Whether you are planning on using buttercream, boiled, marshmallow, or royal icing, the trick to making your cake look amazing with the use of frosting comes in how well you decorate. Piping is one of the things you need to learn how to do in order to make professional looking cakes, and believe me, it is not as simple as it may look. What do you need to do in order to become an expert at piping when it comes to decorating your cakes? Here are some things to remember:
Plan– this is one of the two main things you need to do in order to create cakes that are expertly piped. Don’t just get a piping bag, put in a tip, and start piping. That seldom ends in your having a cake that looks marvelous.
To plan your cake involves sketching, knowing what colors to use, what piping tips to utilize for each area, and to even practice the design on wax paper. Planning also involves knowing what icing is best for the design that you will be making for your cake, and being prepared with everything you need before you start decorating.
Practice – practicing your piping skills will lead to uniformity. When you practice your piping skills, you will be able to judge just how much pressure and movement is required for each swirl, each rosette, and each bead on your cake. This will also help you experiment with various pressures, movements, and color combinations, which in turn will assist you in creating amazing designs using icing on your cake.
You can practice on a Styrofoam “cake” which you can ice with royal icing in order for you to see the effect of your piping skills. You can also practice on wax or parchment paper so that you can master the act of applying pressure to the bag while moving it to create the shape and size you want. Practicing your piping skills, as with other things, will indeed make you adept at what you are doing.
Proper piping bag handling – aside from planning and practicing, you also need to know how to hold the piping bag the right way. This is to ensure that you can apply the right pressure and easily move the bag at the same time, every single time. The trick most expert decorators use is to fill the bag only halfway to allow them more freedom of movement and not have to worry about overflowing or spilling on the other end as they press.
Another group of cake decorators choose to fill their bags three fourths of the way full, tie a rubber band at the other end, then squeeze the bag from the middle while resting the rest of the bag on their wrist as they pipe. The idea is to find a comfortable and easy to handle method for yourself from the many handling methods available to you.
