How to Make Layer Cakes | Bake It Up a Notch with Erin McDowell

now that you've said it i definitely will i'll be like so bad not [Music] ah i always freak out with the first words out of my mouth okay hi i'm erin jean mcdowell and welcome to this episode of bake it up a notch i'm particularly excited about today's episode because it's on one of my favorite subjects layer cakes we are going to talk about everything you needed to know about layer cakes from the components the frosting the fillings the inclusions the cake itself we're also going to talk about the structure how to build a straight cake a nice tall one how to get that cake supported how to make it easier on yourself when you go to frost it later and as always we're going to also show you where things could go wrong and how to fix it and i'm not going to make the same mistake i once made we are going to cut into these cakes so you see what they look like on the inside i can't wait to get started let's get going [Music] when it comes to making layer cakes having the right tools can be really really helpful and kind of can make the difference between success and a bit of a mess so i want to talk about a few of my favorite tools that i use every time i'm making a cake you don't need all of these tools and of course there are even more that you can have some of which we'll talk about as we're making cakes together today the first tool that i just cannot live without is this the cake turntable this makes it easier both to cut your cakes into layers very uniformly and evenly and also makes frosting a lot easier if you don't have a cake turntable sometimes if you have some other sort of lazy susan or something that swivels you can use that as well you can even decorate a cake right on the cake platter or a cake stand whatever you're going to serve it on it just can be a little bit messier i like to be able to transition from one to the other so a cake turntable is something worth investing in in my opinion i also have a baker's favorite tool here the scale but i have it here for a reason uh that you might not expect which is i actually weigh my cake batter when i'm making the layers when i'm preparing the pans the reason i weigh my cake batter is because it helps to ensure that there's the same amount in every cake pan which helps ensure that we get more even layers so of course you can eyeball it but later if it's going to drive you crazy trying to cut each one perfectly uniform it can help to start out knowing that they're perfectly uniform if you don't have a scale and you still want to get even cake layers sometimes i use an ice cream scoop to portion the cake layers or the cake batter into the pans you just kind of would keep track you would say oh eight scoops per pan and kind of go that route a few other tools that i love i've got offset spatulas i have them in two different sizes kind of a smaller size which is about four inches and a larger one that is about eight inches these are kind of my go-to tools for all things transportation and decorating both and are very helpful i think having both sizes is really important then i have this bad boy right here which i have to confess i really love this is a bench scraper a bench knife also sometimes referred to as an icing smoother because they are sold in different ways it can also be referred to as a cake comb cake comb sometimes means that it has ridges of some sort to create texture in the side of the cake whereas this one is just smooth and what i use this for is to help smooth the sides of the cake when frosting and it's so tall because that way i don't have to try to do it in multiple steps i can just be smoothing the entire cake getting the whole thing kind of in one motion if you don't have one this large a regular bench knife or bench scraper will also work you just might also need a little bit of help from your handy dandy spatula and the final thing is not so much of an equipment as it is a method of preparation i find that it's really important to talk about how i prepare my cake pans because everyone does it a little differently every recipe might be a little different in general it's a good idea to follow the recipe but what i usually do is i grease the cake pan with non-stick spray and line it with a parchment circle you can either cut this yourself out of parchment paper using the base of the pan as a guide or they actually sell these in cake decorating and baking supply stores already cut and ready to go so i grease the whole pan and i press that parchment circle into the base and then i would grease it again this sort of does the same thing as greasing the pan and flouring it which some recipes will also call for you to do but i just don't always like that little extra flowery bit that you get on the outside when you do that so for me parchment unless the recipe specifies is the way to go to get make sure that your cake unmolds nice and smooth every single time one of the things that i do when i'm making a layer cake is i start by making a plan this may seem a little bit excessive and certainly you don't have to do it every time but in general the more elaborate the project the more i feel like it helps me to set out a plan and kind of know which direction i'm going in a plan can kind of come in a few different ways i sometimes start by drawing a picture and kind of laying out the different components i'm going to need and i usually also make a schedule in general i rarely make all the components for a layer cake especially the more complex it gets i rarely make all the items for a layer cake on the same day i usually break it up not only because it makes it more enjoyable and less stressful but also because a lot of components need to be chilled or they need to cool completely before you can keep going and rather than spending a full eight or nine or ten or more hours on one baking project i like to bake the cake layers one day and wrap them tightly in plastic and hold them until i'm ready to make the cake make the filling one day and get it ready and nice and cool and ready to go and then the day that i make the cake i usually make the frosting and assemble and that's kind of just the pieces having that plan in place really can take an intimidating project and break it down into a few pieces that seem a lot more attainable and also then on the day that you're building and assembling the cake that's what you can focus on you're not stressed out thinking about making multiple recipes or getting things ready to go you've got all your pieces and you can just make a cake flavor isn't the only thing you want to think about when you're trying to decide on the components for your cake you also need to think about the structure not every cake recipe is going to work well for a layer cake especially if