How To Decorate A Drip Cake | Georgia's Cakes

hey guys it's georgia from george's cakes welcome to my youtube channel this is my first video how exciting is that and it's a really good one too because so many of you have asked me all sorts of questions over the last couple of years how to make meringues or macaroons or little baking hacks but the main question that keeps being asked was how to decorate a cake and i'm going to do exactly that in this tutorial i'm going to take you through step by step very basic and try to make it look as easy as possible because i know so many of you are dying to know how i do it um so let's get started the first thing i'm going to do is talk you through the equipment that i use to decorate a cake now there are shortcuts you don't need such crazy equipment um which i'll explain to you but the main thing i use is one of these it's a step palette knife so normal palette knives are usually straight like this but this has a little step and this is a really good tool to kind of even out um the leveling of the cake and buttercream without smudging the rest of the cake because if this was straight it will kind of smudge the cake at the same time so you can either use a small one i'm more comfortable with a small one or you can use a big one like this um this is actually good if you're doing larger cakes i'm decorating a six inch cake so if you're doing a large wedding cake or something um i'd probably use one of these the second most important piece of equipment is a side scraper now this is literally a piece of metal and this is what i use to make all the sides straight you can get larger ones like this and you're probably thinking where am i going to find one of them but i actually got this at a local diy shop i think it's to like smooth out wool paper or cement or something and it's plastic and it's really good for extra tall cakes so go to your diy shop because it's basically a cook shop there's so much stuff there you can probably find one of these in there too so the last thing which really helps in cake decorating is a turntable which is a rotating platform and it's just really good and smooth to rotate the cake as you decorate now if you don't have one don't worry you can use a bowl with a flat edge like this and if you put a wet cloth on it and you're careful of course and the cake won't slip and you can slowly turn it with ease so that's a really good trick my final piece of equipment which is kind of a makeshift thing that i used is my bottle that i have sugar syrup in which is equal amounts of water and sugar and a bit of flavor if you want to intensify the flavor so it's normal bottle with holes in the lid that i just poked through and that i use which you'll see in a bit instead of a pastry brush which sometimes leaves brush bristles all over the cake so that's a really good trick and that's like not even you don't even need to buy it you know you can make that yourself um so i think we should get started so again i've made a sponge cake plain vanilla um sponge and it's six inches and what i do i divide it into two tins because i like decorating cakes with four layers of cake so i'm going to start off with the first half and cut the top off now this is a technique in itself some people have cake levelers you know these like strange wire things you don't need that i don't have that all you need to do is try and cut as straight as possible so rather than just cutting all the way through like this because that's really uneven you want to make a little mark in the cake twist the cake and do it again and you keep twisting and cutting only indenting it slightly until you're back to where you started so as you can see i've gone all the way around once you've gone to where you started keep cutting and start to go through slightly keep rotating careful of your fingers of course especially if you're using a sharp knife and once you cut through hopefully it's a perfectly flat side of cake now this is spare cake and you can use this for cake pops or you know make a little jar of cake goodies or just simply eat it i don't need it for now so i'm just going to put it to the side and there we have a really flat edge now i usually cut this in half again so i'm going to do exactly that you don't have to if you like more cake than buttercream but i like to keep the layers even so this time i'm gonna go to cake level and do what we did on the top indent a bit halfway twist the cake and keep cutting just to mark around and once you're back to where you started then you start to go through and again there we go you should have a perfectly even cut it's a really good cutting technique so definitely give that one a go so now i'm just going to do the other half and what you can do is use your first half as a little guide so i'm just going to indent it so i want it as even as possible i'm a bit of a perfectionist so just leveled it off with the other cake and do the same again another layer of buttercream and you want to repeat this until you get to the very top layer so before i put the last layer of cake on i'm just going to give that a soak because i don't want to soak the very top of it now remember this is the second base so i want to flip it over so you get the nice flat edge and that is the very top of the cake so now it's time to do the crumb coating and this means i want to cover the whole thing with a layer of buttercream and then i'm going to chill it and that's just going to prevent any crumbs going into the main outer layer of the buttercream so first i like to make sure that all these indents in between the layer are full so i'm going to go around with some buttercream and you really don't have to be perfect at this stage because you're going to scrape off the excess anyway a bit on the