Can they compare to home-made baked goods?store-bought gingerbread, cookies, muffins, pastries and cakes? And even if such a comparison were to be made, it would be in favor of homemade desserts. In fact, confectionery products prepared at home are tastier and somehow “heartier”. And the process of their preparation is comparable to a certain ritual action, especially in its final stage, when unpresentable semi-finished products turn into beautiful and appetizing desserts. But not everyone knows how to decorate homemade cakes, or not everyone knows how to do it. But to decorate a cake at home, you do not need to have the skills of a professional pastry chef. And, by the way, a cake decorated with your own hands can be many times more beautiful than store-bought masterpieces. The main thing is not to strive to reproduce what you see on store-bought cakes. After all, homemade cakes are unique precisely because of their originality and uniqueness. And how can this be achieved? What to use for decoration? What products to use as ready-made decor, and what to do specifically for decorating a cake at home? Let's find out.
Ornaments from cream
Cream roses, leaves and borders on cakes– a classic of confectionery. And classics, as we know, never go out of fashion. Therefore, cream decorations remain popular in home cooking today. However, not any cream is suitable for decorating a cake. You can decorate a cake only with a cream that does not flow or settle. Butter cream and meringue are considered the most suitable materials for cream decorations. Cakes decorated with such cream look especially festive, however, they are stored only in the refrigerator and only for a very short time: butter and eggs are perishable products. For such decorations, you can use pastry syringes or bags with special nozzles. With these nozzles, you can draw curly borders and lattices, roses and chrysanthemums, leaves and stems. However, if you do not have such tools in your kitchen arsenal, then you can decorate a cake with cream using an ordinary paper cornet. To make a cornet, you only need a sheet of thick clean paper (A4), which you need to roll into a cone (hollow cone). The tip of the cone should be cut straight or at an angle, or make a triangular cut on it (angle down). Fill the cone (you need to hold it with your hand all the time, fixing the shape of the cone and not letting it unfold) with cream, wrap the top part so that the cream does not fall out, and begin squeezing the cone, squeezing the cream onto the cake. Depending on the cut, you can lay even stripes on the cake, draw peas or make leaves and flowers (cone with a triangular cut). If you slightly move your hand with the cone back and forth, the stripes of cream squeezed out of it will turn out wavy and look like ruffles. You can make multi-colored cream for decorating the cake with the help of special food colorings or use freshly squeezed beetroot (cherry) or carrot juice, spinach juice, cocoa powder or instant coffee for this.
Ornaments from mastics
Confectionery mastic is a great alternativecream decorations. Its consistency resembles plasticine, and you can mold any figures, leaves, flowers and other decorations from it. The main thing is to know how to mold. Confectionery mastic can be bought in a specialty store, but it is better to make it yourself. For mastic, we will need dry and condensed milk and powdered sugar in equal proportions. All these ingredients need to be combined and the mastic kneaded (like dough), and then mold from it whatever your heart desires. Just remember that this sculptural material dries and hardens quickly. Therefore, firstly, cover the mastic with cling film during work, and secondly, do not cover the entire cake with it - it will be too hard. In addition, too voluminous decorations can crack. You can paint the mastic in the same way as butter cream, and you need to roll it out on cling film, sprinkling the mastic itself with powdered sugar. What can be made from mastic? Flowers (roses, lilies, daisies, chrysanthemums) and leaves, frills and ruffles, animal and human figures, any other objects that you can sculpt.
Ornaments from aysing
You can decorate a cake at homebecome openwork icing. If you don’t know what it is, don’t be scared by the tricky name. Icing is a drawing mass made from egg whites and powdered sugar. It’s very easy to prepare: grind one raw egg white with powdered sugar (200 g) and add a teaspoon of lemon juice. Just don’t forget that the white should be cold, and the powdered sugar must be sifted. The density of the mass is adjusted by eye, adding powdered sugar to it. The point is that the icing should be dense enough so that the pattern doesn’t spread, but not too thick so that the drawing mass can be easily squeezed out of the small container. Then roll up the paper small container, fill it with the drawing mass and draw your lace. Future patterns are first drawn on paper (ready-made outline drawings are printed out) or even children’s coloring books are used for this. Then the paper with the design is covered with transparent cellophane (food wrap) and greased with a very thin layer of olive oil (it does not dry). Icing is applied in thin solid lines along the outline of the design and left to dry. As soon as the "lace" hardens, and this can take several days, they are removed from the film and used to decorate the cake. Such decorations are very fragile, so it is recommended to make them with a margin and put them on the cake just before serving. Three-dimensional decorations can be assembled from individual elements, gluing the parts with liquid icing. To make convex and concave lace, a film with an icing pattern is placed on convex surfaces (jars, bottles, etc.). And one more important point: such decorations dissolve from moisture: keep this in mind when decorating cakes covered with cream or glaze with icing. You can also beautifully decorate a cake with chocolate. Such decorations are made on the same principle as icing. Chocolate (without additives and filling) is simply melted in a water bath, and then various patterns are drawn with it. Using white and dark chocolate, you can make original two-color decorations. By the way, liquid chocolate can be used to apply patterns directly to the surface of the cake.
Ornaments for children's cake
A children's cake requires special skills from the masterfantasy. After all, it should not just be beautiful, but childish. Therefore, to decorate a children's cake today, they try to use "sculptural" materials from which it is easy to mold various funny figures. Such a suitable material will be sugar or milk mastic, painted in bright colors. Multi-colored fruits, candies, jelly, marmalade and even multi-colored confectionery sprinkles will look good on a children's cake. The use of Barbie dolls has become an original way to decorate a children's cake. For such a cake, they bake cakes, which are then assembled and cut in the shape of a fluffy skirt. The doll itself is wrapped in cling film up to the waist and placed in this skirt, having previously cut a hole in the cakes for the doll. Then they decorate the skirt with colored mastic or bright cream, make a bodice for a Barbie dress and get a children's doll cake.
Other ways to decorate
You can decorate your homemade cake with simpler ones,but no less spectacular ways. For example, you can simply pour chocolate, sugar or colored glaze over the cake and arrange ready-made chocolate figures or whole walnut kernels on it. Peeled almonds can turn into chamomile or chrysanthemum petals, or become an original border for the cake. Fresh fruits look no less spectacular on the cake: oranges, tangerines, kiwi, strawberries, cherries, pineapples. And if the fruits are pre-dipped in transparent jelly, they will not dry out or wrinkle and will become brighter. Fruits can be combined with decorations made of butter or protein cream, with chocolate and whipped cream. Decorating with a stencil is also a great way to decorate a homemade cake. To do this, cut out a pattern in paper (larger than the surface of the cake) and, holding the stencil above the cake, sprinkle the paper with powdered sugar or cocoa powder: the pattern from the stencil is magically transferred to the cake. Cocoa is used to decorate cakes covered with white cream, and powdered sugar is used to decorate cakes covered with chocolate icing.
Cake Side Decorations
So far we've been talking about how to decoratethe surface of the cake. But what to do with its sides? At home, the sides of the cake can be covered, for example, with fancy cream stripes or lined with shards of thin chocolate (pre-melted and hardened in the form of a thin sheet). In addition, on the sides of the cake, you can lay out a "picket fence" of wafer tubes or long fancy cookies. But most often, the pre-greased sides of the cake are simply sprinkled with crumbs of cookies, nuts, crackers or leftover cakes. And oatmeal fried in a dry frying pan is also suitable for these purposes! In short, where there is a desire, there is a way. And believe me, when decorating cakes at home, you can find very, very many such opportunities. There is a place for creativity everywhere, and in the kitchen - even more so! We recommend reading:
