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How To: Bake a topsy turvy cake out of fondant
Looking for a crafty and clever variant on the traditional three-tiered cake? Make it a topsy turvy cake with a slanted, angled look! You can make a creative cake using fondant frosting and these decorating tips. Make sure your cake has enough support!
How To: Achieve perfect corners for rolled fondant square cakes
Fondant is an indispensible tool for pastry chefs, and not because they're good at satisfying a sweet tooth. Smooth in consistency and rolling out just like dough, fondant is often used to cover professional cakes and to make miniature cake decorations.
How To: Cover a baked cake with fondant frosting
Learn how to frost a cake with fondant frosting! Actually, it's not really frosting, it's more like applying or covering or coating a cake with fondant. This kind of frosting is the kind most typical of wedding cakes and specialty cakes. You can find fondant frosting at cake decoration shops all around and even at some crafts stores. This frosting adds an element of elegance to any cake!
How To: Decorate a cake with buttercream frosting
When it comes times to making cakes, the hardest part sometimes is the frosting. How do you apply the frosting without ruining the cake? Well, it takes a delicate touch, and some advice from a professional, so watch this video to learn how to decorate a buttercream frosting cake.
How To: Make homemade roasted pecans for wedding party favors
We'd be lying if we said that the upsurge in the past few years of DIY/homemade weddings wasn't due to the bad state of the economy. While DIY has always had a presence, its following was more cultish in nature until recently. With the average wedding costing $29,000 and maintaining and getting a job as hard as it is, it's no wonder brides and their super loyal friends are making as much of the wedding decor and treats as they can.
How To: Make serrated grass icing decorations for cake decorating
Grass is one of those things you'd think would be easy to replicate in icing, but actually end up becoming your worst nightmare. The problem that most cake enthusiasts have is that they think grass can be made from just about any piping tip, which is not the case as the result is usually a tangled, uneven mess.
How To: Excel at using rolled fondant with basic tips
In this edition of Wilton's "Ask Nancy," the topic covered is rolled fondant. We can't overstate the importance of knowing how to make your fondant and how to use it for cake decorating ventures like covering your cake/cupcakes with it and crafting little fondant figures to put on top of those cakes.
How To: Make a rosette and a swirl using the star tip
Cake decorating when we were little kids was pretty uncomplicated. Once the cupcakes were out of the oven, we'd scramble over to the counter, maybe secretly take a bite or two, and then whip out a spatula and begin slathering on icing. We would then finish off with a nice handful of rainbow sprinkles because sprinkles were pretty.
How To: Color a sugarcrafted lily petal
In this tutorial, we learn how to color a sugar crafted lily petal. Insert your paste onto a green wire, then cover the paste with clear edible glue. Then, place the piece into yellow sugar sprinkles. After this, create your petals out of gum paste and push down on the edges to create a petal shape and feeling. Next, apply the glue onto the center of the flower and add this onto the piece that you just made, wrapping it around. After this, wait for it to dry and you will have a beautiful lily...
How To: Cover a cake with fondant for cake decorating
Consider this video Cake Decorating 101. No matter what you do in the future with cake decorating, knowing how to apply fondant smoothly to a cake's surface is one of the most important and most often used skills in a pastry chef's career.
How To: Make a pretty pink purse cake with fondant
Do you have a shopaholic girlfriend whose 30th birthday is slowly coming up? It's true that a lot of women dread their 30th, but your gal pal will be simply delighted at her bash if you bake and decorate this purse cake for her.
How To: Create a gumpaste snowman with a scarf and hat
Here in California, we Wonder How To writers don't get much snow. In fact, during the holidays we get excited just see frost on the windows and that it's cold enough that we can't wear shorts outside. Obviously during Christmas this is a bummer, because this means no snow angels, no snowmen, no sledding.