you have particularly big layer cake goals a layer cake can be very very simple it can just be two pieces of cake smushed together with frosting without even frosting on the outside or it can be three layers four layers five layers six layers i've even made for a wedding cake an eight layer cake it was behemoth quite large and delicious but when you're thinking of that you want to think about the structure because those heavier denser cakes can really make the assembly a little bit problematic so that's one of the things to think about as you're choosing what flavor and what style of cake to make for your layer cake here i've got a lemon chiffon cake as i mentioned before this is really springy light airy this cake is a sort of a devil's food it's probably one of the denser cakes that we're using today but it's made with the creaming method so it still is nice and light what is this oh white cake i was like looking at you i definitely made it this is a white cake which is a pretty classic creaming method cake using only egg whites here we have a coconut cake which is also a creaming method cake which is made by mixing the butter and sugar to lighten it before adding the eggs and then this final cake right here this caramel cake is sort of a special one it is called a cream style cake or a cream cake not creaming which is the method that we use to make these other ones but this cake actually has no butter or oil in it the only fat in this recipe comes from the use of heavy cream in the batter this makes for a really rich silky really yummy cake with like a very tight moist crumb [Music] she's waiting for him to stay ready too you said ready but i didn't think he said ready oh you did my bad when it comes to fillings for cakes that is a really great way to kind of kick it up a notch to bake it up a notch made you laugh sorry so you can absolutely just use the same frosting you're using on the outside of the cake or if you want to kind of take it to the next level you can make a separate filling for the inside of your cake and that just makes a little bit more flavors sometimes some more textural contrast and it definitely makes for a more impressive slice some examples of things that you could use as fillings if you're working with a dryer cake like a sponge or a chiffon you might want to soak it with some kind of syrup or coffee or liquor i usually make a simple syrup one part liquid to one part sugar and we just use that to soak the cake we're going to be doing that for our lemon chiffon cake you could use other things like jam lemon curd this is sort of a cream based custardy filling this is a coconut custard filling that we're going to use for the coconut cake really the options are kind of limitless and it allows you to incorporate more flavors more textures and also if you want to use multiple fillings you know maybe every other layer has a different filling it just is another point of interest when you go to slice the cake i know it's very important to have the cake look beautiful on the outside but i think it's really important to have it look beautiful on the inside too because that's what people are going to actually have on their plate that's what they're going to be getting excited about so sometimes having multiple colors textures types of fillings in the center of a cake can be really beautiful and really impressive in addition to fillings you can also enlist the help of inclusions this is where things get a little bit fun for me because i like adding more textures more flavors and again some kind of element that when you cut into the slice you see something else speckling those beautiful creamy layers of filling and soft layers of cake so some examples of things you could use of course sprinkles you could just sprinkle a layer of sprinkles on top of the frosting of each cake or candies these are little kind of crunchy pearls anything with a little bit of crunch or some kind of alternate texture to the smooth frosting is great these are crumbled graham crackers obviously toasted chopped nuts you can even make a component yourself like these are super delicious caramel milk chocolate coated pieces of rice cereal and they are really crunchy and they also have that like chocolate snap so you can make elements yourself or kind of search your pantry looking for something that will accentuate the flavors in your cake when you're adding an inclusion you want to make sure that it's not going to affect kind of the structural integrity of the cake and that can happen in a couple of ways it can happen if you're using something like fresh fruit for example there's a lot of moisture in that so if you were trying to stack sliced strawberries in the center of your cake they may actually make the next cake layers slide a little bit and that can be problematic the way to kind of prevent that is by including things like that with layers of frosting on top and bottom so you would start with a thin layer of frosting then put some of the inclusions and then a little more frosting on top to again kind of help keep them in place with drier inclusions like these like the nuts or the the little crispy crunchies we've got here with those you want to gently press them into your filling the reason for that is we just want to make sure that they're secure and that they're not going to create structural problems as we build and by pressing them a little bit into that filling you can just ensure that they're right where you want them and they're not going to come sliding around when you start to build your cake up and up and up let's talk about frosting of which there is none in front of me and the reason for that is that i find that it really is great whenever possible to make your frostings just before you intend to use them that's when they have kind of the smoothest texture they're easiest to apply it is possible to reconstitute frostings warming them back up using whipping them back to the normal consistency but again in my experience the best frosting is going to be the frosting that you make just before you're using it and when it's just at the exact right consistency there are lots of different sorts of frostings some frostings are naturally smoother like italian or swiss buttercream by nature these are very light airy smooth frostings that are very easy to achieve kind of that very smooth very pristine icing effect some frostings are naturally a little less smooth because they're more aerated and they often have bubbles of air trapped in them so one thing you can do is sort of by hand gently kind of working the frosting back and forth in the bowl to get some of those air bubbles out sometimes i do this in the stand mixer with the paddle attachment even if the recipe specifies using the whip attachment to whip the frosting i'll later