Learn how to make boxes used to transport delicate cakes from the bakery to the event location.
Learn how to create beautiful cake boards, which boards you shouldn't use for professional cakes, and how to add feet and finish the edge for a clean look.
Now that you've got all the skills needed to MAKE cakes, how do you STACK them? This tutorial covers all the secrets on how to properly stack your cake tiers into a beautiful, elegant wedding cake.
Usually a cake decorator is not the one serving the cake at an event but you might have to explain how to cut a massive cake to a caterer.
Okay, you're learned how to make a cake and deliver it, but what happens if something goes wrong? That's what my "Oh SHOOT" kit is for! I bring this cake delivery kit with me to every event and you should too!
Learn how to make boxes used to transport delicate cakes from the bakery to the event location.
Learn how to create beautiful cake boards, which boards you shouldn't use for professional cakes, and how to add feet and finish the edge for a clean look.
Now that you've got all the skills needed to MAKE cakes, how do you STACK them? This tutorial covers all the secrets on how to properly stack your cake tiers into a beautiful, elegant wedding cake.
Covering flawlessly in fondant can be tricky or maybe you're covering a very tall cake! Paneling is a great way to cover cakes to get that sharp edge. Especially useful for double barrels, tall cakes and square cakes.
The double barrel or extended tier is two cakes that are the same size, stacked on top of each other and covered as one. This is a stunning look for cakes and very elegant! I show you a fool proof way of making a double barrel.
Fondant is a great way to get a clean, flawless finish on your cakes, but it's not exactly the best way to get sharp edges. This tutorial will show you some tips and tricks that will get you sharp edges with fondant.
This tutorial will show you the tips and tricks needed to get a flawless fondant finish on your cakes.
Those small cakes can be slippery little devils! Here are some tips to stacking and icing with ease.
The upside-down method is a great way to get razor-sharp edges on your buttercream cakes. Learning this method will speed up your caking process.
How to get that flawless coat of buttercream with smooth sides and no bubbles!
Ever made a perfect cake only to see a few minutes later or maybe a few hours a HUGE bubble on the side! DON'T PANIC! These are called blowouts and they can be avoided! This video will show you how!
The crumbcoat is one of the most important steps to getting a flawless finish on your cake. This tutorial goes over how to properly crumbcoat your cakes.
A good cake starts with good cake preparation! This video goes over how to level your cakes, trim them and torte them so that you get nice clean and professional looking cakes that looks beautiful when sliced!
How to get smooth, bubble free buttercream every time! Adapt this technique for any type of buttercream or ganache!
I believe I mentioned in a previous post that for quite some time Liz and I tried to be the first ones to come out with an effective crackle technique to no avail. Then they started showing up everywhere and we were left in the dust, womp womp. However! Liz by accident came up with possibly the easiest and most effective crackle technique of them all and we want to make sure you've seen it! Don't worry there is a FREE video tutorial at the end of the post!
Liz used the technique for the cake board on her amazing Porsche 911 Car Cake, which also is a tutorial for Sugar Geek Show Members. I mean, it has real working headlights guys, you might want to get on that. The star today though is this fantastic crackle!
And again for the board on her lovely Super Woman cake...
And since releasing the free tutorial a handful of other people have tried their hand at it and let me tell you they are amazing creations!
Here is an awesome dragon cake from Mandie Shelton of Mandie Bakes Custom Cakes. What a cool way to get texture for dragon skin!
Tara Kelliher of Hot Cakes By Tara used the technique on this incredible superhero cake for an Icing Smiles boy and again for the board on a sculpted girl cake. Doesn't it add so much interest to the superhero cake? Move over plain fondant!
I love the subtlety of it on the board for this cake. It almost looks like leather!
 I recently saw this cake by Jessa Coline of Abtract Edible Arts and fell in LOVE. What a genius use of this crackle effect for Te Ka's skin!
Lesley Wright of Royal Bakery added the crackled technique to the bottom tier of her Descendants 2 cake and it looks fab! Just look at that flawless crackle texture!
It seriously adds so much to the design of this cake! Incredible job!
Are you dying to know how it's done yet?! Here's the tutorial, and spoiler alert, it involves airbrushing and a torch. So, if you have those two things or have always wanted them but felt you needed an excuse to use them, now you have one. You're welcome. Go forth cakers and crackle all the cakey things!
These are the tools that I use all the time for perfectly my flawless cakes. Some of these you might already know about but I can't leave anything out because these are the things I WISH someone told me to get when I was starting out!
Covering flawlessly in fondant can be tricky or maybe you're covering a very tall cake! Paneling is a great way to cover cakes to get that sharp edge. Especially useful for double barrels, tall cakes and square cakes.
