Beginner’s Guide to Baking and Cake Decorating

by | Apr 3, 2024 | Cake Basics | 0 comments

Being able to bake and decorate a cake is, in my opinion, one of the most impressive skills.

I’m not going to lie; it will require some dedication and patience, but believe me, it will be worthwhile in the end.

Baking and cake decorating cannot be rushed, so make sure you have enough time and at least two days to bake and decorate a cake so that it doesn’t seem overwhelming.

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In this blog post, you’ll learn how to:

  • Bake a cake
  • Build a cake
  • Decorate a cake

Let’s get started.

1. Baking a Cake

When it comes to baking a cake, you have some options.

  • Box Cake 
  • Scratch Cake (your own recipe or someone else’s)

There are thousands of recipes out there for you to choose from. 

Depending on your dietary restrictions and preferences, choose one that works for you. 

If you don’t like making cakes from scratch and prefer to use box cakes, they are a great option.

Box cakes are quick and easy, and they always come out moist. 

Baking tips for scratch cakes:

  • The more room-temperature the wet ingredients are, like your eggs, milk, and butter, the better they will cream together. 
  •  If you want to know the accurate temperature of your oven, get an oven thermometer. Every oven is different. 
  • When mixing the butter and sugar, be sure to let it beat for at least five-eight minutes, or until it’s light in color and fluffy. 

Read: Cake Pan Preparation: A Key to Flawless Baking

Now while your cake is baking, or even cooling you can start on making the buttercream.

I recommend using an easy buttercream recipe like American buttercream instead of using canned frosting.

It tastes so much better, and you can add flavor to it. 

Grab your buttercream class, where I will guide you through the steps of making buttercream from scratch.

–>Buttercream Course HERE<–

2. Building a Cake

Next, it’s time to level the cake layers.

You may notice a dome at the top of your cake after it’s baked.

This needs to be trimmed so that the cake is level and straight especially when you start filling it with buttercream and stacking the layers. 

Learn more about leveling here: How to Level Cake Layers 

Now that you have your cake layers leveled, it’s time to start building your cake. 

Building a cake involves four steps:

  1. Leveling (which we covered already)
  2. Filling and stacking 
  3. Crumb coating
  4. Smoothing

Here are some tools I recommend when building a cake:

For a complete list of cake tools read: 9 Must-Have Tools to Decorate a Cake

Filling a cake with buttercream or other runny fillings, such as strawberry topping, can be a challenge.

Be careful not to overfill your cake layers with filling; this will cause them to slide and leave you with a big mess.

Trust me, I have had it happen to me before. 

I’ve had a cake oozing out raspberry filling.

I was able to save it, but I don’t want that to happen to you.  

Watch this short to see how I fill an stack my cake layers:

Now that the cake has been filled and stacked, we may proceed with the crumb coating.

A crumb coat is a thin layer of icing that locks in the crumbs.

This is to prevent the crumbs from appearing on the outer layer of frosting. 

It may seem like an extra step, but it’s important because:

  • It sets the foundation for your cake design.
  • Ensures the layers are aligned and straight. 
  • The buttercream and cake are set and ready for the top coat and/or design.

Learn more about crumb coating in this post: How to Crumb Coat a Cake

Now that your cake is crumb-coated, it’s time for the last step in the cake-building process, which is smoothing. 

Smoothing buttercream on a cake is similar to crumb coating, but instead of adding a thin layer of icing, it will be thicker, so it can take a bit longer to smooth. 

Here are some tips when it comes to smoothing a cake and how to hold the icing smoother:

  •  At an angle, this is how it will look against the cake. 
  • Gently—don’t apply too much pressure. You don’t want to scrape too much off. 
  • Still, let the scraper and turntable do the work for you. 
  • Straight: if the scraper is crooked, the icing will be uneven. It should be flush against the cake.

Okay, now that you know how to hold the icing smoother, let’s get into smoothing the cake.

Read more about smoothing below:

How to Frost a Smooth Cake 

How to get Smooth Buttercream Edges

3. Decorating a cake

Now that you’ve baked, and built your cake, it’s time to decorate. 

I have a few tutorials on my blog and YouTube channel that you can choose from.

I listed a few below you can try:

How to Make a Melting Ice Cream Cone Cake

How to Make a Garden Flower Pot cake

How to Make a Leopard Print Stencil Cake

Want to stay connected? You can find me @heavenmycake on Instagram and across all social platforms. Share your creations with me.

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