We are in a time where spending most of our days at home is the new norm. While practicing social distancing and trying to prevent the spread of COVID, picking up a new hobby would be a great idea! 

If you’re thinking of learning how to bake and decorate your very own cakes, we’ve got some tips to help you. Here are five useful tips for beginner bakers on how to perfect their cake decorating skills!

Keep your cakes fresh

Image Source: Completely Delicious

Ever spent way too many hours baking and simply can’t finish decorating it in the same day? Freeze your cakes to keep them fresh! Wrap your cakes in cling wrap and store them in the freezer. This will help retain freshness and keep your cakes moist. Besides that, freezing your cakes also makes frosting easier as the cake would have hardened and will not crumble as much.

Freezing your cakes can keep them fresh for long periods of time. You can bake multiple batches of cake, store them and decorate them some other day! 

Level your cakes

Image Source: The Polka Dotter

Cakes tend to develop an uneven, bumpy surface during the baking process. Those bumps may make it very difficult for you to create a neat looking design. For a smooth and clean look, you should definitely level your cakes! Using a cake leveller, or simply a knife and a ruler, can help you achieve even layers of cake which will make stacking the layers and frosting them so much easier.

What’s great about this is that you can snack on the cake trimmings or make yummy cake pops out of it with some chocolate and leftover frosting!

Apply a crumb coat

Image Source: Pinterest

If you’ve ever tried to frost a cake simply by slathering a thick layer of frosting right on the cake, you’ll find specks of cake crumbs mixed into the frosting, creating a rough and textured look. A crumb coat prevents that. Functioning as a base coat, the crumb coat is a thin layer of frosting that is spread over the cake first, locking in any cake crumbs so that the second, thicker coat won’t have any.

For a smooth and clean finish, always refrigerate between your layers of frosting to allow each layer to harden before adding another layer!

Invest in some piping bags and tips

Image Soure: Cakes by Lynz

There are endless ways you can decorate a cake. A great place to start is with piping bags and tips! You can create a huge variety of different designs with just a few piping tips. Using piping bags can help keep your workspace clean and controlled as well. Explore your creative side and create different flowers, ruffles and so much more!

Fresh fruits are your best friends!

Image Source: Pinterest

For some bright bursts of colour and extra flavours, top your cake off with some fresh fruits! They not only make the cake look more vibrant, they’ll give your cake another dimension of flavour too. You could leave the fruits whole, slice them up, or turn them into a compote to be drizzled on the cake. The possibilities are endless!

The most important thing when it comes to cake decorating, is to have fun with it! Get excited about creating! The best thing is, you’ll get to enjoy a delicious cake once you’re done.