How to Frost a Quarter Sheet Cake (12”x8”)

the first thing i need to do is level off my cakes so um this is baked pretty much exactly how i like to have it where it's extending um just above the cake pan a little bit and this makes for really easy trimming and i'm gonna leave it in the pan to get this done so i have my serrated knife and i'm gonna start in the corners and i'm actually gonna rest the blade against the corner of the sheet pan and this is going to help me keep it nice and level i'm going to work just about the width of the blade going in and i'm going to hold that knife really level while maintaining contact with the edge of this pan and i'm using a just a gentle back and forth sawing motion so i'm letting the blade of the knife do the work i'm not pressing into the cake and i'm just working about that one inch in so that i can make sure that my knife is staying level now that i've gotten all the way around one time i'm just gonna gently fold back this cake and break away this first section that i have cut off since i'm working on a quarter sheet pen right now my worries about getting off level and um ending up cutting down into the cake are a little bit less but as i get onto bigger sizes with half sheets and full sheets that becomes much more of a concern so now that i can see where i am now i can keep working it in small sections and now i'm keeping my blade level with this piece of cake here that i have already taken off that top layer and every time i get one layer around one rotation i just come around and i break that apart and this does create scraps of course anytime we're leveling a cake and nobody seems upset when there's cake scraps so not a problem so now i have this leveled off and you can see it's really the height of that sheet pan this is exactly what i want when i'm doing a two layer sheet cake so now i'll just do my next cake [Music] so now i have my cake board ready to go and i'm going to be using an offset spatula you can use a flat spatula if you prefer but i found with sheet cakes it's much easier to get a lot of even spread going when you aren't fighting with having a flat spatula hitting parts of the cake so i'm going to start with just a little dollop here on the bottom of my buttercream so that my cake sticks and with my sheet cake i'm just gonna flip this over nice and quick and make sure that it's centered on the board okay i can just gently move that make sure it's centered on the board now just give it a little press so it adheres to that buttercream and now i'll take my parchment off now i'm ready for my filling layer so just like i would with a round cake i'm still gonna work around the edges and i'm gonna work right here in front of me i'm not gonna try and spread too much at the beginning so i can concentrate on getting an even layer of filling and that it's getting to the edges again this is um not too difficult when you're working on a small quarter sheet like this but as you get to those larger sizes this becomes a little more crucial mini come with my spatula and i never want to bring my spatula touching the cake so i'm using this pushing and pulling method so that i'm catching the edges of the spatula and that's what's actually going to move that frosting around and always coming back into that frosting if i find that i'm going to be starting to run out of frosting i come back in to pick my spatula up so i can come back with clean frosting and really making sure that you're getting to those corners that's gonna probably be the the trickiest part when we have a round cake it's a nice fluid motion but making sure you get that frosting in the corners there because it's a little trickier to go back in afterwards and get that to fill in [Music] so now that i have this perfectly covered um and i don't have really any gaps in my corners now i'm actually going to use longer broader strokes to get this smooth and get this down to that quarter inch of thickness so i like to still start going around the edges and as i have this excess i'll come and i'll pick that up and scrape that off i'm also not when i get to the edges i don't bring my spatula past the edge of the cake because i don't want to pull that frosting off and also if your cake is really soft you can actually end up pulling off the cake so we want to make sure that we're keeping everything intact [Music] okay so i'm gonna hold this here so i can check side to side that my um cake is even that my layers are even with each other and then i'm just gonna do a nice quick flip nice easy release there do make sure that um before you do this stuff that you um run a knife around the edges of your cake pan if you need to to make sure that you have a good release so before i press this down i'm going to turn this around and make sure that everything is lined up side to side and because i haven't pressed this down into the frosting i can actually gently lift this cake up and shift it over a little if i need to to make sure that everything is even so i'm going to go ahead and take off that last sheet of parchment and then now i will trim my sides again i'm gonna use my serrated knife and i'm just gonna shave down just barely enough so that as you can kind of see here i have just a little bit of a difference in between what was the top edge of the sheet pan and the bottom edge of the sheet pan because there is often a slight taper so i'm just going to shave off just enough so that i have a straight up and down surface [Music] for my crumb coat i am going to use a similar method that i used for using my filling layer on the top but i'm not going for that same thickness so overall i would like to have between my crumb coat and my final coat have a quarter inch thickness so this one's going to be a little bit thinner just to make sure that i can seal the crumb coats in see all those crumbs in when i'm doing this one now i do want to get this overhang of frosting along the edge this is going to make it a lot easier for me to end up with some nice sharp edges and just sharp corners and not curved [Music] okay and now i'm ready to do my sides so i always start with the corners and i'm going to work from both edges into the center never extending that spatula beyond the corner um it'll be very hard to get a sharp straight edge if i do that and i also run the risk with soft cake of breaking off the cake at this corner here so i'm going to start right here and first i'm going to place a little dollop and i'm going to come at the corner and i'm going to press that down and then into the cake now i'm going to come and take this right on the edge here and press that down as i use a back and forth motion to push push that frosting along the side of the cake come at this corner press that down and come back in and then if you need a little bit more you want to make sure that you have enough that you have this doll up here to press that down and then come back when i want to smooth on this side i pull my spatula here and then i just pull that away and that way i don't run past the edge so i turn for my next side dollop here on the corner press that down and then now i'm gonna push and pull that frosting just like i would with any other cake the cake out of there and you'll notice here too on the corner i have frosting that is built up here and that's going to be helpful for creating a a sharp corner so my goal is to have on each of the corners have some frosting built out and then also on the top edge to have frosting built up here and this is going to help us get sharp edges [Music] so okay now that i've gotten all the way around my sides i'm gonna come back and i'm gonna smooth my sides and at the same time make sure i have frosting built out at the corners and frosting standing up over this edge when i'm trying to smooth my sides i'm going to come from back behind and from beyond my corners so that i can use the edge of my spatula to clean this up and get those nice edges so when i'm coming here i'm going to come from just behind come into the center and pull away so i'm coming from behind come into the center and pull away i have this frosting built up on the edge looking good same thing on this corner now i have frosting built up on the corner so that's good i already smoothed this side so now i'll just come back on this corner [Music] you can see how nice and sharp that is so now that i have all gone all the way around now i'm going to clean up my corners first so i'm going to come at this back part here and i'm going to come across this corner so what i'm concerned about is this edge here is actually going to clean off this excess so i'm thinking about the edge of this spatula being the same level as this middle part of the cake here that has smooth frosting so it may look like i'm sort of cutting away with the front edge but i'm really not paying any attention at all to what the front edge is doing i'm worried about this back side just pull up and away clean spatula every time we're coming at an edge so we don't deposit it back so i'm going to come and do all my corners first and then i will come back and worry about my sides [Music] now that i have my corners um i'm gonna come back and um fold over any of these top edges in the middle of the cake where these are standing up a little bit [Music] so [Music] so [Music] my chrome coat is well chilled out i can touch it and it's not disturbing the buttercream at all so now i know i can come back with my final coat so i'm going to do exactly what i did for my crumb coat i'm just going to be making sure that i can't see any cake through through the frosting and everything is really nice and smooth so starting from the top again [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Becky Kastelz

Views: 94,685

Keywords: sheet cake, cake decorating, cake frosting, buttercream, pastry, cake, french buttercream, square cake

Id: sr564Z-kxvw

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020