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10 Ways to FAIL at Cake Decorating and what to do instead
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Sep 6, 2024
Here are the most common cake fails and what to do to prevent or fix them! Leaning cakes, melting cakes, air bubbles in frosting, collapsing cakes and more! 0:00 Intro 0:14 Sliding cake fails 0:52 Buttercream consistency 1:48 What temperature for cake layers? 2:28 Buttercream dams 3:46 Tier cakes 4:41 Leaning cake fails 5:11 Textured frosting 5:37 Cake toppers 6:03 Melting cake fails 6:46 Serving cakes 7:11 The British Girl Bakes cake school 💫Start your FREE 7 day trial on my cake school https://britishgirlbakes.teachable.com/p/all-you-can-cake/ 🎂LEARN The Basics of Cake and The Basics of Buttercream in my most popular online courses! https://britishgirlbakes.teachable.com/
View Video Transcript
0:00
If any of these cake fails look familiar, keep watching, I'll show you why they happen and how to prevent them
0:07
Now, obviously, you're not going to be this careless with your cakes, but this just shows how securely the cake is attached to the cakeboard
0:14
What happens if they're not? If you just place your cake layers on a cake board without attaching them
0:20
as you spread frosting onto the cake, this pressure can push the cake around and make it really, really difficult to frost
0:27
So, before you start layering the cake and fillings, pipe or spread a dot of buttercream into the middle of your cakeboard or plate or whatever you're going to put the cake on
0:36
Press your first cake layer down onto that dot and when it sets later it will attach the cake to the cake board
0:43
Putting the cake in the fridge for about 30 minutes will set it and then you can do any cake decorating you like without needing to chase your cake around on the turntable
0:52
The top mistake is using buttercream that's too stiff or too runny
0:56
If it's too runny, it will slide down the cake, so even if you spread it so that it sticks up above the top of the cake
1:03
as you scrape around the cake with a cake comb to smooth it, it will sink down and you'll have these big indents in the top edge
1:10
If the buttercream is too stiff, it will be difficult to spread over the cake
1:13
and the buttercream will tear apart from itself, leaving these holes all over the surface of your frosting
1:20
To achieve the right consistency and prevent air bubbles, use this easy hack
1:25
scoop up a third of the buttercream and microwave it for just 10 seconds to melt it
1:30
Then stir it back into your bowl of butter cream and you'll have silky smooth butter cream
1:35
Beautiful. And no air bubbles and this will spread effortlessly onto your cake
1:40
The right consistency is key to smooth frosting, neat piping, stencalling and really any cake decorating technique
1:48
The temperature of your cake layers really matters when you assembling and frosting your cake After you bake them and let them cool if you use them straight away you get lots of crumbs in your filling and also in the crumb coat
2:00
But the bigger problem is that as you frost the cake, the pressure from your spatula and cake comb will push the cake layers sideways, making the cake lean like this
2:10
Instead, put your cake layers in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 15 minutes before you assemble and frost your cake
2:16
and when they're cold, they'll be less crumbly and much firmer and easier to frost
2:21
But don't worry, when they warm back up to room temperature, they'll soften up and be just as delicious as before they went into the fridge
2:28
Runny fillings like this jam or lemon curd or caramel. They're delicious but tricky for two reasons
2:35
The first is that as you place the cake layers on top of each other
2:39
the weight of the upper layers will push down on the filling and squeeze it out of the sides of the cake
2:44
which can cause bulges in your frosting. Look at the jam oozing out here
2:48
The second is that these fillings are slippery. They don't attach to the cake layers like buttercream does
2:54
So after layering your cake, when you frost it, your offset spatula or cake comb will easily push the cake layers off centre and make the cake lean
3:03
Now, this doesn't mean that you can't use runny fillings, it just means you need to add an extra step, a buttercream dam
3:10
These are rings of buttercream piped around the edge of each cake layer, like a dam or wall, that's
3:16
going to hold the runny filling in so that it doesn't ooze out. Spoon your filling into the middle
3:22
