The Art of Cake Icing

Home baking is a rewarding pastime. The satisfaction of following a recipe, mixing ingredients together and producing a tray of steaming chocolate muffins or a perfectly moist cake, is a wonderful feeling. While your freshly baked goods may not always look picture perfect, the enjoyment when someone takes a bite out of your creation is enough praise for any home baker.

For some, though, icing a cake is serious business. In the professional world of cake decorating, icing plays an integral role in the finished product; one simply cannot decorate a cake properly without icing.

One of the earliest recordings of an icing recipe dates back to 1573. It was a rudimentary formula of sugar, rose water and rice flour. The term 'icing' is thought to stem from the ice-like shine produced by the rose water and sugar glaze. Fast forward a couple of centuries and icing methods have become much more complex.

Nowadays icing not only involves covering the cake, but also, accessorizing the cake to match whichever theme the cake maker has chosen or has been asked to use. This may include buying edible accessories to match the theme, or possibly making such accessories by hand.

Making these accessories is an intricate job that requires painstaking focus and skill. All manner of objects or items can be made, such as small birds, golf clubs and musical instruments, etc. The maker needs to have a steady hand as well as be precise. There are different kinds of icing to suit different requirements, for example a soft icing is ideal for covering or writing on a cake. Medium icing is better used for decorative borders as it holds its shape more than soft icing. Finally a stiff icing is used to make decorative accessories.

From a design perspective, the decorator needs to be aware of things like colour schemes and patterns. This means that the creative process involves both planning and physically making the design come to life. A good decorator can even consider a career in icing. Professional cake decorating companies generally have a wide range of design templates for cakes, but are often asked to create a cake with a personal touch for specific people, as a result they need to be able to adapt designs and customise them accordingly.

Professional cake decorators sometimes spend anything from one to three days labouring over a cake as their livelihood depends on it looking perfect; anything less will just not do.

Source : Ezinearticles