Sugar Shaper

Invest in a sugar shaper: In my opinion a sugar shaper is indispensable for novelty work, as the assortment of interchangeable discs means it can be used to make many items e.g. hair, grass, posts, poles etc.

NOTE: The secret to using one successfully is to make sure the paste used is really soft. I find that adding cooled boiled water to the paste until it is just starting to stick to my hands ensures that the paste will be quickly and easily be extruded. If the shaper clicks your paste is still too hard!

Spacers: Use these to achieve an even thickness when rolling out paste. They are available commercially but you can make your own, for example from strip wood available from DIY stores and barbecue skewers make excellent narrow spacers.

Keep It Clean

Keep your work station clear from crumbs of paste, off-cuts, crusted royal icing, or rubbish of any kind made while working on a cake. There is nothing worse than finding these have somehow leaped off the table top and crawled invisibly into the icing bag only to shout 'guess where I am' when the royal icing stops flowing.

Icing Guidelines

How much do I need?

The chart below is an approximate guide to how much Marzipan and Sugarpaste you will need to cover cakes of the following sizes:

Cake Mountain

You are baking a cake and when you pull the cake out of the oven and you see that the middle of the cake is much higher than the rest of it.

There are several reasons for this to occur, here are just a few:

• When you were baking the cake the oven temperature may have been too high.
• When you were mixing your cake you might have added too much flour or over mixed it.
• When you placed the batter into the pan, did you use the proper size pan? The pan might be too full.
• It could even be that the pan color is too dark or dull.

Cake Making Tips

Ensure that all the ingredients are at room temperature for the best results.

Always preheat the oven to the temperature specified in the recipe. Otherwise the homemade cake could be heavy if it doesn’t rise properly after being put in a cool oven.

It’s very important to use the correct size tin (pan) stated in the recipe. A tin that’s too small could cause the cake to overflow. One that’s too big will make the cake too thin and heavy.

Make sure the cake tin is prepared properly before use, according to the recipe. Usually this means greasing the bottom and sides with a thin layer of oil, butter or margarine. Often it’s suggested that the tin is lightly floured as well by sprinkling a little flour in the tin and turning the tin to evenly coat the inside. It often helps to line the base with grease proof (waxed) paper, and for cakes that need a long baking time the sides should be lined as well with greased paper. For really heavy, rich fruit cakes, brown paper can be tied around the outside of the tin to for protection. And as the cake cooks, if the top is starting to burn, the top can be protected with a piece of paper or foil.

It’s important to use the type of flour listed in the recipe. Don’t substitute self-raising flour for plain (all purpose) flour, or the cake will almost certainly rise too much and the texture will be open and coarse. But plain flour can be substituted for self-raising if baking powder is added as a raising agent.

Usually 4 level teaspoons are added to each pound of flour. It is recommended to sift flour, icing sugar, etc, before use to remove the lumps and aerate it.

Get all the ingredients together before starting so that you know everything is to hand and nothing gets forgotten.