Day 4: Icing

Saturday May 7, 2011

Saturday was one of the most exciting days for me. Because Create A Cake is open on Saturdays from 10:00 to 2:00, we decided to make Saturday our learning day. Thus, Eileen and I got to ice our first cake!
The thing about icing for the first time is that when you watch a pro ice a cake. It looks so easy. The icing, however, is quite temperamental. The process of icing a cake starts with the first and possibly the most important rule; Don't Ever Leave a Cake un-iced until it is completely done. That means that if there is a phone call, you leave it. Your main focus is to ice the cake until it is done. We started with a 10" round cake because it is much easier to ice the cake.
The first step is to get an icing bag and put in an icing tip into the bag and then put in icing. This bag is one of three key tools to icing a cake. After you put a twist tie on the end of the bag so that none of the icing comes out, it is time to start icing the cake. The next step is to squirt icing along all the sides of the cake, and then squirt icing along the top of the cake. This allows for the initial cover of the cake. The object of icing a cake is to ice it as fast and as thoroughly as possible so that the icing doesn't develop bubbles on the surface of the cake. Once the icing is initially placed on the cake, then it is time to use the large icing palette knife in order to adhere the icing onto the cake and to smooth out the cake. Since the cake is on a turn table, it helps to make the icing smooth and much easier to get rid of rough spots and angles. After the icing has adhered to the cake and is relatively smooth on the top and bottom, it is time to use the last tool. It is called an icing plate and it simple smooths the edges of the cake. Eileen and I iced our cake three times. It turns out that the third time was the charm and we were able start practicing doing borders.

Creating a border along a cake involves using a different tip and learning the art and rhythm of forming the curling wave. Eileen and I practiced creating the curling wave formation for almost and hour. We had some success, but we definitely were starting to realize that creating a cake for our presentation was going to be an extremely difficult task.