How nice it is to be small: you can do whatever you want, wake up when you want, and turn every day into a real holiday. And it is especially good to be a child, because for him any event becomes a truly enchanting event!
A bunch of guests come, everyone gives gifts, and there are a lot of delicious things on the table, including cake - the main childish joy. Being essentially not only a treat, but also a kind of prize for obedience and good behavior, the cake equally well decorates both name days and graduation from kindergarten and even New Year's celebrations.
But how to create such a treat so that the baby likes it? How to decorate a cake and what can be taken as its basis? Finally, what is needed in order to create not just a cake, but a whole work of art for a children's party?
What to take cakes?
It’s impossible to really surprise today’s children with store-bought cakes: they are too accustomed to “mediocrity” and want something more. And adults perceive store-bought sweets as an ordinary consumer product, and not the best treat in the world.
To create a really beautiful cake for a child, you can take purchased waffle cakes as a basis, and then decorate them, giving free rein to your imagination. You can also bake biscuit, shortbread, honey, protein shortcakes at home - the main thing is that the cooking process should be a joy to you.
Well, then you can take up the design work with a pure heart.
What cakes do kids love the most?
Of course, they are large - if only because a lot of all kinds of decorations are placed on them, which can later be eaten. And the fact that the children present at the holiday will not fight for one of the two cherries on the cake, if there are twenty of them, cannot be discounted either.
In addition, various small decorations are another reason to “spin” the baby to a rhyme or a song sung about a sweet that has come across.
No greasy
Remember that almost all adults love fatty creams, but not all children. They prefer condensed milk, nuts, chocolate, ice cream and fruits. Also in priority for any child are colored cakes doused with protein cream and decorated with bird's milk figurines.
Heroes matter!
When choosing figurines with which you will decorate a children's cake, remember that they should look like fairy-tale characters, bright cars, magic bows or flattering little animals. It is they who turn any treat into real magic on the table.
What is culinary mastic?
One of the most popular types of decorating children's cakes is mastic, which is divided into 3 types:
- sugar;
- floral;
- mexican pasta.
The principles of dividing it into types
Sugar is suitable for wrapping cakes and coating gingerbread and cakes. Floral mastic is used to create flowers and decorations on treats.
Finally, those who like to sculpt something truly magical for cakes use Mexican mastic.
Also, mastic can be both white and colored. True, the latter is much more expensive and it makes sense to make it yourself at home, simply painting it in the desired color during cooking.
How to make mastic with your own hands?
At home, you can easily prepare gelatin mastic and marshmallow paste. But since the first one is completely unsuitable for sculpting figures for children's (and not only) desserts, we will teach you how to cook the second one.
Recipe
- marshmallows: 100 grams;
- powdered sugar: 250 grams;
- starch: 90 grams;
- lemon juice: 1 tbsp. l.;
- butter: 1 tsp. l.
The Importance of Using Starch
If you have already seen similar recipes on the Internet, you probably noticed that some of them advise mixing marshmallows with powdered sugar without adding starch.
Be aware: such mastic turns out to be quite fragile and it will be quite difficult to work with it at home.
Step-by-step instruction
- First of all, you need to pour the marshmallows from the bag into the pan, then to melt it thoroughly.
- The pan should stand in a water bath. Be sure to stir the candy until it dissolves.
- Prepare the dye in advance if you want the mastic to be colored. It can be added to marshmallows during liquefaction.
- Mix the powder with starch, after sifting them. As soon as the marshmallow is melted, add the mixture to it so that the mass thickens.
- Put the mastic on a flat surface, sprinkled with powdered sugar and hands, greased in butter, knead the paste thoroughly so that it does not stick to your hands. Then wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
The nuances of cooking
- Grind the powdered sugar before kneading it into the melted marshmallow. Otherwise, the finished mastic for cakes will begin to tear.
- Keep an eye on the density of the resulting mixture, trying not to overdo it with the addition of powdered sugar and dye.
- Ready mastic is stored in the refrigerator for 4 months.
We decorate a children's cake using mastic
How to tighten the cork?
Before decorating the cake, you must cover the pre-prepared cake with mastic. To do this, roll it into a large cake right on the table, sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Make the cake large (with a margin of about 10 cm) so that when you cover the cake, you can do it evenly. Wrap the cake with rolled mastic.