switch to the paddle attachment just to knock some of those bigger air bubbles out and make the frosting a little bit smoother every frosting recipe is a little bit different but one of the best pieces of advice i ever got about frosting is that the ideal texture for applying frosting to a cake is it should be a little bit like the texture of mayonnaise sounds crazy but then it's that soft and smooth it's very easy to apply to the cake and it's very easy to get it smooth so mayonnaise texture is what you're looking for but don't frost your cake and mayonnaise that's not a good idea finally there are different kinds of frostings based on the look that you're going for so some frostings are naturally much brighter and whiter things like italian and swiss buttercream they tend to be very light bright white they're very easy therefore to tint with different colors when you want to add food coloring or if you want to add another ingredient to add color to your icing other frostings naturally have a slightly different color and therefore cannot pick up on the tint as well one example of this is french buttercream which is made with whole eggs because of that the buttercream is obviously a little bit yellow and you can still tint it but it just isn't going to be as strong of a base for your colors also things like cream cheese frosting even though it's made with cream cheese which is a white ingredient the nature of mixing it together sometimes cream cheese frosting is a little bit more of a cream color not a pure white color so just some things to consider when you're thinking about the final look of your cake in terms of the frosting application i'm going to talk about several different kinds of frostings today including italian and swiss buttercreams be sure to watch the meringue episode of bake it up a notch to get some advice on how to make those we're also going to make some really easy frostings a frosting that only has a couple of ingredients it's made with basically chocolate and sour cream it is so delicious and we're going to make a style of frosting that's made using butter and sweetened condensed milk this is an incredibly easy style of frosting that whips up incredibly smooth beautifully fluffy every single time and our last frosting that we're going to make today is sort of a pudding based frosting this is a great way to add flavors into your frostings that maybe are more difficult to incorporate like coconut we made our own sweetened condensed coconut milk and made kind of this like custard base that's going to make an incredibly flavorful base for a frosting so you can kind of add your your flavors to your frosting in a number of different ways it can be as simple as adding in an extract or stirring in some melted chocolate or you can kind of start from the get-go and make a pudding a butterscotch pudding a coconut pudding a strawberry pudding whatever you want and create that into a custard that becomes the base for your frosting so lots of options lots of different techniques and textures and they all yield delicious beautiful cakes so once you have your cakes baked you've got your fillings made you've got your inclusions if you're using them and your frosting is ready to go it is time to prep your layers while i fully recommend making things ahead of time i don't usually recommend cutting the cake layers ahead of time you can bake the cakes and wrap them tightly in plastic wrap or even freeze the cakes for several weeks months and they will stay pretty fresh but once you cut the cake that exposure to air is going to make it more prone to drying out so usually i think it's best to just cut the layers right when you're ready to start assembling the cake and get that process going some cakes naturally have more of a domed top this has to do with the recipe your oven temperature the baking methods a lot of things can come into play but some recipes naturally have that if you have that you want to remove that domed top the pro is that some recipes also don't have very rounded tops they're relatively flat and so sometimes you can just skip this first step of kind of leveling off the cake entirely but for this chocolate cake i'm going to go ahead and level it off there's a few things that i look for when i'm deciding where to cut one of the things that i look for when i'm going to cut the dome off is where kind of the straight line of the edge ends so right here you can almost see a line the indent from the pan it's right there and that's almost like a good score mark for you because it's going to be the same all the way around the cake even if the height of the cake itself changes so what we're going to do is with a serrated knife we are going to start by making a score mark in the edge and the reason i say a score mark is we are not cutting in very deep at this point what we want to do is we want to put a place for the knife to go to make it easier once we're ready to actually cut but also it's not going to be too deep so if you sort of mess it up you can easily alter before you make your final cut so using that line as a good guide post i'm just going to start and i'm turning the cake and pretty much the knife is not moving much just the cake and the stand are moving and if you didn't have a cake turntable you could do this by placing the cake on a platter or the cake stand that you're gonna serve it on and just rotate it from the base like this while you work okay so now i have this score mark you can see right there i cut in but not that deep so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to check make sure that the score mark is where i want it in this case i had that line to guide me so i'm good and now i'm just going to follow that score mark turning the cake not using a sawing motion instead i'm just going to hold the knife and as i work just going to continue to move it in deeper into the cake so it's going to start kind of at this edge and i'm going to be working around the edge all the way around and eventually you'll see it come through the middle so just keep rotating the cake and bringing the knife deeper into the cake as you work rotating and when you get into the center you know that you've cut it and you can just lift it off just like that so that is how you remove the domed top and this particular cake this chocolate cake is going these are the layers we're not going to split them anymore so i'm just going to set that aside and now i can show you how to cut layers even if you're not going to cut the domed top off it's basically the same technique here we have the lemon chiffon cake so this cake is relatively flat there's still a slight mound in the center so i am gonna cut it off but again if you were happy with it you wouldn't have to this cake now that i've taken off that slight dome what