Is creating texture the next big thing in cake decorating?
Tuesday 6th January 2015
We think creating different textures in your cake decorating will be a huge trend in 2015 so we’ve picked out some of the key ideas for you to try out and perfect:
Embossing
Embossing is a great way to achieve the textured trend in cake decorating, and it’s so easy to do. This technique was very popular at the shows we attended this year, like Cake & Bake and Cake International. There were so many demonstrations on embossing and tools for you to buy and try yourselves, like imprinted rolling pins and patterned impression mats. You can even use different shaped cutters to gently imprint your own patterns in your coloured Ready to Roll Icing.
We think this cake decorating trend will be big this year for decadent looking wedding cupcake toppers, and for personalising decorated cakes and biscuits at birthdays.
This trend is already big in the Renshaw Baking community; the cakes below were made by some of our customers. The embossing nicely breaks up the usual level effect of icing.
Quilling
Quilling has long been a big trend in paper craft (it actually dates back to the Renaissance!) but we’ve seen this making its way into cake decorating too. Quilling generally involves the shaping of paper into delicate pleats, swirls, shapes and folds, and then placed and glued together into a decorative design.
Flower and Modelling Paste would be perfect for this trend, creating delicate designs and a 3D effect to cakes. The colourful quilled birthday cake below is by Bella Cupcakes.
Knitting
We think the knitted icing trend will really take off this year, prepare for knitted hearts on Valentine’s Day and knitted animals and Easter baskets when we move into Spring. There are moulds that you can buy to imprint your icing into, but we think it would be much more fun, and look a lot more impressive if you roll out strips of Ready to Roll Icing and twist these together. You don’t have to worry about winding many strips of icing together, just place your two pieces of twisted together icing next to another twisted strip and the knitted effect comes together easily!
The fantastic cake below was made by Michaela Fajmanova of Dorty Mifa and mixes the knitting trend with the popular ruffles trend.
Fur effect
Creating a fur effect on your animal shaped/decorated cakes has typically been made with frosting or buttercream and a grass or star shaped nozzle. But we’ve started to see a big move into creating this textured fur effect with Ready to Roll Icing, and there are plenty of techniques to try.
Snipping your icing is an easy way of creating a 3D effect on your cakes; using a small pair of clean scissors you can make small incisions into your icing and gently lift the icing where each cut has been made.
You can spend more time on creating fondant fur by using other techniques like marking individual lines of fur into your icing with a boning tool or a small knife, and building these up to add more character and a realistic effect. Or you can construct individual pieces of icing shaped fur by using an extruder and a multi-hole disc; this technique takes a lot more time but the results are so impressive!
The animal cakes below were made by Renshaw customers and they have got the fur effect spot on!
Feathers
The feather technique for cake decorating is a great way of building layers, texture and colour into your cake to create a unique and stand-out piece. You can use a range of different coloured Renshaw Ready to Roll Icing or Marzipan along with an oval shaped cutter for a multi-coloured tropical looking bird on a birthday cake, or try Renshaw Flower and Modelling Paste with feather shaped cutters or embossing mats to create more delicate feathers for an impressive wedding cake topper like a Peacock. Veining tools are also handy for creating a detailed feather effect.
The ‘Winter Peacock’ wedding cake below was crafted by Lorraine’s Cakes Doncaster.
Let us know what YOU think the new trends in baking will be for 2015…