Wait a few minutes, and then use a round pizza cutter to cut off "anything extra". Now the cake is really ready.
How to mold a figurine?
It's no secret that children on the cake most of all like figurines from children's cartoons. For example, Smeshariki or Fixiki.
Sculpt Nolik
- First, we will fashion a head for Nolik from mastic. To do this, we will form a small blue ball, dry it a little and make a hairstyle on the hero’s head.
- Cut out a circle from the mastic - exactly the size of the head, making its edges pointed. Now glue the “hair” to the head in several layers with glue. It will be convenient if you put it on a toothpick before that.
- Now "draw" the details of the face: mouth, nose and eyes - as shown in the photo.
- Let's leave Nolik's head alone so that it dries out, and at this time we will fashion his body, arms and legs.
- As a result, you should get a figure of a little man, which you will also fasten to a toothpick: it must pass through the leg of Nolik so that he rests on it.
- Attach the limbs to the torso, think over the details of the costume and put the head on the tip of the toothpick that sticks out of Nolik's neck. Powder your hair with kandurin (a special shimmering food pigment) to add shine - and the fairy-tale hero is ready!
Sculpt Smesharik Barash
Smeshariki are molded much easier, and all because they are round.
- In order to create this hero, you need to form a ball with a diameter of 4 cm (this is about 30 grams of mastic), leaving another 20 grams for details.
- When you make a few balls (depending on how many Smeshariki will be on your cake), let them all dry for 12 hours.
- When the mastic dries and stops deforming under your fingers, you can continue to work on fixing the small details of the cartoon Lamb.
- To mold this Smesharik, you must prepare not only legs and arms, but also funny curls. Dried, they can be attached to the hero's head with glue, and horns and ears can be placed on top of them.
- The final touch is the addition of a nose, mouth and eyes to Barash.
We sculpt figurines of Angry Birds
You will find another interesting master class on making a cake with figures from the popular game Angry Birds, molded from mastic, in the following video:
We decorate a cake for a child with cream
Many children love cakes decorated with an abundance of delicious cream, but you need to find out in advance whether they like protein or butter. So you not only do not upset the child, but also do not make a mistake in choosing the ingredients.
It is best if the cake cream is oily, because it holds its shape well. We will tell you how to cook it yourself.
Butter Cream Ingredients
- butter - 100 grams;
- condensed milk - 5 tbsp. l.
Beat the softened butter with a mixer until you get a fluffy mass for decoration. Enter condensed milk into it, without stopping whisking for a minute, so that the cream turns out to be magnificent.
How to decorate a cake with cream?
In order to create something truly beautiful on the cake and without mastic, you should use special tools for decorating cakes. We are talking about confectionery syringes with different nozzles.
Do you have such tools in your home arsenal? Dont be upset! Just fold a plain white sheet of paper into a bag and cut off the tip.
Hold the resulting bag tightly in your hands so that it does not turn around, and fill it to the top with cream. Now close the top of the sheet and, by clicking on it, boldly decorate the cake.
Decorating a children's cake with fruits
Fruits are a great decoration for children's birthday desserts. It is up to you to choose which ones you will use in the process.
Remember that with the help of fruits, you can not only completely lay the surface of the cake, but also create fabulous characters. So half a strawberry can become a cat's ears, and a whole berry can serve as eyes for her.
exotic
To make the fruit decoration look more exotic, you can put them on a chilled cake, and then dilute jelly or regular gelatin in water.
Then, picking up a wide brush, you need to apply the resulting mixture to the fruit and put the cake in the fridge.
The procedure for varnishing should be repeated again after 30 minutes. So the fruit on the cake will look much juicier, and the design itself will not fall apart during the cutting process.
Decorating a children's cake with icing
Recipe for making chocolate icing
If you decide to pour the sweetness with chocolate icing, you must first prepare it. To do this, use a mixer (at low speed) to knead the butter (melted) and cocoa powder.
Then you need to pour powdered sugar, warm milk into the mass and mix everything again. When the mixture becomes smooth, you need to add vanilla essence to it and salt a little.
Glaze technique
Place the cake on the turntable and use a professional icing spatula. Alternatively, use a wide knife. Use it to spread a little of the icing on the cake, unroll and pour the icing while moving over its surface.
