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I'm going to share seven secrets to get perfectly smooth frosting on your cakes
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The process begins much earlier than when you use your frosting smoother so let's start at the very beginning. The first secret is to chill your cake
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layers before you start. After I bake and the cakes cool I level
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them and then wrap them in cling film or saran wrap and put them in the fridge for at least one hour or in the freezer for at least 30 minutes
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Now the layers will be firm and more stable as you assemble your cake
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Attach your cake to a cake board by piping or spreading a bit of frosting on
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the middle of the cake board, which will act as glue to secure the cake there so it won't slide around as you're frosting it
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which makes it impossible to smooth the frosting. As you alternate between your
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cake and filling, assemble a straight and level cake by placing each layer directly above the previous layer
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so the cake isn't leaning to one side. Your cake layers don't have to be
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perfect because you're going to cover them up with frosting but the sides of the cake do need to be straight. Before you start frosting your
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cake, make sure you have the right consistency of frosting. For buttercream like this four minute buttercream I'm using, it needs to be
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easy to stir and a spatula dragged through it should leave a smooth trail behind with no air pockets, which is what happens when the
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buttercream is too stiff and it pulls away from itself. To learn how to make perfect buttercream every time and how to troubleshoot any
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issues like air bubbles, graininess, lumps, yellow buttercream or melting buttercream, take my online course on the Basics of
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Buttercream where you'll also learn how to create absolutely any colour of buttercream. The link is in the top of the screen and in the description below
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this video. The next secret to smooth frosting is to apply a crumb coat to your cake, which is a thin layer of frosting that
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completely covers the cake from top to bottom to catch any crumbs that come off the cake and trap them in that layer of frosting
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so that they don't get into your final layer of frosting. You need to let the
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crumb coat set before moving on to your final coat of frosting. Chilling your cake layers earlier makes them less wobbly and less crumbly
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which is helpful when you're frosting the cake. If you're enjoying this tutorial please click the thumbs up button and subscribe to my channel for a
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new cake decorating tutorial every week! Be generous with your frosting because
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the more you spread on now, the easier it will be to smooth it next
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You're going to scrape a lot of it off, which you can use for touch-ups and for
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decorating like piping borders or swirls or you can freeze it and use it on
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another cake. Finally, perfect your technique! For me, to scrape around the cake I reach as far as I can around the cake with one
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hand to spin the turntable towards me as I scrape with my frosting smoother in
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the other hand. Then I spread more frosting over air pockets or indents in the frosting and smooth again
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and I do this several times until the frosting is nearly smooth and then I move on to the top of the cake, using my offset spatula to swipe
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from the outer edge of the cake towards the middle, pulling all of the overhanging frosting with it and then I swipe the offset
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spatula off the cake to take that excess frosting off the cake
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I wipe the offset spatula completely clean before repeating the motion all
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the way around the cake. Then I go back to the sides because the
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pressure I apply while tidying up the top edge creates a little bulge in the sides of the frosting so I want to flatten that
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I switched to my acrylic frosting smoother for this final stage because it gives me the smoothest results and I've put the link to my frosting
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smoother with the discount code in the description below this video. I finish by tidying up the top edge one last time and then my frosting is smooth
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and ready to decorate. If you're looking for cake inspiration I have a free
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online course on 10 frosting techniques and lots of other courses on my online
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cake school. Join my club for access to all of my online classes and live cake demonstrations for members only