How To: Make a friendly fondant lion for cake decorating
This lion is all bite and no bark. After all, how can anyone be intimidated by a chubby wubby lion with a bemused expression, fluffy fur, and a heart made of fondant? This fondant lion is a perfect addition on top of a cake or cupcake if your little guy - or gal - loves animals.
How To: Make Mario Brothers gumpaste figurines for cake decorating
Gumpaste is the weapon of choice for many bakers and pastry chefs because of its versatility. Not only can just-made gumpaste be bent and shaped into anything you can imagine (from giraffes to leaves), but once you give gumpaste the chance to harden, it'll maintain that shape until it goes down your child's throat.
How To: Create a gumpaste monkey for cake decorating
Some animals are cute as they are - Bunnies, pigs, kitties. So how do we ever advance beyond what we think of as optimal cuteness? By turning these animals into candy/cupcake form.
How To: Decorate professional Christmas cookies with decorating tips
Ask any pastry chef and he/she will tell you that cookie and cake decorating is an art. Instead of paint you have all different types of icing and fondant, and instead of brushes you have your dexterous fingertips. And all these things go toward creating a crowning masterpiece.
How To: Decorate your cookies like a pro with decorating tips
When you're a kid, there's really nothing more fun to do with your grandma than help her decorate cookies by dipping your fingers into a tub of royal icing and then smearing your handiwork onto a sugar cookie. While those sloppy cookies were beautiful successes to us back then, these days it's probably time to amp up your cookie decorating skills.
How To: Decorate a dove shaped cookie with fondant
Dove cookies make such great treats to give to friends and family. Doves are traditionally representative of peace and healing, and so sharing doves (albeit in cookie form) with those you love shows that you care for their well being.
How To: Decorate Frosty the Snowman Christmas cookies with fondant
Let's just say that this particular Frosty the Snowman won't disappear because it's getting too hot outside. Chances are, this Frosty will go the route of your child's mouth.
How To: Decorate a Christmas mitten cookie with fondant
Fondant is one of a pastry chef's favorite substances because it's so versatile. You can use fondant to coat a cake with an even, smooth surface, you can shape fondant into little adornments like fish and ladybugs, and you can even employ fondant to decorate cookies.
How To: Make fondant frills using a frill cutter for cake decorating
Fondant frills are magical cake trims that resemble frilly lace and pretty ruffles. On cakes and cupcakes, they can be used to adorn borders for an uber feminine touch, and are especially beautiful on wedding cakes.
How To: Decorate cute alien/monster cupcakes with bulbous eyes
It seems that cupcakes are the designer foodstuff of choice these days. They're really not all that different from cakes (they're made from the same dough, after all), but their miniature size makes them individually portioned for convenience and also a great base for adorable decor.
How To: Create an enchanted fairy garden cupcake
As little girls, we're always entranced by magical lore: Beautiful princesses, handsome knights in shining armor, and fairies that spark our imagination and take us to another world where anything can happen and there's always a happily ever after ending.
How To: Decorate a hot air balloon cookie five different ways
This five-part cookie decorating tutorial is a godsend for someone who's looking for an all-inclusive guide to decorating cookies. While you'll find many individual videos out there showing you how to put on buttercream icing or corn syrup icing, you usually won't find one depicting both.
How To: Make icing shell borders using an open star tip
There's no better way to improve your ability to ice masterpieces of cupcakes and cakes than to simply practice. And the tip presented in this cake decorating video is indispensible. Using a #21 tip (called an open star tip), you'll learn how to ice a shell border.
How To: Make Halloween party invitations with cookie treats
Are you planning on throwing a memorable Halloween party this year? Give your party invitees a taste (literally) of the treats they'll be experiencing at the bash by including a cookie with your invitation.
How To: Decorate cookies with cookie texture mats on buttercream icing
What's one way to add interest to your cookies without carving out an entire afternoon devoted to crafting neverending sets of peonie flower fondant flowers? Using cookie texture mats. Texture mats are usually pounded onto fondant and candy clay to create an interesting pattern, but they can be used on buttercream icing as well.