Hold the knife or spatula strictly at an acute angle towards the surface. In this case, the thickness of the glaze is regulated by strengthening or weakening the pressing of the tool and changing the angle of inclination.
Making the coverage even
Remove the cake from the stand and level the frosting in one continuous, straight motion. Repeat the procedure if it didn't work the first time. Remove the rest of the decoration from the edges of the cake and let it dry for 2-3 hours. After the time has passed, apply the frosting to the sides of the cake as well.
Chocolate chips are a worthy alternative for the main dessert
This is the easiest and most affordable way to make a beautiful children's cake in a hurry. Moreover, there is chocolate or sweets in almost every home.
How to make it?
Grate the chocolate bar or just put it in a warm place for a while, and then cut off small chips from it with a knife: they will wrap under its pressure.
Decorating baby food
Now spread your hands curls on a flat plate and refrigerate. Sprinkle them over the cake as soon as they are well set.
Summing up
For most kids, the look of the cake is far more important than how the treat tastes. Therefore, in order for your child to be satisfied with the result, try to decorate the cake, taking into account his interests.
Cake is an important part of any children's party. If the choice is made in favor of a homemade dessert, the quality control of ingredients and freshness is ensured. To make the holiday a success, you need to think about how to decorate a children's cake so that it looks tempting, appetizing and interesting for kids.
How to decorate a children's cake for a girl
For a little or big princess, a cake is a dream about a fairy tale, and each has her own dream.
- The baby will be happy with a bright dessert with the characters of her favorite cartoons, with a flower and berry theme or an elegant and airy design of sweet lace and beads.
- An unforgettable impression will be made by a cake with a real doll. A luxurious crinoline dress is made from several biscuit cakes and multi-colored cream. The doll will need cling film "underwear" to fit it into the hole in the biscuit without any problems. A beautiful children's cake and a doll as a gift are a double joy for the birthday girl.
- An older girl may have interesting hobbies to play with when decorating dessert. For example, sculpt your favorite guitar or sports cups for a champion out of mastic.
Boy birthday dessert decoration
A cake for a son will not do without cars, sports themes, pirates or dinosaurs.
- It is important to take into account the interests and hobbies of the child; for a loving and attentive mother, this is not a problem. A child's hobby is the best theme for decorating a cake.
- Cartoon characters drawn or made from mastic are accepted with a bang.
- Restless boys are always happy to see a colorful candy bar. In it, you can treat yourself to a treat on the go, without interrupting the game. Small cupcakes that can be eaten without getting dirty decorate just as spectacularly as a large cake.
How to decorate a New Year's children's cake
New Year's cake should be not only tasty, not just beautiful, but also magically amazing.
In fairy tales, things often do not seem to be what they really are. Therefore, the cake can be turned into a Christmas tree, a cone, a snowman, a gift box, and so on.
- You can "build" an ice palace with biscuit towers, decorate it with a thin web of icing frost and snowdrifts of whipped cream.
- The simplest round cake will be transformed by festive attributes made of mastic or cream: Christmas tree branches, toys, red caps of Christmas gnomes, decorative socks for gifts, and more.
- The technique of "ice patterns" will successfully fit into the New Year's theme. You can draw individual snowflakes, or wrap the whole cake in a snow icing web.
Click Class
Tell VK
Previously, I didn’t really think about the cake for the holiday, I just went to the store and bought the one that I like or is pleasant for the price. But with the birth of a child, I began to look more closely at the compositions, and for some products I did not like this composition at all. I decided that I would bake a cake myself for all the holidays. I'm still doing fine with it, but there is a difficulty. And it lies in the fact that you want to serve a beautiful and elegant dessert.
But I don’t know how to make mastic, it’s not always possible to make friends with the right cream consistency, so I thought: how and how to decorate a cake at home. I decided to devote a separate article to this, the options I found turned out to be very beautiful.
Cakes such as the Count's ruins or the Rotten Stump are very convenient, because they become decorated and self-sufficient in the process of preparation. But not everyone knows how to make them or you want to diversify the tea menu. Then we bake a biscuit, mannik or sour cream and serve it to the table. But you can’t serve an ordinary cake to guests at an event, you need to bring it into a proper and elegant look. And then you start racking your brains to come up with something like that. Personally, I do this every children's birthday.