top and then i'm just going to use my palette knife and spread all the buttercream all around the cake and i always have a ball on the side just to scrape off any excess buttercream from my palette knife and now i can go around with the side scraper and all i do is put it directly next to the cake try and keep it upright and go around scraping off the excess so if you've noticed any bits of cake that you haven't covered in buttercream get a bit of more buttercream and cover it and then go over it again and you can really see how smooth the sides are becoming now to get a really sharp edge at the top you want to go around and almost spread the buttercream just over the edge like that and then go around with your scraper again and it will catch that buttercream and pull it upwards and when you're happy how smooth that is around the outside make sure you clean your palette knife and going from the outside inwards at an angle you're just going to wipe off the excess buttercream and you'll form a really sharp edge at the top of the cake so as you can see i'm wiping my palette knife every time just so i can get a really clean um smooth effect so i'm really happy with the way that's turned out the sides are really nice and straight and i've got that sharp edge at the top and now it's time to chill the cake in the fridge for about 20 minutes for the buttercream to firm up if you want to do it a bit faster then put it in the freezer for about five the cake and the buttercream is nice and cool and if i touch it i can feel that the buttercream is really stiffened which is perfect now you can actually leave it like this some people go for that naked effect um it looks really nice looks really rustic if i can use that word if it's not been overused so much but i'm going to go over with my second layer of buttercream so with the leftover buttercream i'm going to color it and you can obviously color it however you like i'm going to go for a little girly cake why not and i'm just going to add a little gel food coloring and i'll mix that through and the reason why i use gel food coloring is so the consistency of the cream doesn't change so much i'm just going to mix that in so i like keeping to pastel colors i think it's like more inviting if it's too bright i find it a bit scary uh that's my opinion you can color it as much as you want right so the color is mixed through i'm really happy with that shade you can add more if you want up to you and all i need to do now is go around with a generous amount of buttercream all over the cake again and then scrape away the excess i find it easier to go around the sides first actually just spread it on and all over the top as well okay so once it's covered i'm going to get my scraper again and do exactly the same last time but obviously not press it directly to the cake otherwise you'll scrape all the icing off and so you just want to rest it against the buttercream and rotate the cake to achieve that smooth finish what i do is after about three times i scrape off that buttercream back into my bowl just to keep this clean you can see that there are some sections which haven't been caught by the scraper so what i'm going to do is just put some more buttercream onto those areas and now i can even off the top and the same technique like the crumb coating just gonna go from the outside inwards scraping the palette knife clean every time so that's really nice and smooth which is exactly what i'm after i'm just going to leave that to the side and here's a little tip that with any leftover buttercream i usually fill up a piping bag with a little star nozzle attached um and i'm going to add it decoration later on so the next stage to build our crazy cake is the chocolate drips and i'm sure you've seen them all over social media and loads of youtube videos but still people get confused and they say oh my drips are going wrong blah blah blah so i'm gonna make it as simple as possible for you so in a saucepan i'm going to put 75 milliliters which is the same as grams of double cream and i'm going to put it onto heat quite low and i just want it to a steaming stage and that's about 70 75 degrees okay so the cream is nice and steaming hot and now i'm gonna go in with the same amount of chocolate i'm using a dark chocolate and i'm using chocolate chips because it melts easier and that's just going to go straight in and the hot cream is just going to melt the chocolate through and so the chocolate drips are all really dependent it depends on how hot the cream was what kind of chocolate you're using so you really have to go with an instinct and you're just after a specific texture of the chocolate ganache which is what we're making so i have a little spare cream in case i need to thin the mixture a bit but what you're looking for is i always say it's the kind of texture of pva glue you know that runny white glue that you used to use at school so it's got some movement in it but it's quite thick still i've just mixed the chocolate through and it is really smooth but i don't think there's enough movement in that so i'm going to go in with a little more cream and i'm just going to do it bits at a time and slowly work it through until i've achieved the right texture so it's got to the consistency i want i just have to add a little more cream and as you can see it's like got this movement but it's still quite thick now the main thing is that obviously this is still quite hot because it's in the metal pan so i'm just going to transfer it into a cooler dish like this measuring jug and just by doing that it's already reduced in temperature so it's good to go on the cake if it's too hot the buttercream is going to start melting and you get a horrible mess on the top so i've seen that happen quite a lot so that's why on