BAKING PROJECT

Piping gel is another ingredient that you can use to make interesting pictures on cakes. Most of my visitors who are in the cake business is already an expert in this technique. However, for the sake of some newbies, I’ve decided to document my project this morning using piping gel.Take note that I am also still learning, so forgive me if the end result is not that good.

Ok, first of all decide what you want to draw on the cake. You can pipe directly on the cake or like me, trace it. I take a baking sheet and trace the picture that I like.

Then I transfer the paper onto my cake. Before that I have covered the cake with fondant and leave it to dry overnight. You can also cover the cake with icing but make sure it is cool in the fridge and the icing has hardened a little.

To trace the picture, I use a toothpick and prick some holes along the pencil line. Remove the paper and you will see the dotted lines on your cake. Now, draw the outline. I use melted chocolate for this and pipe it using a paper piping bag. You need a steady hand for this.

Leave that to dry.

Colour your clear piping gel. I use my gel colouring, you can also use the usual liquid colouring. This is how the clear gel looks like.

Spoon the coloured gel into the paper piping bag, snip the end and fill in the outlines.

That’s all there is to it, actually. Apart from the paper piping bag, I also used a small artist brush to touch up and blend the colours together. My finished picture :

I’m using a dummy cake here, so for the finishing touch, I just tied a ribbon at the bottom of the cake.

I think this is one of the easiest cake decorating technique. I’m hoping with a little more practice I can make finer piping for the outline. The important thing is the consistency – you have to make sure the icing or melt chocolate you are using is soft, if it is too thick the lines will break and you will have big bulbs. It has to be smooth and thin so you can glide easily to trace the outline. Filling in the gel is easy and I’m sure you will not encounter any problem.

Well , I hope this article has been useful. Cheerio !

Update 16th May, 08 – click here for more ideas on decorating with piping gel.