we're gonna do is cut it into layers so again you can do this kind of however you feel comfortable when i first started out i would literally grab a ruler and i would measure what halfway up the layer was and i would make my score mark there now i can pretty much do it by eye and again i just like to make sure that i get down kind of at eye level when i make the first score mark because perspective can make it look a little it just is a little bit easier to get a more accurate cut that way so once i find my spot i'm just going to score it all the way around again and now that it's scored i've come back to the score marks i'm just going to keep rotating and moving my knife deeper and deeper into the cake and what we aren't doing is that sawing motion you know we are just kind of holding the knife and cake you know is soft it's easy to cut it so the biggest concern is almost it being too fragile so just always handle it with two hands and just like that we've got two layers and they're pretty even if i do say so myself look at that oh yeah that's how you cut the layers for your cake [Music] with any big baking project there can be areas where things can kind of go wrong but there's also a few techniques where you can fix them if you should meet disaster so one of the areas that i struggle with the most is actually right at the beginning getting the cake out of the pan if you prepare it the way that i showed you using both non-stick spray or oil or butter whatever your desired greasing method is and parchment in the bottom that really helps because i find that it's easier to remove it if it's stuck at the sides than it is if it's stuck at the bottom for one reason only when it's on the sides and this is what i do for every cake when i'm unmolding it regardless i like to run a small offset spatula around the outside that's really easy because we can see that you know we can easily access the sides to help loosen it if it needs it but we can't see that base so the parchment is helping protect it by providing kind of a non-stick layer and also if you absolutely need disaster the parchment can kind of help you get underneath without worrying about poking a hole in the cake so when a cake comes out of the oven you want to let it cool in the pan for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes anywhere in that range is going to work because what you want is you want to unmold it while it is still warm you don't want to let it cool completely that's another way that sticking can really happen so i went ahead and ran my offset spatula around the outside and now i'm just going to pretty aggressively intentionally turn it over onto a cooling rack just like that and by flipping it quickly we're just also giving it that little bit burst of force to help release it from the pan and at that point you can peel away your parchment circle which helps prevent keeping it from sticking and if you want you can gently lift up the cake and flip it over or you can leave it to cool face down which can also help kind of flatten that cake a little bit as well reducing the doming effect another area where things can go awry is with cutting the layers this is the one i hear from people the most often how do you get the layers so even so one thing that people tend to do is um they use a sawing motion to cut across the cake and by doing that sawing motion you are just very likely to get uneven and also look what just happened i broke this portion of the cake i broke it because that sawing motion it got kind of stuck midway through and as you can see there's a big divot in there the cake is actually not straight you know there's a big ridge it's got a big kind of lump right in the center of the cake now so that happened and that breakage happened because of that sawing motion because i was just going back and forth with the knife trying to cut through the cake the correct way to do it is to start with your knife and we're not using a sawing motion instead we're kind of rotating the cake and just letting the knife stay where it is and it's kind of gliding through the cake layer by using that knife in more of a gliding motion instead of that sawing motion i end up with a nice flat surface and it makes it much easier to get nice smooth even layers of cake so the final mistake that is particularly common is kind of structural problems as you build the cake and one of the things that i see often is just sort of a crooked cake you can kind of see it here where the layers don't fully match up and also down here the layers aren't quite matching up from first glance that may not actually look like much of a problem but it will make your cake look visibly crooked from the side and it can also make it hard to achieve a flat top you can't quite see here but this side of the cake is lower than this side so it just isn't going to look straight and you can fix that with frosting but you can also fix that as you're building it so what i did here is i went ahead and built the cake it's all crooked and crazy so we're going to chill the cake for a few minutes about five to ten minutes just to help firm up that frosting and filling and then we're kind of gonna manhandle it we're just going to push these layers back to where we want them and we'll fill in any spots with some extra frosting that we have here in a pastry bag so first thing that i'm going to do is just actually physically move the layers i want to try to make the layers match up sometimes this also happens inadvertently because the top portion of your layer is um slightly skinnier like the dimensions of the cake pan are slightly different at the top versus the bottom so here's one spot here where they don't fully match up and i'm just actually going to push the cake with my hand so that that edge matches up just not no no fear just man handle that cake a little bit move it to where you want it and then i like to come down at eye level and check to make sure that it's looking pretty straight which this one is maybe a little bit back this way now that i've got it pretty good all the way around you can see that there are still some areas where there's kind of a gap in the frosting right in here down here so we can help from the get-go fill in those spots so that later we're not having to add tons of frosting to those areas so what i like to do is i've got a pastry bag with some frosting no pastry tip in it just about a half inch opening cut from one end and i'm just going to pipe it where the frosting is missing and this is also great even if your layers weren't crooked to begin with you might still have spots like this that could benefit from a little bit of extra and will then just flatten this frosting removing any excess and in the process of smoothing that frosting out we're also filling in any holes