For myself, I singled out the main options for decorating:
- Berries
- Fruit
- Powdered sugar and coconut
- Chocolate, candies
- MmDeMs
- marshmallow
- Chocolate glaze
Somehow it doesn’t always work out with jelly, so I won’t consider this option.
And below we will take a closer look at step-by-step photos of decorating a cake with your own hands for a child.
Of course, these ingredients can be used separately, but they look richer and tastier all together.
Do you know that before decorating, the biscuit must be ripe for assembly? It should lie in the refrigerator for about 12 hours, and only then be divided into parts according to the cakes.
The cream can also be different, for example, you can make protein, oil, cream, cheese. By the way, for cheese cream, you can cook the cheese itself, I wrote about it recently.
How to decorate a cake with berries
With the onset of the summer season, we give the cake colors with fresh berries. When it's winter outside, take frozen ones for decoration, but look at those that retain their shape.
They can even be applied simply as a slide, the main thing is to create the effect that there are a lot of fruits. There is a feeling of Abundance.
Berries are suitable for any creativity, the contrast looks especially beautiful - red, blue and dark. If you have a children's birthday, then take pitted fruits, for example, blackberries, raspberries, victoria, currants.
You can lay them out in a semicircle, in several rows and sprinkle with cocoa and powdered sugar.
You can express the contrast or use only fruits of the same color, as in the photo.
You can use flowers or leaves to complete the picture, but each stem must be wrapped in cling film before sticking into the cake so that the cream does not turn sour.
How to decorate a cake with fruits
Fruit slices are used more often with the onset of cold weather, when fresh berries are not widely available.
It is better to decorate the cake with those fruits that do not turn black, for example, a banana is a very fragrant and soft product, but it can spoil the impression with its weathered appearance, so replace it with tangerines, kiwi, apricots, plums or peaches. Apples are also best placed in a fruit basket for the same reason.
Or cut only oranges with leaves or mint.
And here is another example of a cute palm tree from the most affordable fruits.
Simple and beautiful, and, most importantly, quite realizable!
How to decorate a cake with cream
But without cream flowers, where? After all, this material has many options for creating a picture, and quite simple ones that any hostess can repeat.
To add color to the cream, you can use juices: cherry, pomegranate, beetroot, carrot. But, you can buy food coloring, then you will have more choice.
If you do not have a confectionery syringe, then you can create its analogue from a sheet of parchment by folding it with a cone and cutting off the corner. You must have done this as a child, remember?
So there is a very simple way to decorate with a teaspoon and a confectionery syringe or replace it.
Squeeze a drop of cream from the syringe onto the side of the cake and grease its edge a little with a spoon and so on all over the side.
The photo shows a step-by-step principle of operation.
If you add his dye, then you can make an ombre effect, as shown below.
In this technique, you can make a fish cake by adding a few elements of mastic or berries.
Or you can simply run a knife or fork over the cream and create a texture.
How do you like the idea? I will definitely use it, it looks very elementary.
Ideas for decorating a cake with MmDeMsom
Here is an idea of multi-colored jewelry that broke my stereotypes. Not exactly useful, but how easy it is! If you lay them out in the colors of the rainbow or come up with your own list of colors and patterns.
And after all, you can just pour it on the cake in a chaotic manner, you can lay out a rainbow, you can choose only those colors that you need! And yes, there are many more options.
And you can cut a circle in the cake and pour sweets there, then the festive dessert will also be a surprise!
So it turns out a very bright design and looks very festive and fun. The kids will definitely love it.
There is an option for decorating the cake using chocolate tubes or Kinder chocolate.
Put the tube to the side along the perimeter of the cake, and pour sweets inside.
To reinforce the design, the cake is wrapped with ribbon so that the sweet fence does not fall apart.
Decorate the cake with powdered sugar
And I began to use stencils for decorating a cake a few years ago. Very simple, but how beautiful it turns out. Moreover, I did not buy stencils, but simply transferred the drawing I liked to thick paper. It seemed to be the moisture-resistant side of the tea box. I cut everything with a clerical knife and still use it.
Some of my familiar homemade templates are laminated. Then he shook off the powdered sugar or cocoa from them and removed them.
They are put on the cake and sprinkled with powder.