the flip side if it's too thick and gone cold you can always just gently heat up in the pan again so when it goes moment of truth i pour it into the middle and then with my palette knife gently spread it towards the edges which also helps it cool and then gradually bring it over the edge and the drips will start to form naturally i do it gradually just so i can see how the drips are falling they're falling really nicely which is very lucky if you see that they're falling quite quickly you might want to pour less over the top and obviously the flip side as well now if you've noticed that any have got stuck which i usually do i just get my palette knife and kind of help them down just by like jogging the ganache like over here so i'm really happy with how those drips worked out phew weight of my shoulders and if you want you can go around with a piping bag instead but i really like the kind of organic feel of how the drips naturally full instead of it being quite uniform but it's totally up to you and the most important thing is that you don't even have to do the trips if you don't want to so i'm going to leave this just to rest for a few minutes while i get all my decoration ready so now for the fun part the decorating stage and for this you can literally let your creative juices run wild um i'm going to put all my classic mad hatter toppings on that's what i refer to them we've got some macaroons or macarons however you say it meringue kisses we've got some fresh edible flowers some chocolate ruffles salted caramel popcorn i've even got some edible gold dust and some gold leaf and we also have that leftover buttercream that i'm going to pipe on little details just at the end and of course don't worry or panic about not knowing how to make any of these this is obviously my first video there are more to come and i'm going to be showing you how to make all of these little treats individually so stay tuned because they'll be being released in the next few weeks unless you're watching this in the future in which case they're on my channel already so let's get decorating first i'm gonna go in with my salted caramel popcorn and i like doing this because you get these lovely big chunks where all the caramel is kind of hardened all together so i'm just gonna put them on really randomly and i always think the more the better i don't just kind of throw everything on i do place things on purpose and because the ganache drips are still wet um everything's sticking to it which is great if you've let them harden too much then you can always stick things on with your buttercream so now i've got some of these delicious macaroons i'm just going to place a few of them on too i like putting them on in different directions and i also always like putting a few bits of decorations at the bottom here i just think it evens out the design let's just stick a macaroon on there okay and now for the meringue kisses now with the meringue sometimes you get like a crack along the bottom and that's just the way they cook um you simply turn it the other way and no one will see magic so i'm just gonna hide that in here and if you need to stick any toppings i've just got my buttercream a little splodge there and it will stick nicely okay now i've got these beautiful chocolate ruffles and i think they just elevate the cake and make it that much more dainty and these i've already dusted in gold but you can dust them once they're on the cake if you want and i'm going to put a few edible flowers and these are available from some grocery shops or you can buy them online as well just make sure you get edible flowers you don't want to be poisoning anyone and now for some gold leaf now this sounds really expensive and it is a little bit pricey so again it's completely optional um but i think it really really makes a difference it comes in a little sheet like this and with a paintbrush it's really delicate so be careful it's like really thin you can just see it blowing in the wind and i'm just going to place it randomly on and it will just almost stick itself to the cake and again make sure you get edible gold leaf you don't want to be eating some sort of chemical that you shouldn't be and then lastly some gold dust and again i've already put them on the chocolate ruffles if you want to highlight some more just go over it with a bit on your paintbrush and lastly i'm going to apply some decoration using the piping bag of buttercream now i've got a nozzle which you could do quite a few shapes with you can swirl it or just dab it on and just play around with it and see how you feel i like doing a few i call them shells i don't really know why because they already look like shelf i think they're just like little pretty details and the best part is that you can cover any mistakes you may have made like this yeah no one will know and you can also use this to secure anything that might be wobbling too so there you have it it's my classic mad hatter crazy cake i hope you've learned a lot from this video if you want me to show you how to make anything else or any techniques that you might be struggling with please message me and don't forget to subscribe like and comment and keep updated with all the videos that are upcoming thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time you

Channel: Georgia's Cakes

Views: 2,994,823

Keywords: Cake, Georgia's Cakes, Decorating, Cake Decorating, How to decorate a cake, Drip cake, Cake tutorial, Drip cake tutorial, Mad Hatter Cake, baking, baking hacks, baking tutorial, how to, how to decorate, cake decoration, buttercream, chocolate, chocolate drips, chocolate drip cake, cakes, chef, patisserie, decorate cake, decorate a cake

Id: LgBdR08vlUo

Length: 20min 51sec (1251 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2017