or uneven spots with that frosting just like that and we end up with again even at this point if you felt like it wasn't straight enough you could just squish it a little bit and then smooth that frosting back however you wanted and we end up with a nice much more structurally sound much flatter much straighter final cake [Music] peekaboo and this cake i call it the lemon love cake because of the person i made it for which is my husband he loves lemon and the lemon love layer cake is all lemon all the time so we start by soaking it it's the lemon chiffon then we're going to soak it with lemon simple syrup and again we soak things like chiffon and sponge cakes the word sponge is right in there so for one you know that they are going to absorb it but they tend to be slightly drier cakes this cake gets lemon curd in the center and that's one of the things that could risk coming out the side so we're going to build our frosting retaining wall by piping i don't have a tip in the piping bag i just have about a half inch opening and if you're not sure you can also kind of reinforce with a second ring of frosting as well and what that's going to do is it's just going to keep the softer filling like this lemon curd inside i'm using an ice cream scoop so to help me determine how much lemon curd i'm putting in each layer it helps keep things even this frosting retaining wall sort of helps to keep the lemon curd inside because the lemon curd is much softer and i started with two scoops but i'm wondering if that's gonna be a little puny so i'm gonna give it one more three scoops for each layer and that's the thing you know recipes for baking will be very specific and they'll tell you a lot of information but sometimes it's just about learning what you like if you like more filling in between the layers of cakes use more filling if you don't like frosting that much maybe try a naked cake you know there's like lots of options okay when i get that next cake layer on i kind of make sure it's lined up everywhere and then i just press it down slightly and then we soak it again building up up [Music] so when i build a layer cake i always start the cake with the base there's two cakes on here so i started with a flat side on the bottom and then i turned the top layer upside down so that the top is flat too and that's just something you can do to help make it easier to get a nice edge flat top on your cake now that the cake is built i'm going to come down at eye level make sure it's as straight as i want it it's looking pretty good if we need to we can use our frosting bag to apply a little more frosting anywhere that needs it and then we're just going to take our offset spatula and scrape off that excess once you wipe off that excess frosting what we want to do is you're basically just kind of adhering it to the rest of the cake and once you've gotten it into a nice flat layer you've basically done what is called a crumb coat a crumb coat kind of locks in any pieces from the cut cake that are flinging around and also because frosting is high in fat when we chill the cake it will firm up and that will make it easier to kind of proceed with the rest of the frosting so at this point what i'm going to do is refrigerate this cake you can either refrigerate it right on the stand or because i'm using a cardboard cake circle you can just lift it right off and take it to the fridge this is an incredibly delicious caramel milk chocolate cake sort of a candy bar situation is what i was thinking of when i created this recipe so we're gonna start with this milk chocolate sour cream frosting i'm gonna pipe a ring around the outside this is one of those frostings in particular that can really change consistencies as it sets so it because it has chocolate in it it will firm up so i like to make it right before i'm going to use it and then in the center we're going to put a few scoops of dulce de leche you can use homemade dulce de leche or store bought from a can whatever you prefer and it's just one of my favorite ways to get caramel flavor on the inside of the cake because since it's such a thick caramel it's perfect stays soft inside the cake layers that's some of those textural things we were talking about making contrasting textures now we've got our little caramel milk chocolate crunchies and we are going to sprinkle those all over the cake as many as you want and then we're going to make sure we press them in really nice okay next cake layer and this time in particular it's really important to press you should press firm enough that you see that frosting at the outside edge ooze out just a smidge and on with another ring of frosting i said this in my piping video my piping episode of bake it up a notch but if you ever need to stop piping just go ahead and stop wherever you need to and kind of drag the piping bag down then you can just start right where you left off if you let me drag away you can just put the piping tip back especially with a firmer frosting like this chocolate frosting your hand can get kind of tired if you don't take a break now and again and the top layer goes on again flat side up and this time in particular you can see that we still have some space so that's when you bring in that extra pastry bag to fill in and even out any of those spots sort of smooth it out as best you can and then we'll transfer this to the fridge for just a little bit of a chill before we apply our final frosting [Music] one of the easiest ways to decorate a cake is to go the naked cake route a naked cake just means a cake with no frosting on the sides or very little frosting on the sides almost like a crumb coat so it's very easy and it's also great for people who don't love frosting my dad doesn't love frosting and so i made him a naked cake once and i developed a naked cake in my cookbook for him too because that way there's not too much frosting just the right amount i went ahead and did my four scoops i'm gonna add one more this is something that i call my cheaters whipped cream it's also on my strawberry not so shortcake recipe on food52 that is a genius recipe and it has cream cheese in it and the cream cheese makes it sturdier and basically makes it able to hold up for a long long time and whipped cream normally doesn't hold up as nice so it's a really great compromise to just add cream cheese get a little tanginess so i spread it into an even layer now i'm going to put my next cake layer on top press it down slightly and you could actually just stop here or put frosting on the top and stop here i'll show you what that looks like and if because it's a naked cake you can also consider using more filling in the center um if you still like frosting but you just you know don't want so much of it or if you're opting for the ease of the technique rather than