Cake Decorating: The Basics

I've always been interested in baking, but let's just say I'm not the best decorator and I maybe once made buttercream that separated, melted off the cupcakes and was a buttery mess all over my kitchen.

I decided this is a skill I wanted to improve on and thus here we are, writing about putting pretty decorations on cakes.

For the cake, I choose a simple chocolate recipe that I had made many times before. I also wanted to choose a simple buttercream for frosting and piping, so I choose a recipe from the book I am reading for this IRP, "Step-By-Step Cake Decorating," because it stated, "Basic vanilla buttercream frosting...ideal for crumb-coating... and piping onto cupcakes," (Sullivan, 24). I knew it would be simple but still taste amazing and work well for what I wanted to do, which was crumb-coating and piping. Have any of you tried crumb-coating a cake before? Did it make a noticeable difference in your decorating?

I learned the process of crumb-coating a cake through this book. Sullivan claims, "Crumb-coating is like adding primer to a wall before painting it. It helps ensure a perfect finish for frosting or fondant-covered cakes," (29). This technique worked pretty well, however I did not let it sit as long enough as I should have, so it did not have that picture perfect finish I intended. I will make sure to follow this more closely in the future to have neater cakes.


I used one of the book's suggested borders to create a "rosette border" around the top of the cake and a "shell border" around the base. I did the shell border wrong at first, but when I went to re-read what it said, the book stated to let the buttercream fan out and then drag the tip down (Sullivan, 76).

Overall, my cake decorating wasn't the most professional, but it was a simple base-line to see the areas I can improve on. I will make sure to follow the book's recommendations more thoroughly for my next cake!