Perfectly iced cakes need a great base

 

I remember when I first started working at this cake shop with no real experience of how to put a cake together. After being shown for the first time, I practised. And practised, and after a few weeks I was a dab hand. The thing is you see, no matter how good your basic cake icing skills are, they are only as good as the thing that they are icing, in my opinion.

 

 

I lay out the cake filling ingredients; picking only the very best preserves and real butter in the buttercream, which is so creamy and rich and when the gorgeous vanilla is added to the mix I could almost eat it with a spoon!

 

When you think of a cartoon piece of cake, it's usually the jam that's on the bottom and the cream on the top- inside the cake. So that's what we do and that's what I was always taught, and it looks so delicious on cutting a slice!

 

So I usually do this slightly differently but for the purposes of the picture it was easier to show this way. I keep the cream layer as flat as possible and spread it out. Placing the top piece of cake over this, I then coat the entire outside of the cake; this allows the icing to stick better to the base.

 

 

And above is the finished article! A perfectly flat base ready for icing.

 

Carrot cake using deliciously fresh oranges in the buttercream to compliment the delicate notes of citrus inside the cake.

 

And the perfectly flat base, ready for icing.

 

Lastly our truly decadent chocolate cake with truly lovely chocolate Baileys ganache ready to be put together.

 

I remember 6 years ago we had a really lovely girl who came over to help us out for three months, which was excellent. My station in the kitchen was first and foremost the decorator and the icer of cakes and so used to having perfectly flat cakes was I that it was a shock when someone new who was as fresh as I had once been was passing me the cakes that she had been filling. It is always worth sending back- or redoing the work if you haven't got an entirely perfect cake base to begin with. She learned fast by the way and took her newfound skills back to Ireland after completing a few cakes completely by herself (!) under my amazing previous boss' and my tutelage. Her gorgeous handbag that she took home for her Mum's Birthday particularly sticks in my mind and still makes me feel slightly proud! :)

If you'd like any information on our cake decorating for beginners courses, please contact me for more information.

 

Jen :)