It is advisable to choose a closed ornament that is easy to cut. Below are the design options with powdered sugar and cocoa.
And once I saw the process of decorating the cake with powder, too, but using a napkin.
It turned out very nice! Lace and ornamentation stood out strongly against the black glaze. I didn't even need cream.
Ideas for decorating a cake with chocolate
There are lovers of chocolate cake decor. And it also seems to me that melted chocolate will add zest and extra flavor to the dessert. If you do not have enough melted chocolate, then you can pour only the top of the cake, create an imitation of drops at the end. As in the photo, it turned out pretty nice. And, most importantly, I didn’t have to invent anything extra - everything is natural!
It is important here not to smear this drop on the side of the cake.
How to do this is shown below step by step. Before decorating the cake, you need to cool it down a lot and take the cooled icing, which will already harden in the process.
Apply a little glaze around the perimeter and start pushing to the edge with a spatula.
The icing will have time to harden as it flows down the cold side of the cake.
Another way to use chocolate is to grate chips from a chocolate bar with a blade or knife. This option looks beautiful with a contrasting white cream.
It is also a great idea to decorate with chocolates, bars, long wafers covered with chocolate icing and everything that can be doused with chocolate, but have different shapes.
You can use sweets and more expensive, such as Raffaello or assorted.
How to decorate a cake at home with step by step photos
I give a variant of decoration with cream and strawberries. This option is always obtained, even if the cream turned out to be thicker. And strawberries in general are always a welcome guest on a birthday cake.
So, after your biscuit is prepared, we cut it into cakes. We coat each cake with cream and collect the cake.
The top edge needs to be cut off a little to get a flat surface.
You need to start smearing with cream from the sides, you need to apply a little cream, evenly spread it over the cakes with a spatula.
The cream must be pre-cooled, because as it cools, traces of a spatula or spoon remain on it.
Then, around the circumference, we squeeze out the pampochki from the syringe, and put the same large strawberries in the middle.
The whole decorating process will take about fifteen minutes. And even bumps on the cream can be turned into decoration.
At your discretion, you can add marshmallow pieces, a couple of sweets, for example, chocolate-covered peanuts or marmalade.
I really hope that the options I have analyzed will greatly help some busy mothers and housewives to quickly and beautifully cope with the preparation of a festive dessert and collect rave reviews from guests.
tweet
Tell VK
Without a birthday cake, it is impossible to imagine any significant event. At the same time, not only kids, but also adults are happy with the dessert. A beautiful cake can turn from a traditional treat into a highlight of a child's birthday. In addition, one of the memorable magical traditions is associated with the cake: blowing out candles and making a cherished wish.
Which cake to choose for a child's birthday
For a boy, you can arrange a cake according to the following ideas:
- characters of computer games or cartoons. You can make them using mastic (they will be voluminous) or a waffle picture printed on a special printer. If you have the gift of an artist, then you can depict the main character of the birthday cake yourself using icing, melted chocolate and multi-colored jelly. For sculpting characters, dense colored mastic is also used;
- Cars are considered the most popular motives for future defenders. To do this, a biscuit is baked, which, after cooling, is cut into the shape of a car, smeared with cream, and covered with mastic on top. Wheels can be made from any round cookie.
A birthday cake for a girl is not just a treat, but a real work of art. What is the lady's favorite? Jewelry, Barbie dolls and lots of pink. Therefore, the options for decorating a cake for a girl can be:
- lace and openwork patterns made of icing, sugar glaze and a large chocolate bow;
- for an older lady, it is necessary to use mastic figurines as decoration: perfumes, lipsticks, shoes and jewelry;
- and, of course, the most popular design option is the Barbie Doll cake, where a plastic toy is placed in the center of the cake, and a biscuit that plays the role of a dress is decorated with bows, lace and beads.
DIY birthday cake
We offer several recipes for different age categories.
For 1 year
Technological process:
Using this technology, make several layers until the cream runs out. Chopped fruits can be added to the layer. Sprinkle biscuit crumbs on top of the children's cake.
Cake "Rainbow" (from 2 years and older)
Necessary components for cakes:
- flour - 300 g;
- baking powder - 2 tsp;
- salt - a pinch;
- softened butter - 110 g;
- vanilla extract - 1 tsp;
- milk - 190 ml;
- sugar - 2 g;
- protein - 3 pcs.
