare for a long time. But as they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped - the client calls when he picks up the cake, and I only have lace in the form of a bag of powder and a blender)))) Medzhik was not at home (I don’t really like him, I don’t feel that Lee) so old Sugarvale took the brunt of the blow.
Looking ahead, I’ll note that this time the decoration took 40 minutes - but now I’m familiar with temperature and time conditions)))). In general, decoration takes no more than 15 minutes.
So, we kneaded it in the proportions indicated on the pack (I take half a whole lot - 71g + 60g boiling water. Mix at maximum speed of the blender for 4 minutes.
materials and equipment
silicone mat, gloves, sponge, olive oil, prepared icing mixture, trapezoidal spatula (scraper) - the one we use to smooth the sides of the cake works perfectly, you can save money on the “original” one, as well as on scissors, ordinary manicure scissors will work too))))
preparation of the working surface
In the absence of a special spray, I very well use olive oil (this is the only food oil that does not polymerize, which means your rug will not become covered with a terrible sticky film over time)
It shouldn't shine like that - too much oil
a properly prepared mat has a normal matte surface texture
Preparation
distribute the mixture evenly over the surface, removing excess
place in a preheated oven
for covection ovens - 3 minutes at 80 degrees (at 100 the finished product becomes brittle after cooling)
in top-bottom mode - 5 minutes at 100 degrees
Regarding gas stoves and where the degrees are set approximately (for example, the temperature scale starts at one hundred and 150 degrees), I would still recommend drying in room conditions. Since high humidity increases drying time, do not dry them in the bathroom or kitchen while cooking dinner))))
According to information from a reliable source, it also dries well in a gas oven)))) I quote:
Marylin62
Thank you from me too!!!
In turn, I’ll tell you about the gas oven, I dry Sugar there perfectly in about 10 minutes and the temperature starts at 130 degrees (I have Indesit), and that’s how I dry it))
end of work
carefully remove the lace and decorate to your liking
Something like that)
I will be glad if my experience is useful to you
Jelly
Jelly filling will help make the cake more beautiful. It will give your baked goods an unusual appearance. You can pour jelly on top of chopped berries or fruits, keeping them fresh and appetizing.
Multi-layered multi-colored jelly looks very impressive when cutting the cake.
To create this effect, jelly is poured on top of the cake one by one. Each layer needs to be cooled.
Chocolate in cake decorating
Chocolate, being the delight of those with a sweet tooth, cannot stay away from participating in the decoration of a birthday cake.
- The easiest way to make a cake with chocolate decoration is to sprinkle it with grated or finely chopped chocolate chips.
- Openwork patterns will turn out excellent from melted chocolate if you first apply them to parchment paper with a pastry syringe and then transfer them to the cake.
You can use any chocolate:
- Lactic,
- White,
- Black,
- Porous.
Tips and Tricks:
To really make the lace pop, use glitter pearl dust to highlight the details of the pattern.
Very beautiful lace is obtained if you use red or black mastic on a white background.
Before cutting parts, make sure that the knife blade is sharp enough, otherwise you may ruin the whole job.
If you need a lot of small lace details, first make a template and cut the mastic into the appropriate parts.
Waffle decoration
Cakes decorated with waffle pictures look very original. Such pictures based on wafer cakes of various themes are sold in all pastry shops.
To make waffles with an image at home, you need to purchase a special printer and edible ink of different colors.
How to make a decor for a cake with waffle crust:
- Smooth out the surface of the cake well.
- The basis for the waffle cake should be mastic, glaze or cream.
- Grease the back side of the picture with honey and sugar syrup using a silicone brush.
- Place on the surface of the cake and press down.
- Cover the edge of the waffle with a border of whipped cream.
Is the icing for cookies the same as for cake lace?
Traditional icing, which is made from egg whites and powdered sugar, takes a long time to dry and is not flexible. In order to prepare durable and flexible lace for the cake, a slightly different recipe is used.