The double barrel or extended tier is two cakes that are the same size, stacked on top of each other and covered as one. This is a stunning look for cakes and very elegant! I show you a fool proof way of making a double barrel.
Fondant is a great way to get a clean, flawless finish on your cakes, but it's not exactly the best way to get sharp edges. This tutorial will show you some tips and tricks that will get you sharp edges with fondant.
This tutorial will show you the tips and tricks needed to get a flawless fondant finish on your cakes.
Those small cakes can be slippery little devils! Here are some tips to stacking and icing with ease.
The upside-down method is a great way to get razor-sharp edges on your buttercream cakes. Learning this method will speed up your caking process.
How to get that flawless coat of buttercream with smooth sides and no bubbles!
Ever made a perfect cake only to see a few minutes later or maybe a few hours a HUGE bubble on the side! DON'T PANIC! These are called blowouts and they can be avoided! This video will show you how!
The crumbcoat is one of the most important steps to getting a flawless finish on your cake. This tutorial goes over how to properly crumbcoat your cakes.
A good cake starts with good cake preparation! This video goes over how to level your cakes, trim them and torte them so that you get nice clean and professional looking cakes that looks beautiful when sliced!
How to get smooth, bubble free buttercream every time! Adapt this technique for any type of buttercream or ganache!
These are the tools that I use all the time for perfectly my flawless cakes. Some of these you might already know about but I can't leave anything out because these are the things I WISH someone told me to get when I was starting out!
Black is bold and it has come into the cake world in many different forms lately. Today we check out 5 black cake trends that have captured our hearts.
We love the unicorn cake trend, and I may be the only cake decorator not completely sick of it yet but that's probably because I still haven't gotten a single order for one. I know right? People catch on to cake trends a little slow where I live, sigh. But what's even more eye catching than the unicorn cake? The BLACK unicorn cake. I mean why not? If we can fantasize about white unicorns that don't really exist, we can certainly fantasize about black unicorns that don't really exist.
Drip cakes have been turning up all over and you mostly see them with bright colors or just regular old chocolate, but add a black drip to a cake and it is suddenly extra bold and daring. I especially love the black cake showing through this cake also.
So galaxies are naturally black with their beautiful swirls of color but bringing this idea to a cake was pure magic. You really feel as if you're staring off into the vastness of space.
The black backdrop cake is simply the concept of covering your cake in black icing as a backdrop to make your decorations really pop. These colorful flowers surely wouldn't be so vivid on a white cake. Absolutely stunning!
Similar to the backdrop concept the newly emerged black glam rock cake lends a nice background for colorful sprinkles and candy with that edgy glam rock feel. So fun!
On Sugar Geek Show Live Episode 5 Liz and Dan tried their hand at making their own version of Sweetapolita's Black Glam Rock Cake and this was the result! I think it turned out fab but Liz had some trouble with the drip on this one. Check out the episode below to find out why.
So there ya go, who says black is only for Halloween? Rock those black cakes because black is the new black. Or the old black? Still Black? Oh you get where I'm going with that.
Today I'm going to show you how I made this bug-themed birthday cake for my daughter Avalon's 3rd birthday party. She loves all things bug-themed right now: caterpillars, butterflies, snails, slugs, but I drew the line at spiders. 🙂
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make not 1, not 2, but 3 mushroom cakes that are fully sculpted from actual cake. You'll learn how to make the beautiful, gravity-defying butterfly with gelatin wings, modeling chocolate snails, a hand-painted caterpillar, and some pretty details that finish the whole cake off.
My bug-loving girl loved this birthday cake and I think you will too!
Today I'm going to show you how I made this bug-themed birthday cake for my daughter Avalon's 3rd birthday party. She loves all things bug-themed right now: caterpillars, butterflies, snails, slugs, but I drew the line at spiders. 🙂
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make not 1, not 2, but 3 mushroom cakes that are fully sculpted from actual cake. You'll learn how to make the beautiful, gravity-defying butterfly with gelatin wings, modeling chocolate snails, a hand-painted caterpillar, and some pretty details that finish the whole cake off.
My bug-loving girl loved this birthday cake and I think you will too!
Porsche 911 Turbo Car Cake is the ultimate in car cake tutorials. Car cakes can seem really challenging because every one is different! It's hard to keep proportions from every angle and know how to achieve that perfect shape.
This tutorial teaches you everything from what cake to use, how to get that perfect shape and how to make great details like realistic wheels, working headlights and a shiny exterior. The perfect cake for the car lover in your life!
Car cakes can seem really challenging because every one is different! It's hard to keep proportions from every angle and know how to achieve that perfect shape.
This tutorial teaches you everything from what cake to use, how to get that perfect shape and how to make great details like realistic wheels and a shiny exterior. The perfect cake for the car lover in your life!
