Helpful hints to consider when making icing and icing a cake.

1. First and most importantly you have to bake a perfect cake. My last post gave you all you need to know to bake the perfect cake. One more thing to consider when you grease and flour the cakes is to stay clear of using butter as a greasing material. Butter, which contains water, begins to melt when you bake the cake. The result is you have a cake with a moist, soggy bottom. I use Butter Crisco only. But you could use vegetable shortening if you prefer. The Butter Crisco taste very good though I suggest you try it.

2. Do not over or under cook the cake.
3. After the cake comes out of the oven, make sure that you shift onto the wire racks for about 15 minutes to cool off completely.
4. Before using any frosting, ensure that the cake is completely cooled.
5. When you fill the layers, make sure that the icing ?ring? is a half inch from the border, around the cake. You can fill that ring with fruit, icing, mouse or tasty custard.
6. Use a large decorator bag 20 inch and a large icing tip. The size and the uniformity of the icing are dependent on how the pressure and the grip of the decorating bag. Use a firm pressure so that you have approximately ¼ inch of icing all around the cake as you move your turntable with your left hand.
7. Put a top and bottom border on your cake so that the decoration looks complete.
8. To color your icing decorations use paste or gel colors. They are very vibrant and you need very little for the right color. Liquid colors thin out your icing and you need a lot for dark colors.
9. For colors, note that cane sugar in icing has the ability to hold the color longer compared to beet sugar, but beet sugar taste better.
10 . Also the powdered food color makes for a fantastic cake decorating idea using it in powder form to dust tips of roses or using cookie cutters as a stencil and filling in with the powder color. This way the cake looks pleasant while retaining the color because it does not soak into the cake and disappear.
11. If your cake is going to be exposed to the elements in summer, like heat and humidity, add some meringue powder to the icing mix. This will make it more stable with out affecting the flavor.
12. If you want to store your cake for some time, you can do so by freezing before icing the cake up to three months with a good quality aluminum foil then place in a freezer zipper storage bag, but you should thaw it to room temperature before decorating.
13. If making chocolate icing with powder cocoa, use a good quality and add it into the powdered sugar before adding it to the mixer. This will help blend the chocolate with ease.
14. Make sure that your butter and shortening as well as your liquids are at room temperature. This will make blending much easier as you make your icing.
15. Blend on medium speed after you cream your butter and shortening. If you use medium speed while adding the sugar you will have less bubbles in the icing when you are finished.

Well that is all I can think of at the moment. I hope this will be a good resource for you while learning or improving your decorating skills.

Please let me know if there was something you were having trouble with and I will be glad to help.

Happy decorating!