Thursday, July 11, 2013

Cake Decorating Basics: Easy Ruffle Cake

Ruffle-covered cakes are very popular right now. The problem with a lot of them is just the amount of time it takes to do them.

This strawberry-banana ruffle cake is much easier than most. For this 2-layer 6" round cake, I spent less than half an hour piping the decoration.

What You Need:
6-8" Round Cakes (2-3 layers)*
Buttercream Icing**
Piping Bag fitted with Tip #21

*I used my Banana Cake Recipe. You could also use Cake Mix Made to Taste Like Homemade.
**I used my favorite Strawberry Buttercream Recipe (with some red food coloring added to make it a little darker). You can find all of my Icing Recipes Here.


Bake the cakes, cool them, and level the top. (If you're new to this, many helpful Basic Tutorials are listed at the end of this post.)

Make the Icing... The Strawberry Buttercream really is my favorite, ever, but most buttercream icings would work just fine here.

Stack the cakes, with a layer of buttercream in the center.

Coat the cake with a thin layer of icing. It's okay if it's a little messy. You just need this layer in case your ruffles (shells) are a little too far apart, then you won't be able to tell if your cake underneath is the same color!

To make the easy 'ruffle,' you add shells all around the cake, being careful to try to alternate where the top, fatter part, of the shell and the thinner tail of the shell go.
To make a shell, you use an open star tip, like Tip #21 that I used here.
Hold the bag parallel to the side of the cake, with the tip almost touching. Squeeze and move the tip back gently into the icing to create the fatter part, slowly move the tip along the surface about 1/2-inch, relaxing your squeeze as you go to create a tail. Start the next shell ruffle about 1/4-inch from the previous tail.

You do the same along the top in rings as you move toward the center.

Dig in!

Click the Links Below to See:
Basic Cake Decorating Techniques and Ideas
How to Cover a Cake with Icing
What You Need to Get Started in Cake Decorating  

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4 comments:

  1. This looks absolutely delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. this is an awesome way to make use of left over products. loved it truley!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Beki, i tried your strawberry buttercream recipe, it tastes very good. But i lives in tropical climate with 30c most days. The buttercream was very soft after i mix in the soft butter and cant pipe out proper shape. How i should overcome that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The strawberry icing can get soft, but it should still hold its shape.
      I would check two or three things.
      1- Use a little less strawberry. See if that helps keep it stiffer.
      2- Make sure the butter isn't too soft before you add it. If the butter is really soft, when you add it to the hot egg whites, it gets super, duper soft.
      3- Mix it longer. Sometimes if you stop mixing too early, it will be softer. See if you can mix it another minute or two and get it to stiffen up a little.

      Good luck!!
      - Beki

      Delete

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