Sometimes you need a custom mold for a special project and it needs to be exactly right! This tutorial teaches you how to make your own molds with inexpensive materials.
Most large molds can cost anywhere from $20-$100! Make your own molds, save money and get exactly what you need when you need it!
Have you ever wanted to make a shark cake? Maybe you have and maybe you haven't but either way we've got a handful of fun shark cakes that are worth checking out!
It's Shark Week and there is no shortage of awesome shark cakes on the webs to celebrate. I've compiled s0me shark cakes from cute to creepy to honor this epic week. Whether you're fascinated by sharks or frightened, I think everyone can agree these cakes are killer! (The good kind).
We of course have to start off by showing our very own shark cake that's a tutorial available to Premium and Elite Sugar Geek Show Members! It features a gravity defying design, sculpting, painting, a unique gelatin layer on top of the cake for the "water" look and so much more!
The design of this cake is fantastic and it certainly has a lot of sharks! A great mix of scary and cute. I love the 2D scene throughout the tiers and I think rounded cake edges really lend well to water themed cakes.
I love the 2D shark on this cake! So well done and super artistic. It looks like a mixture of modeling, painting and piping to create the look which is brilliant! The life saver adds a cute touch and you can never have too much cookie crumb sand on beach themed cakes.
This shark is apparently eating a sub (from what the description said), a clever play on words perhaps because it looks more like a sub sandwich but you might expect a shark to be eating an actual submarine. It doesn't matter what he's eating, he's pretty intimidating! It's a fantastic job.
Although this cake is simple it really caught my eye. The shark may be little but is definitely scary and so well done. I am pretty sure it's those crazy realistic jagged teeth and pink flesh tone that give it the heeby jeeby factor. The mild background really makes it stand out.
Ello Bruce! (in my best Australian accent). Everyone loves the shark from Finding Nemo and I thought this cake did a great job of capturing his character and in buttercream nonetheless!
I love the nautical theme of this cake and if you stick a shark on top it becomes truly unique. That life saver won't be saving any lives today.
Of course, when many people think of sharks they think of the iconic movie Jaws. I applaud the design of this cake doing such a fantastic job at emulating the very recognizable poster. If you have a chance to do the backstage tour at Universal Studios in California I highly recommend it. You get to see the actual animatronic shark used in the movie cruising through the water next to the trolley. If you thought it was scary on screen, wait until you see it in real life!
How cute is this cake? It's a super fun design and I especially love all the extra shark fins in the waves. The life savers also seem particularly well done, don't they?
Okay, so I had to add at least one gory, terrifying cake. Some people are into that sort of thing. I personally prefer to keep nightmares suppressed as much as I can but that's just me. Either way, I have to admit it's a pretty cool cake! It's a pretty realistic shark and definitely realistic enough to make your stomach start to rise into your throat. All in all I'd say it does what it set out to do.
I really love this cute and simple design just right for a shark loving kiddo. It's simple, cute and makes it look like he could be your best buddy which I suppose is a bit misleading but hey, the kid is 3 and nobody wants to ruin his birthday.
As an added bonus, here is a super fun shark cake tutorial from the fantastic Yolanda Gampp of How To Cake It! This is a sculpted shark cake anyone can do! It is really a perfect cake design for someone who has never sculpted a cake before. The shape is simple enough for a first project but will also teach you the basics you need to know for sculpting cake.
If tackling an entire shark cake is a bit intimidating for you then maybe you'd like to start with just a shark cake topper? This tutorial from Rasnabakes Elearning YouTube Channel gives you a perfect demonstration of how to make a super cute shark out of fondant to go on top of any shark or beach themed cake!
Surprisingly there doesn't seem to be a shark shaped cake pan available but Wilton gives this fantastic tutorial on how to use a football shaped pan to create a super cute shark! What a clever use of a football pan that takes the carving out of it if you're just not feeling up to the challenge. Little Timmy or Sally will be just as impressed!
First make all of your fondant or gum paste pieces ahead of time and let them dry. This would be the fins and also the eyes if you'd like to make the eyes ahead of time instead of piping them on with buttercream. It would be a good idea to stick a wooden skewer in the fins for added support.
Next you will bake your football cakes and allow them to cool. Then you will mark out the mouth and pipe in all the details with Wilton piping tips. Number 17 for the body, number 352 for the teeth, a 1A for the eyeballs if you didn't make them out of fondant or gum paste and a number 3 for the mouth and pupils.
Full tutorial available at Wilton along with a template for the mouth shape! Easy peasy!
That wraps up our shark celebration. Be sure to flip to the Discovery Channel for all the sharky fun this week...or you can just keep it to less horrifying shark cakes, totally up to you.
