Hi! I am Sandy Sheppard, a master cake decorator, and now that I have got my cake crumb coated, I am going to show you how to ice your cake. Normally, when I crumb coat my cake, I let it set for at least an hour, so that it is dry to the touch, and it has sealed in those crumbs nicely, so that when I ice it, it won't pull that icing off again, or pull those crumbs back to the surface.
I have got my icing and my angled spatula. The first thing I do, and this always freaks out my students, is I put a large amount of icing on top of the cake. Now, it's not going to all stay on the cake, but it makes it easier, when you are icing a cake, if your pushing icing and not reaching the cake. So, I have got a nice pile of icing on the cake, and I am going to start pushing it, and as you see, it will go near the edge and right on down the edge of the cake. I am just going to smooth it out, and push that gently right on down around the side, until I have got the top of the cake covered.
Now, I am going to work on the sides of the cake. I'll use some of that icing that is hanging over the edge, as well as adding on a little bit more and I am just going to push that icing along. Now, I don't know if you can see this, but I am actually holding my spatula to slight angle to the cake not flat to the surface, but at an angle, so that I can push that icing, and that gives the room for the icing to move along in front of the spatula. Whenever you start to run out of icing in front of your spatula, make sure to stop and reload it, and add it on. Yes, you are thinking I haven't taken off any of that icing I told you I would, just give me a minute here.
Okay. I should probably use my bigger turntable, that's alright. I don't want to see a shadow on my cake when I am decorating it, and this is what I call a shadow, when part of the cake shows through that icing. All you need to do to correct that, is go back and add a little bit more icing in that place, before you start to smooth out your icing.
Alright, I am going to start now smoothing the icing that I have got on the cake, because I have got it all spread on there fairly nice. I start at the edge opposite myself, and pull it across the top. I am going to turn my little turntable around and continue that. Little crumb manages to get to the top. Now, I am working with chocolate cake, and chocolate is the most crummiest cake, it's also the yummiest cake. Alright, and I am just taking a hold of that icing and bring it around, until I get a nice smooth top to the cake. I am going to clean up this icing a little bit around the bottom. Oops! I miss the bottom edge there even. Let's pull that icing down to the bottom edge as well.
Once I have got the icing on the side of the cake then I want to smooth it, and this is simply done by turning your turntable, and pulling along. Do you see this big pile of icing I have got on the side of my bowl? All of that has come back off of the cake. So, even though I put a lot on to begin with, now I am taking a good bit of it off. Anytime your spatula starts to get a good bit of icing on it, that's the time to scrape it off, so you won't go too far.
Now, I am just cranking it back across the top, because that kind of, sometimes forms a little crust at the top edge, and I am pulling that back towards the center to smooth it again. So that it all blends in. Now, I worked at a local bakery for many years, and to them, that was a finished iced cake they were ready to decorate it, but that's not quite the way I wanted it to look. First of all, I got a couple of more shadows here, I noticed I scraped my icing off; I pulled it a little too thin. I wanted those to get nicely covered. There is a dark chocolate crumb sticking right there in the cake, let's get that out of the way.
A lot of times when you decorate a cake, you can cover up crumbs. So, if you get just a couple of little errant crumbs, you could probably ignore them. Alright and I am going to re-smooth that and there we go. Now my favorite technique works only with the type of an icing that dries to the touch, like mine does. It takes at least five minutes to let it dry. So, I will show you that technique on another video, but this is how to ice a cake smooth with a spatula.
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