Cream Ingredients List:
- protein - 4 pcs;
- sugar - 200 g;
- softened butter - 200 g;
- juice of half a lemon or lime.
Cooking time: up to 2 hours.
Calories: 370 kcal.
Technological process:
- Preheat the oven to 180C. In a dry bowl, mix baking powder with flour;
- In a deep bowl, beat softened butter with sugar. While continuing to beat, pour in the vanilla extract and add the proteins one at a time;
- Next, gradually add flour. Mix;
- Pour in the milk and stir until smooth.
- Divide the finished dough into 7 parts and paint each in a bright rainbow color;
- Bake each cake separately;
- While the colored cakes are cooling, start preparing the cream: pour the whites into a saucepan, add sugar and beat over low heat until the sweet crystals dissolve;
- Pour the heated proteins into a container with high sides. At high speed, beat the mass until it cools completely and obtains an elastic and dense mass;
- Next, set the mixer to medium speed and continuing to beat gradually, add oil;
- When the mixture becomes homogeneous, again increase the speed and beat for another 10 minutes until the mass becomes very dense. Pour in lime juice;
- Lubricate the cakes with the resulting cream, as well as the top and sides of the cake.
It is desirable to decorate a festive delicacy with bright Emendams sweets. Send to the refrigerator for 4 hours to impregnate and solidify the cakes.
Cake "Barbie Doll"
To prepare this holiday treat, you can use the recipe of the previous cake, but the design will be completely different.
Doll skirt assembly technology:
- Wrap the legs of the toy with foil and put aside;
- Take a vase for sweets (small size) cover with a plastic bag and start assembling the skirt;
- Grind cookies or cake into crumbs and mix with cream. Fill the vase with the resulting composition, tamp tightly, level the surface and put it in the refrigerator for an hour to solidify;
- After turning the vase over and carefully lay out the future skirt;
- Place the doll in the center of the skirt and carefully transfer it to the surface of the main cake;
- Before decorating the dress, it is necessary to cover it with cream so that the decor does not fall off and is securely fixed;
- You can decorate the doll's outfit with different nozzles. For example, nozzles "shell", "asterisk" or "petal";
- As an additional decor, you can use edible beads, chocolate patterns, bows, butterflies. In general, use everything that fantasy tells you. You can also make a necklace around the doll's neck with cream. The finished cake should only be stored in the refrigerator so that at the crucial moment the doll does not fall and spoil the holiday for the little birthday girl.
How and how to decorate cakes for children
Before you find out what details and sweets to decorate the cake with, you need to figure out the composition of the holiday treat. The recipe directly depends on the age of the birthday person.
For example, on the first anniversary, you need to choose those foods that you can eat crumbs. The cake should contain a moderate amount of sugar and eggs.
In this case, cottage cheese puree (filling) and crushed cookies (base) will be a suitable option. Experienced mothers prepare mannik, and to give it a festive look, decorate it with fruits and pour yogurt over it.
Children from two years old can make a cake based on the taste preferences of the birthday person. For example, cottage cheese, chocolate, fruit or vanilla.
As for the cakes, you can choose sour cream, biscuit, honey, with the addition of fruit or chocolate chips. As a layer, yogurt, butter or custard is suitable.
There are many technologies for decorating the main dessert of a children's holiday - it can be custard, protein, mastic, icing, marzipan, jelly. However, the most popular and, as it turned out, the easiest way to decorate a cake are fruits, sweets, dragees and small chocolate bars.
Children especially love it when a festive dessert is decorated with multi-colored emends. These small chocolates are attached to the icing or added to the cream.
The decor of fresh fruits and berries will also look original. For a glossy surface, it is customary to cover them with jelly, or you can just sugarcoat them. Children are no less interested in leaves and flowers made from cream, butter or protein cream.
If you decide to decorate a children's cake with chocolate, you will only win. This ingredient cannot spoil any delicacy. Chocolate can be used to make patterns, inscriptions, swirls, icing, flowers, leaves and various designs.
What is a holiday without guests, gifts and cake? Boring! A holiday is a holiday for having fun, chatting, dancing and pampering yourself with all sorts of delicious treats! If you know how to bake cakes and make delicious creams, this is already half the battle. Today we will look at options on how to decorate a cake at home.