How To: Make meringue powder buttercream icing for cookie decorating
Pretty cookies can't exist without icing. Sure, plain, undecorated cookies are nice and taste great, but adding even just that one coat of royal icing takes the experience from tasty to sugar fantasy.
How To: Make delicious candy clay for cake decorating
Candy and clay aren't two words you usually hear in the same sentence. But for pastry chefs and bakers, candy clay is a deeply ingrained part of their cake decorating vocabulary. That's because candy clay is a much better tasting sister of fondant, which is commonly used to decorate cakes.
How To: Color your fondant for cake decorating
Coloring your fondant is actually a very simple process. Like coloring water or your cookies, coloring fondant involves adding a few drops of food coloring and then blending, blending, blending.
How To: Decorate cupcakes into realistic ham and cheese deli sandwiches
We can promise you that your party guests will do a double take when they see these cupcakes shaped like delicious deli sandwiches. We almost couldn't believe our eyes when we first saw them ourselves; these cupcakes are decorated down to the very last sesame seed to resemble ham and cheese deli sandwiches.
How To: Create candlewicking embroidery on a cake
In order to create Candlewicking Embroidery on a cake, you will need the following: prepared icing, a #4 decorating tip, #2 decorating tip, a cake that has been iced, and decorating bags filled with icing.
How To: Make an igloo & penguin cake
In this tutorial, we learn how to make an igloo and penguin cake. For this, you will start with colored fondant or colored gum paste. Next, you will shape your gum paste into the bodies of the little penguins. After this, make sure you make all the shapes for their eyes and beaks, as well as their feet. When you are finished with this, you can start your cake. To make it look like an igloo, you will place large marshmallows that have been cut up on top of it, then use coloring to make it look...
How To: Make Homemade Vanilla Frosting from Scratch
This is a great quick and easy recipe and a great healthy alternative to store-bought frosting. My husband and children love this frosting, and it's also a hit at my PTA meetings. It goes great on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, or anything you desire to put frosting on.
How To: Make pink decorative icing flowers with a round tip
As you'll quickly learn in cake decorating, the outcome and success of your designs stems entirely from the type of tip on your icing bag. Tips range from star shaped to round to square and everything else imaginable, all to give you a limitless variety of ways to decorate your cake or cupcake.
How To: Cover a square styrofoam dummy cake with fondant
When it comes to fondant, practice really does make perfect. The sugary mixture hardens to a sturdy yet soft consistency when set out to dry, but in its pliable stage it's often easy for things to spin out of control and to make terrible folding and tucking mess-ups when you're attaching a fondant cover on a cake.
How To: Make open roses out of gumpaste for cake decorating
Adding gumpaste roses to your cake or cupcake can either be the hardest or simplest skill in cake decorating, depending on the complexity of the rose. In the case of this open rose, creating a flower is simple yet adds a very professional touch to whatever you're making.
How To: Decorate a cake with a gumpaste loopy bow and butterflies
There's no better time to have your cake and to eat it too than your birthday. However crazy your tastes, the day of your arrival onto this earth entitles you to treats of all magnitudes.
How To: Make a yellow rose out of icing for cake decorating
This beautiful yellow icing rose looks really difficult to create, but with the right tools it's as simple as practicing (and probably messing up a few times). Whether you want to add a special edible decoration to a Mother's Day cake you're baking or a batch of vanilla cupcakes, this rose is an elegant and never ostentatious choice.
How To: Make a high heel shoe from gumpaste
Cake decorators adore gumpaste because it can not only be formed in just about any imaginable shape out there, but also because it hardens to a consistency that can easily hold these shapes. Take this intricate, Cinderella-inspired high heeled slipper, for instance. Perfectly shaped and sturdy, it would serve well for topping a vanilla buttercream cake or red velvet cupcakes.