the amount of frosting but when i do a naked cake i tend to choose a sweeter cake like this is sort of a devil's food cake very sweet and i just keep the frosting really minimal so you could do it just like that with cake with frosting in the middle and frosting on the top or you can continue and kind of spread the frosting all over making it more like a crumb coat so that's what i will do just taking some of the frosting back off and for this unlike other frosting techniques where i sort of encourage you to use more than you think you'll need for this technique you want to keep it really minimal because we want to be able to see the cake through the frosting and that's the same technique as i said for a crumb coat we want to be able to see the cake through the frosting for a crumb coat [Music] so i guess really the other one is a naked cake and this is more like a cake and sheer clothing you know kind of like just a stylistic choice which way you want it this way will keep your cake together a little bit easier because you have that layer of frosting doing the same kind of work that it does when a cake is fully frosted as well i'm just gonna smooth this out on the top a little bit and a naked cake can have more frosting on the top than on the sides but the sides should be very very minimal basically just like that let me get a small spatula and just clean it up a tiny bit and just like that you've got yourself a naked cake we can see cake layers through it this is a great simple technique when you don't like a lot of frosting or when you're scared to do too much frosting and then you can really load up the top with beautiful decorations little cookies or fresh berries you could do a drip on a cake like this to really uh bake it up a notch so however you want to go this naked cake is a great kind of foundation and it couldn't be easier to do [Music] [Music] this is such a simple frosting this frosting is made by you start by whipping butter and then you add sweetened condensed milk and in this case because this is a coconut cake i made my own homemade sweetened condensed coconut milk and all that is is coconut milk and sugar cooked down to reduce some of the moisture that moisture would normally if you just added coconut milk into the frosting it would probably cause the frosting to break but by reducing some of the moisture we can have a really nicely coconut-flavored frosting without you know having to cook the coconut milk into kind of another application so this is one of the simplest cakes we're going to decorate because i'm just going to cover it completely in coconut this is something that i always say when people say i'm too scared of making cakes cakes are hard i say well just make an easier cake you know there's a lot of different not every cake has to be a three-tiered you know glory they can some of them can just be you know a slightly more humble cake and this one's still going to be pretty impressive even though i'm saying that it's more humble and the coconut is really just going to cover up any frosting mistakes so really what i'm looking for in this case is just kind of an even straight sided straight top i started by putting a little bit of frosting on the top of the cake and then i went to the sides i like to start with the top and then come back to the sides because when you do the sides then you build up this wall and you can kind of finish it that way some people like to start with the sides and then go to the top you know there's no right or wrong way but like i said why i like to do the top first is so that i get these kind of ledges on the side and that helps me to get a more straight sided or straight surface to the cake so once i have my sides pretty uniformly covered and again i'm not worrying about smoothing it too much i see some some ridges and things on my frosting i'm not worried about it too much because i'm going to cover it up anyway i still just need to level off the top so what you're going to see are these ridges of frosting that build up at the edge what i'm going to do is i'm going to take my spatula and you're going to hold it parallel over the surface of the cake and you're just going to kind of grab that ledge and smooth it out so like that sometimes people think it's helpful to come down a little lower and that just helps to get those edges a little bit smoother a little more how we like them i'm going to decorate this cake with coconut you could absolutely just put coconut all over the whole thing shredded coconut i like to use this unsweetened flaked coconut just because i love the texture of it and the cake is sweet enough you know we don't need a lot more sugar so i toasted it and i toasted some of it really dark some of it more medium and we're gonna make kind of a ombre effect i'm just holding the coconut in my hand and pressing it into the base and when you're making an effect like this kind of a gradual color change effect it can also be nice to not have it be totally in a straight line so now i'm just taking the next color of coconut and pressing it where the last one stopped okay let me just put a little more over here and then we'll start with our very lightly toasted stuff as i mentioned earlier i don't like to make the frosting too far ahead of time because you can create kind of a differing texture in the frosting which can be problematic and one of the ways that it can be problematic is if you're trying to do a technique like this you can actually struggle to get things to stick to the frosting if it has gotten too cold so something to consider when you do techniques like this you want to make sure that you're pretty much frosting the cake and going right into the technique otherwise your frosting might firm up and nothing will stick [Music] this frosting though this is a milk chocolate sour cream frosting just a few ingredients a couple of chocolates and some sour cream the only downside is because it has chocolate it will set up quickly so you have to kind of work quickly and for that reason i like to decorate this cake with my swoops which are my favorite way really to decorate a cake i'm going to start by tossing some on the top and i'm just going to start pushing it out to the outside edge and i'm moving my wrist it is all in the wrist with this particular technique and the best part is you really can't mess it up you know it looks just keep going until you think it looks good and honestly we could stop this cake right now it looks pretty good but we're gonna throw now some frosting onto the sides of the cake as well and when i start putting it on the side for swoops first i try to get even coverage so at first i'm really just throwing the frosting on the sides of the cake and then we'll go back to get that texture after we have the coverage in order to pull