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10 Cake Struggles SOLVED
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Sep 6, 2024
In this tutorial I’ll solve the 10 most common cake struggles: Leaning cakes, food coloring stains on everything, never enough countertop space, air bubbles in your frosting, lack of cake decorating inspiration, sprinkles everywhere... Get ready for these practical solutions! 💫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/ 👩🏼🍳My 4 Minute Buttercream recipe https://www.britishgirlbakes.com/recipes/buttercream-frosting/ 🎥My tutorial on 10 Easy Cake Toppers https://youtu.be/QmNMwmC7os4 📄READ a written version of this tutorial (with photos!) https://www.britishgirlbakes.com/10-cake-struggles-solved 0:00 Intro 0:20 Piping tips destroyed by the insinkerator 0:53 How to decorate with sprinkles without making a mess
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0:00
leaning cakes, food colouring stains on everything, never enough countertop space, air bubbles in your frosting
0:07
lack of cake decorating inspiration, sprinkles everywhere. In this tutorial, I'll solve the 10 most
0:14
common cake struggles with practical solutions. Most cake decorators have an impressive collection
0:23
of piping tips that have been moulded by the garbage disposal or in syncerator. Whenever you wash
0:29
piping bags and piping tips, use a drain sieve in the sink. I find these annoying the rest of the time
0:36
but with piping tips they're so useful because any frosting in the piping bag will get through it
0:41
down into the drain, but the piping tips will be waiting patiently for you here. And bonus
0:47
as the hot water flows down the drain, it might even clean the piping tips for you
0:53
Sprinkles are beautiful, but they can travel fast and far. Whenever you're using sprinkles
0:59
any runaways by decorating on a baking sheet or tray so that as the sprinkles roll and
1:04
bounce off the cake and cake board they'll be trapped by the rim around the tray. When
1:10
you finish decorating tap the cakeboard to knock the final sprinkles onto the tray
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and then you can tilt the tray and pour these into a jar or bottle or packet or
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whatever you use to store them. To be even more careful pour your sprinkles into a
1:25
piping bag before you use them. Cutting a small piece of the end of the bag and
1:29
and then you have much more control over where they go. Always remember to tap any loose sprinkles off the cakeboard
1:36
before you take it off the tray. Otherwise, those sprinkles will roll off the board and onto the floor
1:42
The biggest struggle, I think, is food colouring stains because they're so difficult to wash off
1:48
If your colours look like this, with bottles toppled over and leaking onto each other
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then whenever you pick up a bottle, you'll stain your hands, which will then stain anything you touch
1:58
There are two solutions for this. First, open your bottle the right way
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When you lift up the lid, you'll see a little spike, and that's intended to be used like this
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Unscrew the lid poke that spike into the middle of the lining over the bottle and then screw the lid back on Now the gel is much less likely to leak since the hole in the bottle is so small
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Secondly, store your bottles upright by using a storage caddy. This is actually intended for nail polish, but it's exactly the right size for gel colours
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No more leaking and no more staining. Countertop space is in high demand when you're cake decorating and there is literally
2:40
never enough. Here are my tips for making the most of what you have. If you're not next to a
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rubbish bin or garbage can, use a throwaway tub instead of leaving cake scraps and the little
2:51
cut-off ends of piping bags, hogging your countertop space. If you're not working next to a sink
2:57
have a washing tub too for dirty piping tips, spatula, cake combs, and anything else that needs to be
3:03
washed. Store your appliances in cabinets rather than on the countertop to make more space, so you're
3:10
food processor and mixer and your supplies too which brings me to my next solution baking organization
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to free up space reduce clutter and make it easier to find everything here are my favorite baking
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organization hacks tired of cake pans tumbling out of your cupboards instead of starting to build a leaning tower
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of pans put the small pans inside the big ones and they'll balance the next layer of pans your tower of pans will be stable and also much shorter
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taking up less space. If you have several types of cake combs for smooth and textured frosting
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don't stuff them into a drawer because it's a pain to find the one you're looking for
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This rack is intended for the lids of pots and pans, but it works excellently as a divider for different types of cake combs
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so in a split second I can grab a smooth acrylic comb or a textured metal comb
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I used the same rack for my cakeboards to separate those by size and material
4:08
Sprinkle packets and bottles and jars all get mixed up in a box or draw
4:13
and it takes forever to find the one you're looking for. Pour your most used mixes into jars and arrange them on a shelf
4:20
so that they're easy to find and they'll add a colourful decoration to your room
4:24
Stencils are super thin but if you have several they end up taking up a lot of space and you have to dig around to find the one you looking for A folder with plastic wallets is an easy storage solution for these
4:36
Put one in each wallet and you can label these with tabs if you want to sort them into categories
