With these 5 tips, turn your homemade bakes into a masterpiece

Growing up in a hospitality family, my passion for good food was instilled in me from an early age. What a treat it was when I got to join my father in the kitchen! It became especially fun when someone had a birthday and we dived into the kitchen to make the most fantastic bakes. With these tips, you too can turn your homemade bakes into a masterpiece.

For me, the fun really begins after baking; you don’t eat only with your mouth—the eye wants something too. Are you also a fan of homemade cake, but can’t manage to make it look as delicious as it tastes? These tips will help you avoid that, turning it into a success time and time again.

Tip 1: Make sure you have the right tools

Maybe stating the obvious, but this saves so much hassle. For years, I tried smoothing my cakes with a ruler and used a cake stand as a turntable. I never managed to get my cakes as smooth as the ones in the photos I was trying to recreate. Eventually, I decided to buy a cheap turntable, a few scrapers and an icing spatula. The best purchase ever—suddenly I could smooth my cakes properly, and they looked as if they came from the most expensive bakeries. Of course, it takes some practice, but it is absolutely worth it!

Tip 2: Buttercream

Many home bakers decorate their cakes with fondant. Please stop doing this immediately! Does anyone actually like the taste of fondant? It dries out, is difficult to get neatly over your cake and, once again, it doesn’t taste good. Use buttercream instead, because it is much easier and much tastier. I personally prefer French buttercream; it stays beautifully firm while still being very light and airy. You can also easily give it all kinds of flavours by mixing in, for example, caramel, coffee, chocolate or jam. The cream is beautifully white, and you can freeze it, allowing you to make a large batch at once (it is quite a tedious job, after all.)

Tip 3: Start piping

You know the ones: cakes with incredibly beautiful decorations on top that instantly make them look mega-professional. Those decorations often look more complicated than they really are. With the right piping tips, it’s a piece-of-cake. The great thing about piping a rosette or border onto your cake is that you can hide your mistakes or ugly parts of the cake. Would you like some help with piping? This video by Georgia’s Cakes helped me a lot. 

Tip 4: Keep it cool

The temperature of your cake matters. Especially when filling or covering a cake with buttercream, you need to make sure it is cool. When covering a cake, first make what is known as a crumb coat (a thin layer of cream to stick the crumbs in place.) Then put it in the freezer for a moment; it will be much easier to cover afterwards. If the cake and buttercream are too warm, everything becomes soft, starts to wobble and turns into a sticky mess. When the cream is cold, it becomes very firm and is much easier to handle. Cool that cake, then! Just make sure that the buttercream you use for decorating is at room temperature.

Tip 5: Build upwards

If you really want to impress with your cake, make it nice and tall. A narrower, taller cake often looks much more elegant than a low, wide one. Add all kinds of things on top as well, and you’ll put a masterpiece in front of your friends!

Also read:

• Delicious or skip it: a croquette cake
• 13 cakes for the colleague you’re glad to see leave
• SAPINCA is the drink you’ll want to enjoy all summer, from shot to mocktail