The easiest way is to purchase a ready-made mixture of Merletti or SugarVeil. But their price is significant, and training on such raw materials is a sure way to discourage a novice master. However, experienced home confectioners who know how to read the ingredients on the label and in the certificate were able to create their own recipe and told how to make lace on a cake at home. And even if the names of the ingredients don’t mean anything to you, you can buy them, mix them, and get great results!
Ready-made mixtures are the simplest option for making lace on a cake. Unlike classic icing, cake lace has plasticity - it can be bent and draped.
Lace on a cake can turn into three-dimensional shapes.
Icing technique
Icing is an ice pattern, a delicate and filigree confectionery technique for creating jewelry. More often, icing is used to decorate a wedding cake. Decorations in this style do not spread, adhere perfectly to the surface and look like an icy pattern on glass.
They are performed with a special pastry syringe with a narrow nozzle. Elegant lace, openwork patterns, painted edges, and various inscriptions can be created using the icing technique.
Quick lace for cake
Quick lace for cake - extremely beautiful, elegant, elastic, completely edible and even very tasty! - that's what we'll do today in our pastry lesson!
This is a really quick option for making lace, incredibly convenient, with a guaranteed result. We will make it from a ready-made mixture called Frivolite. This is a Russian-made product with a transparent and absolutely safe composition. Economical and not too expensive.
Important! Here I tell you in detail and show you how to make lace for a cake, or rather, a mixture for it, BY YOURSELF. This is, in general, not difficult, but you need to buy several different components.
However, if you are new to working with confectionery lace, which is otherwise, by the way, called flexible icing (or if you are, in principle, new to the confectionery business) and are worried that something will go wrong, and also if there are problems with it, to buy individual components for making homemade lace, a ready-made high-quality mixture will come to your aid.
However, from this lesson you will learn the basic principles of working with any mixture for lace, the rules of working with rugs (which one is better to choose) and with ready-made lace (how to handle it, how to store it, what to glue it to, etc.).
As I already said, we will use a ready-made mixture for flexible icing - Frivolite. Everything is very simple with her, really.
Take our dry powder. Not much. I’ll try to orient you: for 4 strips of lace about 35 cm long and about 6 cm high, I needed about 30 g of dry mixture.
Pour our powder into a small bowl.
Add hot water (boiled!) - exactly as much as the powder, by weight. That is, 30 g of dry mixture for flexible icing requires 30 g of hot water. This can be varied, by the way: you need thicker lace - add less water, thinner - more. However, I was quite happy with the 1:1 option.
Mix well and let stand for 15-20 minutes.
The mixture will thicken and you are ready to work!
Now we need to apply it to a special icing mat. There are now a lot of different rugs on sale, for every taste, color and budget, for different purposes. However, I came to the conclusion that not all mats are equally good and easy to use. There are rugs that are downright bad. They can be soft, but they are too thick, with very deep slits, and it is more difficult to remove the lace from them. Please note that I am not saying that it is completely impossible! You can, of course, but you need to be especially careful.
There are also rugs with an insufficiently thought-out design: when parts of the ornament simply do not connect in some places! When you remove the lace from such a rug, the ornament will crumble before your eyes, because the details of the pattern “do not stick” to each other, and the problem here is not in your hands, the mixture or the oven, but precisely in the quality of the rug. Pay attention to this when choosing an icing mat.
I have one such not very successful rug. Deep slits, small details - this is nothing, after getting used to it, the third time I managed to get the lace out of it, but the large parts are simply not fastened to each other, this is not provided for by the design and this, I must admit, is very inconvenient. Although the drawing itself is beautiful!
Personally, I concluded that thin flexible mats are ideal for working with edible lace. The pattern may also be small, but if the slots are shallow, the lace will come out without problems. Checked!
We will take such a rug.
We apply our ready-made mixture to it, trying to fill all the recesses.
I first did it with a silicone spatula. And later I tried to immediately apply and distribute using a pastry spatula, and it was much more convenient!
Now an extremely important moment! You want the flexible icing mixture to fill ONLY the cells that form the pattern! There should be no mixture remaining on the remaining parts of the mat! To do this, use a spatula for leveling cakes to move it across the mat with some force, as if removing all the residue.