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like the material of the stencil or the theme of the design. Now you can flick through the folder quickly, making it fast and easy to choose and remove your stencil
4:50
Piping tips. Oh, the piping tips. There are so many and they love to hide inside each other
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to lie sideways so that they all look identical and it's impossible to find the one you're looking for
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Use a craft box and either place one tip in each section or group them together
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like star tips in one section and open stars in the other, and petal tips in one section
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and grass and leaf tips in another. If your cakes slip and slide on your cakeboard while you're frosting them
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it will be almost impossible to get smooth frosting. Why did they slide
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Because they're not attached to the cakeboard. Before you start assembling your cake, pipe a dot or spiral of frosting onto the middle of the cakeboard
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and press your first layer of cake down onto that frosting. This will stick the cake to the cake board, so as you layer your cake and filling, it won't slide around
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But there's one more step to this. Chill the cake for about 20 minutes before you frost it to set that frosting so it glues the cake in place
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And then as you spread frosting onto the cake and then scrape around the cake
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all of that pressure will be resisted by the cake, and it will stay securely in place on the cake board
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because of that dot of frosting down at the bottom. If it does move, lift the cake up
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spread a fresh dot of butter cream onto the middle of the cake board, and lower the cake back down
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and the cake will be securely attached. If you're new to my YouTube channel welcome
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please click the subscribe button for new cake decorating tutorials every week
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and visit my cake school on British Girlbakes.com, where I teach hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs
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and I also have membership so you can really take your cake decorating to the next level
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Even if your frosting looks really smooth when it's in the bowl
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after spreading it onto your cake and scraping it several times with a cake comb
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it can be covered in air bubbles like this. The solution a metal cake comb and heat You can use a blow torch to heat the edge of your cake comb or hold the comb under hot running water and the heat of the metal will melt the very outer layer of frosting
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dragging it around the cake to fill in any air bubbles in the frosting and leave it perfectly smooth
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If your cake looks like it's leaning sideways, your layers aren't placed directly on top of each other
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but even if you've already started frosting your cake, it's not too late to fix this
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Spread some more frosting to fill in the lean. So down here at the bottom of this side
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and up here at the top of this side. And then when you scrape around the cake
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press your comb down on the cake board to line it up straight
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and you'll smooth this frosting you've spread on to create straight sides on the cake
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Add your final layer of frosting and you've got rid of the leaning or tilting effect
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If you have these ugly indents around the top edge of your cake, it's because your frosting wasn't high enough
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meaning it didn't stick up above the top edge of the cake, so when you levelled it, there were gaps in that top edge
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To prevent this, push upwards with your offset spatchelor when you're spreading frosting onto the cake
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to create a lip or wall around the top edge, and then swipe sideways to level it
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or put the cake in the fridge for 15 minutes to chill the frosting, and use a sharp knife to slice off the frosting that's sticking up
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leaving a super sharp edge around the top of the cake. Struggling with cake inspiration is so common
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especially if you're trying to think of cake designs daily for your Instagram account
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A quick decoration that will match your cake to any color scheme is to make a sprinkle mix, using different shapes and sizes and colors
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and then press those into the bottom of the cake for a sprinkle border
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or sprinkle them on top of the cake, or make a cake topper using those sprinkles
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I shared a tutorial a few weeks ago on 10 easy cake toppers and you'll find this technique at the beginning of that tutorial
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I hope you've seen some ideas you'd like to try. Thank you so much for watching
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Please subscribe to my channel and I hope to see you over on my cake school on British Girlbakes.com
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