If you are new to cake decorating, this tutorial of How to Bake and Decorate a Cake from Start to Finish is a great place to start!
In this video tutorial, I will teach you how to successfully mix & bake a cake, how to freeze, trim, & settle your cake layers, and how to crumb coat & pipe a simple ruffled design.
We will go over all of the key baking and cake decorating tips and tricks that will help you to become a better baker and cake decorator! These cake decorating methods are tried and true, and as you will see, they are not difficult to do! Have fun experimenting!
Part One of our tutorial covers mixing, baking, and freezing your layers.
Part Two of our tutorial covers trimming, leveling, settling, and decorating!
*Please find our additional notes, RECIPE, and materials beneath the video. Enjoy!
Materials Used:
We used THIS VERSION of our White Almond Sour Cream Cake Recipe (conventional creaming method)
Buttercream
Two 8″ cake pans
Digital Scale (optional.)
Wilton 104 piping tip
Cardboard cake circle
Notes:
Here is our process of making & baking the cake:
For the most accurate results, weigh your ingredients..especially flour (assuming the recipe includes weight amounts)
Divide batter among your prepared pans (coated with vegetable shortening or flour, lined with waxed paper or parchment circle)
We like heavy duty aluminum pans (Magic Line is our favorite. Fat Daddio’s is a good option too.)
Cake layers are done when they spring back when the center is lightly touched…or the toothpick test comes out clean (or with just a few crumbs.)
After removing the cake layers from the oven, place pans on elevated rack for about 10-15 minutes before flipping cake layers onto the cake boards.
Wrap and freeze the cake layers while they are still warm–this will give you an extra moist cake.
Thaw frozen cake layers while still wrapped until partially frozen.
Level & Trim sides as needed with a serrated knife.
Place bottom cake layer on cake board, add filling/frosting (dam as needed)
Wrap unfrosted tier with plastic wrap & apply a weight to the top. Settle the tier for at least three hours or overnight.
Trim cake board down to size as needed. Crumb coat. Apply final coat of frosting or fondant.
** If your smoothing method (Viva paper towel method for instance) requires a crusting buttercream, WAIT until cake is room temperature before applying the final coat of frosting. When crusting buttercream is applied to a cold cake, it takes forever to crust.
Conventional Creaming Method vs. Reverse Creaming Method
In today’s tutorial, we used the Conventional Creaming method which involves creaming the butter and sugar, adding the eggs, and then alternating between dry & wet ingredients (beginning and ending with the dry ingredients/flour mixture). This is thought by some to be a more forgiving technique than the reverse creaming (although I like both methods!)
The Reverse Creaming method (also known as the hi-ratio or two stage mixing method) is used in our recipes from time to time. The ingredients are the same, but are added in a different order. With this method, the dry ingredients and the sugar are mixed first. Then the fats and a portion of the liquids are combined with the dry ingredients, followed by the remaining liquids. The result is a velvety cake with a finer crumb. **The Reverse Creaming method is meant for recipes that have a greater amount of sugar than flour (by weight).
Alternate Video Format:
Part One:
Part Two:
Great video. Thank you. I have a silly question. After filling and settling the cake if you have a bulge, do you cut away the excess frosting and proceed with the crumb coat?
This video is such a nice one to add to your library of techniques. Alady, Carolyn Duvall Lawrence, who has done cake decorating for years, shared a great tip with me. Instead of taking the cake layers out of the pan to wrap, she just leaves them right in the pan and wraps in layers of saran wrap. I have found this to be a real time saver. I don’t have to worry about misshapen layers because the pan protects them until they are completely frozen. When they have come out of the freezer, I can just trim the top portion of the cake level with the pan. The only down side to this method, is that you need multiple pans.
Very interesting videos. Informative. Being a strictly GF girl for many years this is certainly very different from the way I do things. But I now clearly understand why people struggle with GF Baking. :) Great videos very clear and easy to understand. I’m sure they will help a lot of people. Two thumbs up from the GF Gal. :)
Great tutorial. Thanks for the tips. My last cake turned out like a wet sponge. Now I know why!
Thank you all so much for your comments!!
@Queridam- Yes, if you notice anything that needs to be smoothed or trimmed away after the settling process, you’ll want to take care of it before crumb coating and frosting the cake.
Never say you can’t teach a old dog new tricks. I’ve been baking for years, and although most of this is familiar, I learned a couple of handy tips I never knew before. Definitely going to use on my next cake. I should mention my cakes don’t dome as I use flower nails in my pans and place my pan on a pizza stone. Seems to distribute the heat preventing the dome. I also saw a tip on letting your batter “rest” in the pan on the counter for up to 20-30 minutes before popping into the oven. Although sceptical, I tried it…and it worked!!
Thanks Melissa for a great video..concise and informative.
