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A simple toothpick can do so many things for cake decorating, making neat patterns, smooth stenciling, stable tier cakes, really white buttercream, and more
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Toothpicks can guide you as your piping, showing you where to move your piping bag
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Cut a circle of parchment paper or wax paper or baking paper that's the same size as your cake, using the cake pan you baked the cake in
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Fold it in half three or four times or more for really big cakes and unfold it and place it on top of your cake
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Use the creases in the paper as your guidelines, poking toothpicks into the side of the cake below each crease
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which will keep your designs spaced evenly around the cake. Take this a step further by using toothpicks to create outlines
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scoring a design onto a frosted cake before you pipe onto it
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Or for tray bake cakes, you can use a toothpick straight onto the cake and then pipe
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within that. Outlining a shape with a toothpick gives you a subtle guide that
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helps you create the right proportions but once it's covered up, in this case
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with buttercream tiles to make a mosaic, you really don't notice the toothpick
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outline. You can outline messages too to make sure the letters fit before you pipe
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them. To stack a tier cake, outline where the top tier will go before adding
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support straws or dowels below The cakes need to be cold and firm so put them in fridge for a few hours first Push support straws or dowls within the circle you scored onto the cake with your toothpick and this way you know they be positioned underneath the cake above to support it
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Doing this for every tear will make sure your cakes are scented and won't sink
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To make marbled cake batter, spoon different flavors into a pan, alternating between them
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You can do this with different colours instead, spooning or piping them
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into the pans. The key to making this marbled, instead of just blobs of color, is to use a
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toothpick, dragging it through the cake batter to mix the colors together just enough to create
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this fun marbled effect. Make designs really smooth with a toothpick when you're piping them
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onto parchment paper or acetate to later transfer to a cake. Use dabbing motions to push the
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buttercream downwards, which will prevent trapped air pockets that later become holes or
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indents in the surface of the frosting. This works for character cakes made with buttercream transfers
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and also for wrapped cakes like this mosaic design and I have a step-by-step tutorial on this
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technique and the link is in the top of the screen and in the video description. Use toothpicks to create
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3D designs on cakes by making your own edible cake-toppers. Melt chocolate and spoon it into a sandwich
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bag cutting off one of the corners to pipe through Write a message or draw a shape onto parchment or wax or baking paper and then push a toothpick into the bottom of each section piping some more chocolate to cover it up
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Pour sprinkles or coloured sugar on top, pressing it gently into the melted chocolate
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and when it sets, you'll be able to pick up your cake toppers and push them into the cake so that they stand upright
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So pretty. Toothpics are ideal for tidying up messy frosting. For example, stenceling can be tricky
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but with a toothpick you can make smooth, neat stenciled designs. If the stencil moves at all while you're spreading and smoothing the frosting over it
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you'll have smudges around the outline and a toothpick is perfect for scraping those off
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Also, as you peel a stencil away from your cake, the soft sticky frosting you've just spread over it
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might try to pull away with the stencil, so it sticks out
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Nudge it with your toothpick straight away before the frosting sets. With straight smooth edges around stenciled shapes, the design will look much neater
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Use toothpicks to tidy up piping too, by taking off any parts you don't like
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or nudging details into the right position, or taking off drooping petals or other details
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and making your piping look much better. To create a symmetrical pattern, measure a piece of parchment or wax or baking paper
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so it will wrap around your cake and then fold it in half. and half and half again in both directions if you need a grid It useful to mark the places you want to pipe your pattern with a pencil like these polka dots here Wrap the grid around your cake and use a
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toothpick to poke through each point after you've chilled the cake so the frosting has set and it's firm
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Peel the paper away and then pipe over the points you marked on the cake, making a neat
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symmetrical pattern. Use toothpicks to add tiny details to designs, like smiling eyes and other facial
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features that would look messy with thick piping instead. Chill the cupcake or cake before you do this
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so that the frosting is firm, so that you can carve it out with your toothpick and leave neat
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lines and dots behind. Toothpicks are a game changer to make really white buttercream
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even if you're using yellow butter. Dip a toothpick into violet gel so that you can add just a tiny
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amount to your buttercream. The bluish tint of the violet will offset the yellow in the buttercream to make a
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writer white. My tutorial on four hacks for white buttercream shares some more tips
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and the link is in the top of the screen and in the video description. I hope you've seen some
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tricks you'd like to try. Tell me in the comments, which is your favorite, and visit my cake
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school on British Girlbakes.com to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs to make
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stunning cakes. There's a seven-day free trial for my All You Can Cake membership, which includes
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access to everything on my cake school, so you can try it out risk-free. I hope to
