My cake decorating advice

2019-03-13 Today we will delight not only the palate but the eyes! Food must be not only tasty but attractive, especially dessert! So let's take a look at how to decorate a cake.

Cake decorating is the cherry on the icing! Not only because cake is normally the perfect conclusion to a delicious meal, but above all because it must be just as good as the courses that went before it and leave a good taste in your mouth. And of course as a photographer, I'm naturally inclined to pay special attention to the way food looks.

So here is some advice to keep in mind when decorating your dessert, whether it be a pie or a layer cake like this one that I made on SapienStone's “Brown Earth” countertop, with its colour and texture that set off the decoration on the cake, as you can see.

1.- Bear in mind the flavours you are going to include in your cake, and make sure they go with the colours you use to decorate it..
For example, if you plan to decorate the cake with dark or milk chocolate, choose flavours that go with chocolate. In this case, I chose to combine chocolate with berries. Or you can match your flavours to your colours; brown chocolate and powder pink frosting made with red berries are the perfect combination, very romantic!

2.- Always try to use elements in your decoration that suggest the flavours in the dessert, which will be discovered when eating it. Fresh or dried fruit makes a perfect topping when there's fruit in the filling or in the frosting itself, as in this case. As you can see, I have used berries to decorate this layer cake.

3.- I always use natural fresh flowers to decorate my cakes. Flowers are living things that add a touch of elegance, warmth, texture and colour; choose flowers of the most appropriate colour and size for your dessert. In this case, I have used chrysanthemums that match the colour of the buttercream frosting and white flowers in two different sizes: a smaller hortensia and a larger lisianthus or prairie gentian, always incorporating a touch of green.

4.- When decorating a layer cake, bear in mind the kind of event you are decorating it for/u>.
If it is a formal event such as a wedding, cover the whole cake with fondant, meringue or buttercream, depending on how formal the ceremony will be.

For an informal gathering, decorate your cake with buttercream, frosting or meringue, and remember that you can cover it all, leave the layers in view, to create a Naked Layer Cake, or, to simplify things, just do as I have done here, leaving two layers only half-covered, in what is called a SemiNaked Layer Cake, which is more casual and rustic.

This advice will hopefully be of use to you the next time you find yourself decorating a cake! The recipe and step-by-step directions for this dessert may be found on Virginia's blog, “SweetandSour”

Virginia Martin – Sweet & Sour
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