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A question Melissa. Forgot to ask in my last post. I noticed you didn’t dowel your cake with either bubble straws or wooden cake dowels. I always dowel my cakes, especially if I’m transporting them.
Hi June- thanks for your comments! – We should have mentioned that we like to use rose nails too for cakes that are 10″ and up to help distribute the heat. Interesting tip to place the pan on a pizza stone & also letting the batter rest. We usually don’t have much of a dome with our scratch cakes anyway, but for the doctored mixes, I’ll have to give that a try sometime!
Also, for doweling, I only find it necessary to dowel/add straws when working with stacked or double barrel cakes. I do like to chill my cakes until firm though before traveling. Thanks for bringing up the point of transporting -forgot to mention it!! ;0)
99.99% of the time I bake from scratch…and as you say, don’t get much doming. Different story for doctored cake mixes. Last couple of cakes I baked, 8″ x 3″ skipped the rose nails, just used the pizza stone….works a charm. I should say, if I have a cake just for family 2: 8 x 1 1/2″ I don’t bother to dowel…as you say, only stacked cakes. Don’t understand the science of letting the batter rest before baking….but it seems to work…
Great videos! So helpful to see the whole process. I have a question on the logistics of the oven positioning. When baking two cake pans at the same time, is it necessary to rotate the pans mid way through baking? Also, what is the best placement of the pans and are two cake pans the maximum number of pans you would suggest to bake at once?
Hi Samira, When I am baking two cake pans I don’t rotate the pans. I can bake three 8 inch round on the top rack of my oven. With some recipes all three are done at once, but sometimes I need to take out the back two pans and bake the front one a bit longer. I don’t rotate those either. The rule of thumb is to have air space between each pan and the pans should not touch the sides of the oven. If you happen to have a convection oven you would be able to bake on both racks.
Love the video and all the tips. I just have a question about the recipe for the White Almond Sour Cream Cake that was posted with the video. Is there any almond flavoring added to the cake? I didn’t see any almond flavoring listed with the recipe.
Hi Ethel Ann, Yes, the recipe does have 1 teaspoon of almond extract. It is listed in the recipe is in the recipe section, but was left out of the above recipe link, I’ll make that correction. I am not a fan of almond flavoring that must be why I left it off as you would do if you wanted a vanilla cake. I am sorry about that, thank you for letting us know
Loved this and learned many new points I’ll put into practice!!
Thanks for making your post, Janis !
I am having a real problem with my cakes sinking in the middle. I researched this and found that opening the oven door can cause this and over mixing can do this so I make sure that I don’t do either. I am baking the WASC into 8″ and 6″ pans at 350. I am not doing the reverse creaming method. I would really appreciate any help. I don’t know how to fix this. It also happens with the chocolate recipe. ???
Hi Terri, Well, I am sure this is so frustrating for you! Have you checked your oven temperature? I think you might need to buy an oven thermometer to see if you oven is actually heating to the temperature you have set. Let us know how it goes.
Hi Bebe, thanks for your response. I do have an oven thermometer and my temp is 350. I baked 2 8″ and 2 6″ cakes. All 4 sank in the middle. It happens most of the time. My cakes never done. The cake mixes aren’t expired. Do you think I should just use flower nails? Bake at a lower temp? The cakes look fine till they are almost ready to come out then they sink. Errrrr! I end up with half to 2/3s of a pan once I level.
Hi Terri, OK, that is good, it is not the oven temperature. I thought your cakes were sinking after being taken from the oven. Sinking while still baking and almost done is not as typical a problem. I did some research and the most common reason for the cake to sink in the center during baking is too much flour. You are baking the WASC using a cake mix, right? When I measure the flour I lightly spoon the flour into the cup then level it off using the back of a knife. If you dip the measuring cup into the flour container and scoop out the flour you will be packing more flour into the cup than needed. Do you think that could be the issue? Another reason is not enough liquid to the amount of dry ingredients in the recipe but I thought since you are using a cake mix, this is probably not the cause. Let me know.
Thanks a lot .I have learned a lot of new things and I will put it in practice.
After reading this article, I could not stop to myself from making it. So i prepared it. It was too yummy!!!!
Thanking You!!!!!
I have literally no room in my freezer Any other method i can use for a moist cake?
I’m so amazing at what I saw on your blog,was searching for a nice site where i can bake a cake when i came across your blog. Your steps areeasy and simple to understandable.
Thanks for creating this site.
Hie Melissa I can’t get access to the videos Fr making the cake from scratch and the strawberry cake
Hi Tawanda, I am sorry you are having trouble. Tell me what you see when you try to view the video. If the page is not displaying properly you could try visiting the site in a different Browser ( if you are using Safari, you could try Chrome, Firefox or one of the others). Let us know if you continue to have problems.