If you do not give this process due importance, when it dries, your lace will not be lace enough, so to speak, and generally sloppy.
Something like this.
So, here we are, applying the mixture to the entire mat.
Now we put it in an oven preheated to 90 degrees for about a few minutes. Attention! You will have to figure out the exact time yourself, it all depends on the oven. This may take 5 or 10 minutes.
The main thing is that the lace should dry and easily separate from the rug. You will understand this. If you try to grab the tip and feel that it is still a little runny, it means it’s not ready yet. The lace should be dry)
Immediately after we remove the baking sheet with the mat from the oven, there is no need to separate the lace: let the silicone cool.
Using other sweet products for decoration
You can quickly, but at the same time creatively, decorate a cake with ready-made confectionery products.
All types of sweets are perfect:
- In addition to candy
- Taffy,
- Wafer rolls,
- Marmalade,
- Bizet.
A very simple way to decorate a cake is to use sprinkles.
There is a huge selection of sprinkles on sale:
- Flowers,
- stars,
- Balloons,
- Sticks,
- Butterflies.
It can be multi-colored, gold, silver, mother-of-pearl. The topping made from coconut flakes, nuts, and cookie crumbs looks appetizing.
Application of decor gel
Decor gel is a real godsend for the confectioner. It is similar in structure to jelly, but cake gel decor is denser and resistant to external influences. Using the gel, you can stick the wafer sheet on, and also protect it from cracking and drying out on top.
A cake covered with a gel base will be shiny, with an original, smooth surface.
Any figures or jewelry elements can be secured with it like glue. When cooling the cake, the decor gel will protect it from condensation and getting wet. To prevent the berries on the finished product from being damaged during storage, they are dipped in a gel, which gives them a luxurious presentation.
The decorative gel is applied to the surface of the cake with a wide brush made of artificial bristles, moving it strictly in one direction. Then allow the coating to dry.
There are many decorative elements available for decorating cakes in confectionery departments:
- Chocolate and marmalade figures;
- Mastic figures;
- Beads;
- Edible flowers;
- Decorative fruits;
- Curb tapes;
- Glitter.
You can choose any of the suggested decoration techniques or come up with your own. A creative approach and a good mood will help make the celebration and the festive dessert unforgettable.
Master class on making a cake with lace
Cooks make lace on a cake using icing. Learn how to prepare it so that you can decorate your wedding cake with lace yourself if you wish. Icing is a plastic white sugar-protein mass, which is obtained by grinding sifted powdered sugar with egg white and adding lemon juice or another acidifier. For greater plasticity, sometimes a little glycerin or glucose syrup is added to the mass, which greatly facilitates the work.
Procedure for working with icing:
- Place a stencil from a children's coloring book under plastic wrap greased with olive oil and apply icing using a piping bag.
- After the cream hardens, carefully remove the film and dry the snowflakes at room temperature for 2 days.
- The finished snowflake becomes solid.
- After hardening, icing of different colors is applied along the contour of the stencil.
How to make lace from fondant or chocolate?
Often, confectioners make chocolate or mastic lace for cakes using special molds. To use mastic for decoration, you need to roll it out with a rolling pin to the thickness of pasta. Then cut out several pieces corresponding to the size of the workpieces and powder them with corn starch. The starched side of the mastic should be placed on the mold and rolled several times with a rolling pin so that the blade on the mold cuts off the excess.
Pressing the mastic into the center with your fingers, remove its fragments and press the surface firmly against the template so that the print is clear. Removing the finished lace is simple: turn the mold over onto a clean table surface and carefully lift one edge, carefully releasing the mastic lace. If the fragment is a little too big, trim it, and if it’s too small, stretch it.
Watch the video how professionals make Merletti lace. This ready-made dry mix allows housewives to quickly prepare fantastic cake decorations at home.
There are special ready-made pastes on sale that can be used to make a magnificent covering (of different colors) for a wedding cake. Watch the video below for the process of preparing this decoration.
Photo of beautiful cake decor
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