Up next in 10
Behind The Scenes Of A Cake Decorating Tutorial
14K views
Sep 6, 2024
In this video I try to give a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes of a cake decorating tutorial... coming up with the idea, the process of creating and editing, and the eating the cake! If you have any questions about the process or generally about life as a cake decorator, I'll answer them in the comments below :)
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi! I thought it would be fun to show you behind the scenes of the most recent tutorial I put on YouTube
0:05
where the idea came from, the process of editing, and of course cutting into the cake
0:10
It all started with some pan au chocolat, or chocolate croissants as my husband calls them
0:14
I don't usually buy desserts because I bake so many myself, but while I was shopping I had a craving for some pan au chocolat
0:20
so I found some frozen ones that were unbaked, and I brought them home, put them in the oven
0:24
and while they were baking I had the idea of making a cake that was a cake version of a pan au chocolat
0:29
and decorating it with a Parisian theme, or some sort of French theme
0:33
So I made some tea to drink out of my French teacup for inspiration, and I got out my laptop
0:39
My little man joined me to colour and eat some strawberries while I ate my pastry
0:43
and scrolled through Google Images, looking at pictures of Parisian landmarks to incorporate in my cake
0:49
He really likes the camera, as you can see! My favourite images were sketches, nothing too cartoony, but not completely realistic either
0:58
so I saved those ones to refer to later. For the cake I made my very vanilla cake, and the recipe is on britishgirlbakes.com
1:07
Instead of using room temperature butter for the cake like I normally would, I put the butter in a saucepan over medium heat until the butter melted and simmered and turned golden brown
1:16
which gives the butter a really rich and almost nutty flavour. I definitely should have used a bigger pan, because the butter frothed and rose a lot higher than I anticipated
1:25
and overflowed out of the pan, spilling onto the open gas flame, which then started a little fire on my stove
1:30
which I thought would burn out, but it seemed to be getting worse, so I put it out using flour and created a huge mess
1:36
At least it made for a good story. This is what the brown butter looked like after cooking it, with lots of brown specks in it
1:43
You can strain it through a sieve if you don't want the flecks, but I like the colour and the flavour
1:48
so I left it as it was and put it in the fridge to cool and solidify, and then used it to make the cake
1:53
making a smaller batch than I'd originally intended, because I had less butter after losing some when it overflowed
1:58
but otherwise, following the steps of the recipe is normal. The batter was insanely delicious, so I was really excited about the final cake
2:06
I built my cake, with the browned butter cake representing the pastry of a pain au chocolat
2:11
and drizzling chocolate ganache between each layer to represent the chocolate in the middle of the pastry
2:17
I also used my 4-minute buttercream between the layers, piping it on and then spreading it so that it was nice and neat
2:23
Filming the process of frosting a cake takes forever, because I have to frost at a really unnatural angle
2:30
to get the interesting part in the camera, without having myself in the background
2:34
Sometimes I think it's fun to see the baker with the cake, but sometimes I think it's distracting from what you're trying to show
2:40
Anyway, I stand on one side of the cake to apply the frosting, and then run around to the other side to smooth it
2:46
so there's a lot of back and forth, which you can see in this sped-up version of me frosting the cake
2:51
You can see how I decorated the cake in my tutorial on this cake, and I've put the link in the screen and in the video description below
2:58
What I didn't show in the tutorial is this little cafe I tried to paint, but I hated it, so I ended up scraping it off
3:04
It's a good example of how it happens to me and every other cake decorator, whether they do it as a hobby or a profession
3:10
that decorations don't come out the way they envision. Here's a quick glimpse of the editing process. I took 39 video clips for the tutorial, and ended up using 28 of them
3:23
I trimmed down the clips to go from over 2 hours of footage to the typical length of my tutorials, which is between 7 and 10 minutes long
3:31
I wrote out a few bullet points about what I wanted to say about making the cake, and then recorded myself talking about it
3:39
Here's a secret. I don't have a fancy recording studio, I record the audio in my walk-in closet
3:44
The acoustics are better than anywhere else in the house, especially if I prop the microphone on a pile of clothes or towels to minimise the echoes
3:54
Not very glamorous, but it works! While the video was uploading to YouTube, it was time to eat the cake
4:00
Funny story, I found out at this moment that I was pregnant, because I suddenly felt really sick and couldn't eat my slice of cake
4:07
But after a few weeks, I was over the sickness, and ready to eat cake again
4:11
Crisis over. Come on, finish reversing. I'm trying to record what I want to tell you about behind the scenes, and there's a rubbish truck outside the window reversing
4:21
With a horn. Come on! Rubbish truck day. I hope you enjoyed this look behind the scenes
4:33
Please tell me what you think in the comments, and ask any questions you have about the process or life as a cake decorator
4:38
Thank you for watching
#Desserts
#Online Video