of this and spread it around up to the edges of the ring of the buttercream you piped. Optionally
3:27
you can spread a thin layer of buttercream onto the cake first to stop the jam or caramel or lemon
3:33
curd absorbing into the cake below. Put the layered cake into the fridge for about 30 minutes
3:39
to chill and set these buttercream dams and then when you frost the cake the cake layers and the filling will stay in place If you stack cakes on top of each other without any support within a few hours the top cake will sink down into the bottom cake
3:53
or it will happen even faster if the cakes haven't been chilled. To stack a tier cake so that this won't happen
3:59
use a toothpick to outline where the top tier will go, after chilling both cakes in the fridge for a few hours to set the frosting
4:06
so you don't damage them as you do this. Push support straws or dowels within the circle you scored onto the cake with your toothpick
4:14
and these should be the same height as the cake and at least two inches apart from each other
4:19
Spread some buttercream on top to act as glue and then put your next cake on top
4:24
The top cake needs to be on a cake board that's the same size as the cake so that you don't see the board
4:30
And you can cover up the join of the two cakes with a piped border later if you like
4:34
The supports will hold the cakes upright and the buttercream glue you spread on will stop the
4:38
top cake from sliding around when you move it. Remember this leaning cake from earlier in this
4:44
tutorial? Here's a quick fix for leaning cakes. While you're frosting the cake, as you notice it leaning
4:50
wrap the cake in cling film or saran wrap and then push it to straighten it. Put it into the
4:55
fridge to set the filling and frosting so that it's stable and then take it out and unwrap it
5:01
Since the frosting has set, you won't damage it when you unwrap it. Now that the cake isn't leaning and it's firm, add another layer of it
5:08
frosting on top and ta-da when you smooth the frosting on a cake you only need a very thin layer
5:15
of frosting to cover the crumb coat but that's not true for textured cakes if you're using a textured
5:20
cake comb the frosting needs to be at least as thick as the texture on the comb otherwise as you
5:26
scrape around the cake two or three times to imprint the texture in the frosting the widest parts of the
5:32
texture will dig too deep into the frosting exposing the crumb coat underneath like here and here After all the effort of getting your frosting smooth don ruin it by rushing into the decorations If you add cake toppers now their weight
5:46
will cause bulges in the frosting, since the frosting is still so soft, which you can see here
5:51
and here. Chill the cake first at least 30 minutes in the fridge so that the frosting gets firm
5:58
before decorating with piping, cake toppers, or any other heavy decorations. You might have seen this
6:04
video I shared on Instagram that went viral, showing what happens when a cake is left in the sun
6:09
on a cool day. 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 Celsius. I keep my cakes in the fridge if they're not
6:16
going to be eaten within a few hours because it keeps the frosting and decorations stable and also
6:21
keeps the cake fresh for longer. The frosting seals in the moisture so they don't dry out. If you're
6:26
leaving the cake in the fridge for more than a few hours, put it in a box or a cake caddy so it doesn't
6:31
absorb any of the flavors in the fridge. Keep cakes in the fridge until you transport them
6:36
because cold cakes are firmer, so don't get damaged by vehicle vibrations, which can cause
6:41
bulges in the frosting, or sudden braking, which can cause cakes to lean or topple over. But
6:47
don't eat cakes when they're cold. Cold cakes taste hard and dry. Serve at room temperature
6:53
which means if they've been in the fridge, take them out two to four hours before you serve
6:58
them and leave them on the counter so that everything warms up and the buttercream and cake will be
7:03
soft and moist and delicious. I hope this tutorial has helped you identify your cake fails and learn how to
7:10
prevent them. Visit my cake school on British Girlbakes.com for hundreds of cake decorating techniques
7:15
and designs and start a free seven-day trial of my All You Can Cake membership, which gives you
7:20
access to everything on my cake school. The link is in the top of the screen and in the video description
7:25
or go to British Girlbakes.com. watching
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