Cake Decorating

I am still studying the art of cake decorating, however, there are a couple of tricks I have learned to help with the decorating process. 

Back in January, I was making a cake for my son's birthday - the Vegas Golden Knights (VGK). 

The steps I followed to get a decent looking cake with minimal effort are the following:

1. Find and print the image that you would like to reproduce on the cake. Print the image to the final size you need. 

2. Take parchment paper, place it on top of the printed image and using a pencil trace some of the main parts. The details you can add directly on the cake. The main parts of the image will give you reference points for adding the details. For the VGK image, I traced the shield and the outer edges of the helmet.

3. Cut the traced image on the line.

4. Place the cut image on the cake where you would like the final image to appear.

5. Trace the image with a toothpick into the icing crumb coat.

6. Trace and fill in the toothpicked image with icing using the piping tip of your choice. Here I used a number 16 Wilton star tip. On other cakes I have also used a number 3 Wilton tip for the tracing and filled in the areas with the number 16 Wilton tip. 

As you can see in the image below, I traced the shield with the yellow, filled in the space between the shield and the helmet in black. I work with the printed image beside me for reference. 

Once I got to the helmet, I piped icing in the areas that I was certain - the white line on the left side, tracing the right and the lower edge with yellow and then slowly working my way towards the middle adding the details as I went along. 

The cake is far from perfect. There is still so much for me to learn but this method of cake decorating has helped me a lot over the years.