Cake Decorating With a Silhouette Cameo Cutter

Imagine you were a cake artist who had to create a 5 tier wedding cake with the same design print all around the sides of every tier. The time involved in doing hand painting could be several days and make the cake price prohibitive for the bride. But the bride doesn't have to sacrifice the design of her dreams because she can't afford it. If, instead, the design in printed on edible icing sheets, the bride gets exactly what she wants at a fraction of the cost.

Home Cake Decorating Business Ideas

A home cake decorating business is one of the best ways to earn money. People have lesser expenses if they can stay home to do their work. They can make use of their home as their offices as well and they can include this as part of their tax write off later. There are some great business ideas for people who would like to put up this kind of business and get it rolling. The first one is for them to learn the techniques of cake decorating. They may learn in a formal setting or they may learn it on their own through video tutorials and lessons provided through the internet.

Cake Decorating Tips

Cake decorating may be a fun thing for family members to do. Moms and kids may do this for special occasions to make it more memorable. Though it will take lots of practice and experiences before one could prepare a perfectly decorated cake, nevertheless, it will be one great achievement for those who will be able to hone their skills and creativeness when it comes to cake decorating.

Cake Decorating Expert

For some, cake decorating is a hobby, and for others, it is a career. The amateurs are those who find it fun and gratifying to bake the cakes and then decorate them for their family and friends, saving money by doing it themselves. With expert training along with good decorating tips and ideas, anyone can master this art. With this art form you will be able to stretch your imagination. If you continue building your skills, you will experience the joy of making others happy with your expertise.

Cake Decorating Business Tips

People who would like to have fun while earning can make use of their creativity. They may think of putting up a cake decorating business. However, this may sound an enjoyable way of spending time but this is actually a serious business that needs careful planning and execution. Those who are contemplating on starting this kind of business have to think of important things like standards that they need to meet as well as the requirements of the law that they need to comply with. Individuals can start small especially if they are still trying to get a feel of running or managing this kind of business. They also have to gain experiences by offering their first products to their relatives and friends.

Cake Decorating Central - Making Cake Decorating Fondant

Sooner or later, on your journey to learn cake decorating, you will most likely have to or want to try using a cake decorating fondant coating on one or more of your cakes.

Decorating Cake With Fondant

There are a variety of different cake types. Most of them are occasional such as wedding cakes and birthday cakes. The decoration of cakes is a hobby as well as a money making idea. It needs some artistic skill. It may be called an art which helps you to keep exercising your imagination and improve your natural skills. The process of cake decoration is also called a "sugar art", since it uses only edible decorative elements to make plain cakes visually interesting. The history of baking and decorating cakes in its modern guise can be traced back to the latter part of the twentieth century in United States of America.

The cake you want to decorate should be well baked and cooled one. There are many ways to decorate cakes such as applying gum paste, using piping techniques or using food color.

Gum paste is a stiffening agent that helps for making hand-made edible fruits and flowers to decorate the cake. It is a malleable material. Piping methods needs a hand held pastry bag made from paper cloth or plastic. This is usually triangular shaped and is used to pipe semi-solid food elements by pressing them through a narrow opening end. Pastry bags are used for icing and also for making flower shapes, stars, leaves, etc.

Tinting and frosting are the other ways to decorate cake. Usually frosting starts with white color and different amounts of food coloring is added separately. Another way to make cakes looking prettier is icing. There are different types of icings. But the most common and popular choice is butter-cream icing. It is smooth and creamy. Butter cream is made with sugar butter and other flavorings. Hence it can be easily melt in extreme heat.

Another important method is decorating cake with fondant. Fondant is a thick creamy white sugar mass. It is used to roll and can be draped over a cake. Fondant usually remains soft for a while and hardens over time, but not bone hard and so it is great as a cake covering. Decorating cake with fondant is as easy as playing with clay as a child. We can roll it and cut it to the size we desire. We can print designs on it, can create color effects and form it into any shape. Fondant does not need to be refrigerated but the cakes decorated with fondant can be refrigerated. Any types of cakes such as cup cakes, regular cake and occasional cakes can be decorated with fondant.

Hi, my name is Richard 'Cool Cakes' Wells and I've been working with cakes for a long time. If you would like to read my article on "Fondant - What Is It?", then click here; http://www.coolcakedecorating.com/what-is-fondant/. And for more great articles on the fun hobby of cake decorating, visit my website at http://www.coolcakedecorating.com/. Have a great time!

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Fondant vs Gum Paste

Fondant and gum paste can sometimes be used interchangeably to create some designs, but there are times when one should be used over the other. Fondant, not gum paste, is used to cover cakes. There are a variety of different recipes, but most rolled fondant consists of powdered sugar, unflavored gelatin, water, glycerine, and liquid glucose. Once the cake is covered in fondant, the cake should not be placed in the refrigerator, as it will become sticky.

The fondant will help to keep the cake fresh, but if you fill the cake with a filling that requires refrigeration, fondant is not a suitable way to finish the cake. Fondant looks very pretty and really is versatile, but the taste leaves much to be desired. It is very sweet and chewy. In fact, many people peel the fondant off when eating the cake. Marshmallow fondant has a much better taste. Even though it's made with marshmallows, it tastes more like cotton candy. The chocolate version tastes like tootsie rolls. It's less expensive to make marshmallow fondant at home than to buy pre-made fondant. Both fondant and gum paste can be colored in any shade using paste food colorings. You can use luster dusts to add color to anything you make. There are methods for applying it both wet and dry to achieve different effects.

You can purchase all kinds of cutters and tools that will give you endless creativity. Fondant can be cut with fondant or cookie cutters to create all type of shapes. It can be folded over skewers to create a drape on a cake. It can be colored with food coloring or sprayed with a cake decorating airbrush. It can be pressed into molds to create all kinds of intricate, decorative appliqués for the cake.

Besides covering a cake in fondant, fondant can be used to cover the cake board and make some decorations that don't require too much flexibility, such as bows. Gum paste is softer and more pliable. It is easier to mold into all kinds of shapes. Gum paste is usually used to make figurines, many having tiny little details. While you can try doing this with fondant, it doesn't quite shape as smoothly and it's a bit more difficult to work with. While gum paste is considered edible, it will dry very hard. You can save gum paste figures and flowers as keepsakes and they will last a very long time.

Gum paste is similar in ingredients to fondant but contains gum tagananth, which gives it its characteristic gummy texture. You can make gum paste at home or purchase it in most craft stores. When you make it, you wrap it in plastic wrap and store it in an airtight container. It will last up to two weeks.

When you begin working with either one, you will roll them out on a clean work surface dusted with cornflower. Dust your rolling pin with cornflower as well. Different projects will require different thicknesses. For creating designs to add apply to a fondant finished cake, you can purchase a small rolling pin that comes with rings. The rings help you roll out the gum paste to different thicknesses so you don't have to guess. There are so many fun things to do with gum paste and fondant. With a little practice, you can create a masterpiece.

Theresa Happe is a baker, cake decorator, and author of http://www.cake-decorating-corner.com, a website featuring cake photos with detailed instructions for all occasions, and cake and icing recipes and http://www.cakeswebake.com, a social network just for cake decorators.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Theresa_Happe