off swoops you really need more frosting than you think you need what i'm going to do is use this small spatula to just sort of create some texture on the sides of the cake again just kind of that motion with my wrists and there's no right way or wrong way but you kind of want to press into the cake some people also find this easier to do with the bowl of a spoon and if you don't have a spatula like this that is also a great thing to use because it sort of emulates those divots which is what we're trying to get with the swirls and yeah you kind of just don't want to overwork it because swoops look best kind of more minimally touched then you can come to the edge of the cake and add a few if it feels like it's a little too much there but just like that we have a very simple swoopy cake so next up is this berries and cream cake it is layers of white cake with frosting which uses freeze-dried fruit to naturally tint and flavor it we also have this custardy creamy filling so i'm going to start by piping a ring around the outside of my cake layer and then we'll add a few scoops of our custard filling [Music] this berries and cream cake has been nicely chilled so we're ready to do our final coat this cake i'm going to frost to be a little bit smooth more of a refined sort of finish and once i get this frosting an even layer on the top i'm going to smooth it out as best i can and kind of leave it untouched now i'm going to start on the sides i put a little frosting kind of loading up my spatula once you have it a little bit loaded with some frosting you're going to just put it parallel on the side of the cake you actually want to touch the base of the palette knife to your turntable not just because we want to make sure we're getting even coverage but that also helps to make sure that you're getting the whole side not missing some on the bottom missing some on the top you want to put more frosting than you think you'll need because we're going to be taking it off as we start the process of smoothing it so you want to really load it up at this point but don't worry it won't be too much frosting we'll remove some of it by the end some kinds of frostings as you do this you have to worry about overworking them like whipped cream frosting whipped cream frosting will continue to whip almost as you work with it so it will start to even curdle eventually if you work with it too much this particular frosting is a swiss buttercream so it's pretty stable and we can work with it as much as we need to to get it looking good okay so i've got full frosting coating my sides and base now what i'm going to do is i'm going to go to both the top and the sides of the cake and look for anywhere that doesn't look like there's as much one example would be like right here at the edge there isn't as much frosting here as there is over here so i just want to go ahead and dollop some and spread it in that direction again it's not going to be even or nice looking at this point we're just kind of trying to get even coverage all around and we'll take some of it off later there are lots of ways to achieve a smooth look but i kind of confess i cheat a little bit i think the easiest way to achieve a smooth look is to enlist the help of heat so once i get it in a pretty good spot i'm going to smooth it one more time with just my spatula and then i'm going to start warming my spatula because i want to use the heat on the spatula to help me smooth out the frosting so we have pretty smooth all over coverage but now we're going to enlist the help of the torch this is my favorite torch i just get it at a hardware store they also sell them in kitchen supply stores i'm just going to warm up my spatula a little bit and then i'm going to take it on the edge of the cake and it's actually just melting the frosting a little bit but in a way that is smoothing it and removing air pockets the last thing you want to do when you're getting it pretty smooth is you want to look for spots like this where there is a little bubble and what you'll do is you will put just a little more frosting right there what you're doing is you're literally filling the holes with more frosting so that when you smooth again there's frosting where there wasn't before so you can fill it up so like there's another one and this is only something you have to do if you're really concerned about a smooth like perfect sort of finish and you can also use this tool for this which is why i have it so i'll use that for the final pass here and i'm just holding the base of this on the cake turntable and gently rotating it as i move and you can see we've got a really nice smooth edge of our cake and i'm not worried about the top of this being totally perfect because we're actually going to cover it this is a drip cake the elusive drip cake so i'm not going to spend too much time fussing over the top the sides were more important i'm just going to toss this back in the refrigerator or even the freezer to get it nice and firm before i do my final decorating the berry cake has been nicely chilled i'm just going to do one other decorating thing to it before i finish it with the ultimate the drip what i wanted to show is that this particular frosting we made it with freeze-dried strawberries which makes the frosting naturally pink and gives it a great berry flavor but you can also use other freeze-dried fruit like blueberry or raspberry and i'm just gonna use a small offset spatula to draw little lines of frosting all over the cake and you can just do this randomly kind of going in different directions so for each one of these streaks you just need a little dollop of frosting and we're just going to kind of drop it onto the cake and then smooth it out and because the cake is nice and chilled it's very easy to apply these without messing up the rest of the frosting you can just apply it wherever you like i think it looks cute yay okay i'm gonna toss this in the freezer for one more second and we're gonna prepare our drip that's the important thing with drips that you have to know right off the bat everything has to be the right temperature and the right consistency to nail the perfect drip so we want a cold cake and fluid softer drip so first step freeze the cake and then make our drip [Music] fresh when it's time to do the drip the drip drip cakes are very trendy but i think it's a trend that's going to stick around for a long time because it's another way to add flavor and it's a really beautiful technique that also tastes good that's what i love about it what we're going to do today is a drip of kind of a white chocolate ganache i have recipes on food 52 for chocolate drips every kind of chocolate milk dark white and also for fruity drips so that you can make kind of all different sorts of effects on your cake when it