How to decorate a cake at home?
How to decorate a cake at home with cream
First of all, you need to deal with the question of what kind of cream is ideal for decorating confectionery. There are not many of them:
- oil;
- protein;
- creamy.
The basis of the butter cream is butter, with a fat content of at least 82%. You can also use condensed milk or powdered sugar to make the cream. As for the proportions, when preparing butter cream with condensed milk, it is necessary to take into account the consistency of the milk itself. Very often, experienced confectioners use boiled condensed milk, it is denser and ensures the stability of the cream. To give the decor the desired shade, it is more advisable to use liquid food coloring.
In butter cream you can also add cocoa powder or chocolate melted in a water bath. This technology is ideal for decorating chocolate biscuits and cupcakes.
Protein cream - one of the capricious. Its preparation will require patience and endurance from you. For decorating cakes, custard protein cream is used, the preparation of which takes place in three stages:
- Pour ¼ cup of clean water into a saucepan and add 6 tablespoons of sugar. Put on the fire and cook the syrup for 3-5 minutes after boiling (checking readiness is easy enough - dip a spoon into the syrup and raise it so that the finished syrup flows down - if the thread is thick and continuous, your syrup is ready);
- put 3 cold egg whites in a clean and dry bowl and beat with a mixer until a thick white foam (to get stable peaks, you can add 3-4 drops of lemon juice or a pinch of citric acid);
- Continuing to beat, pour the prepared sugar syrup into the whites in a thin stream and beat the resulting mass for another 1-2 minutes. At this stage, the necessary flavors and dyes can be added to the cream.
The finished cream is also applied to the cake using a pastry syringe and nozzles. The capriciousness of the cream lies in the fact that overcooked or undercooked sugar syrup will cause the flowers and patterns from the cream to lose their shape very quickly. And the overcooked syrup will add bitterness to the cream. To thicken the protein cream, you can use agar-agar (this is a natural product that is safe for children and adults).
To prepare butter cream, you will need fatty confectionery cream (at least 32% fat) and powdered sugar. Cream is also a rather capricious ingredient. Before whipping, it is necessary to cool not only them, but also the container in which you will whip the cream, as well as the whisks of the mixer. The observance of time when whipping the cream also plays an important role, a common mistake of novice cooks is over-whipped cream. Cold cream is whipped with powdered sugar until stiff peaks are obtained. If you doubt that the cream will not lose its shape within 12-24 hours, you can add a special thickener to it, which is sold in almost any supermarket. Butter cream can also be given any shade, but the classic option for decorating cakes with cream is the white color of the cream.
How to decorate a cake at home with mastic
Today, confectionery products decorated with mastic figures are very popular. It is also worth clarifying here that there are two options making mastic:
- sugar;
- marshmallow.
The first option is more time consuming, but guarantees the stability and strength of your figures and flowers. By the way, almost every one of us has come across such figures and flowers - they are sold as decor for Easter cakes. Sugar and marshmallow mastic are sold ready-made, but you can also make them yourself.
To make sugar paste you will need:
- 80 ml of water;
- 7 g of instant gelatin;
- 15-20 g of soft butter;
- 2 tablespoons of glucose (fructose);
- 1 kg of powdered sugar.
Gelatin must be prepared in advance. To do this, fill it with cold water and set aside for 30-40 minutes, then heat the mass until the gelatin is completely dissolved (but do not boil!). Add butter and glucose to hot gelatin, mix until smooth and refrigerate. If you want to give the mastic any shade, then the dye must be added to the hot gelatin. Powdered sugar is added to the mass only after complete cooling. It is necessary to knead the mastic like dough for dumplings (sprinkle the table with powdered sugar and knead the mass until the mastic stops absorbing the powder).
For the preparation of marshmallow mastic you will need chewing marshmallows (marshmallows), powdered sugar, a little butter. Marshmallows must be heated in a microwave or in a water bath until they increase by 1.5-2 times (a piece of butter must be added to a container with marshmallows before heating). Stir the enlarged sweets, add dyes and, adding powdered sugar, knead the mass similar in consistency to plasticine. This mastic is used to cover cakes and create various figures.
You can decorate the cake with fresh or canned fruit, grated chocolate, coconut flakes.