comes to drip time it is all about two things consistency and temperature so we've got a cold cake here it's been in the freezer it's cold to the touch that's good for a couple of reasons the number one being that the drip which is made of chocolate is going to firm up as it starts to slide down drip down the cake that way the drips don't get out of control i did transfer my cake to a cake stand before i started the drip that way i don't have to worry about transferring it later and ruining any drips that might fall all the way to the surface then we've got here our white chocolate ganache and i'm actually going to just drip some into the cup here to show it is no longer warm to the touch when i touch it with my hands it doesn't feel warm in the pastry bag and it's fluid enough to drip but right now i'm not squeezing so see how slow it's dripping that's really what we're looking for we want it to be fluid but not warm because warm is just going to slide right down and we want it to be slow moving so that we can control the drips and have them just the way we want them so i've got it in a pastry bag because i think that's the nicest way to get drips on the top i'm going to start by squeezing right at the edge and kind of using the tip of the pastry bag to nudge what i want to go down so that it starts dripping the firmer the texture is the kind of gloopier your droops will look you have to kind of be patient let them fall slowly this is coming up on being almost too firm but it's still the perfect consistency but if it moves any slower than this your drip is too firm and you need to thin it out or warm it up and then once you get everything around the outside that you want you're basically just going to squeeze on the surface of your cake and we're just going to smooth it out to the edges it's very temperature sensitive that's why i can't can't wait you can't really hesitate you just sort of have to do it you end up with these nice luscious drips coming down the side and it's just beautiful and like i said it tastes good too so we'll let this firm up before we do any other decorating or finishing touches to it but that is how you make a drip cake the number one question i get from people who are making their first layer cake or even their second or third is how the heck do you get it off of this onto this so we're gonna show you and i promise the main thing that you need to do this is courage you just need to not be afraid that you're going to mess it up and i promise you won't uh i probably shouldn't promise that but i promise you won't so the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to take a large offset spatula and i'm going to run it around the full base of the cake i'm trying to get all the way underneath the cake and the cardboard because i built this on a cardboard cake circle that will also help me to get it off so once i've gone all the way around i can tell that it's loose already because i can pick it up right here with my spatula so what i'm going to do is i'm going to lift it up as best i can again if you need to you can run the spatula back around to the front and i'm just going to slide my hand underneath it and pick it up and then once it's off the stand the turntable i'm going to drop it onto the cake stand [Music] so really the key is loosening all the frosting on the base transferring it gently and really using your spatula as almost like a prying tool as you lower it onto the cake stand and then you have a perfectly beautiful cake on its stand ready to be served all right time for another transfer fearless ah did it done [Music] on this cake i'm frosting it with a really delicious lemon curd buttercream which is just an italian buttercream with lemon curd mixed in at the end and it makes it a little softer and in general with your frostings i mentioned not wanting to make frostings too far in advance for a variety of reasons and one reason is that the temperature can just become sort of altered and the same is true when you are working with a piping bag or anything where you're kind of handling the frosting it could become softer so when you're doing a decorating technique like this it can be nice to keep your air conditioning on if it's summer like it is now or you know just try not to work in the warmest part of your house don't be decorating a cake right next to the oven that sort of thing and because this is a continuous piping decoration that i'm doing on this cake i'm frosting it right on the platter i'm going to serve it on the reason for that is it just piping techniques are more likely to get sort of mucked up in transition so if you're ever doing even if you're just doing a finishing technique at the base it's sometimes a good idea to transfer it to the platter or wherever you want it first so that way you don't have to worry about messing up your perfect pattern later this particular technique i'm piping a dollop using a french star tip and then i'm taking my small offset spatula and i'm just pulling some of it away kind of leaving some of the shape behind but also spreading out the frosting and i like this technique in particular because when you just pipe all over the outside of a cake it can actually be quite dense with frosting so this sort of helps in that kind of fine line of too much frosting though what is too much frosting i'm not sure that i've actually found that yet you may ask yourself how did i get here this is not my beautiful cake my dad will like that joe [Music] hello [Applause] [Music] thank you so much for joining me for this episode of bake it up a notch where we talked all things layer cakes and [Music] happy baking oh and we're gonna cut into these cakes let's cut into these cakes [Applause] [Music] if you loved this video and other episodes of bake it up a notch be sure to like and subscribe so you can be notified when future episodes come out each month let me know what kind of cakes you're making in the comments or send me a message on instagram and all of these delicious recipes are available on food52.com and you can also find them linked in the video description below see you next time and happy baking [Music] you

Channel: Food52

Views: 2,364,709

Rating: 4.8814378 out of 5

Keywords: Food52, food, cooking, recipe, chef, foodie, cook, home cooking videos, erin mcdowell, erin mcdowell cake, bake it up a notch with erin mcdowell, baking tutorial, layer cakes, how to make layer cakes, how to make layer cakes at home, chocolate cake, berry cake, lemon cake, coconut cake, naked cakes, drippy cakes, drip cake, how to swoop frosting, how to move a layer cake, how to transfer a layer cake, baking expert, how to smooth frosting on cake, cake turntable, bake cake

Id: 49pw2R4O1KU

Length: 63min 36sec (3816 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020