Professional Cake Decorating

Professional Cake Decorating is a must-have resource for professional and aspiring cake artists, baking and pastry students, and cake decorating hobbyists, drawing on years of experience from master cake designer and IACP Award nominee Toba Garrett. This Second Edition has been completely revamped with gorgeous new photography and a fresh new design. The New Skills have been re-organized into a user-friendly, step-by-step format, and line art and photos throughout the book provide a visual reference for each new technique. The book begins with an introductory chapter on all the fundamentals of the cake designer's art, from covering a cake board to assembling and icing a layered cake to stacking cake tiers with pillars or columns. Subsequent chapters cover decorating techniques including Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Piping Skills, The Art of Writing and Painting, Royal Icing Design Skills, Hand Modeling Skills, Pastillage Construction, Gumpaste Flowers, and much more. A chapter on Miniature Cakes and Decorated Cookies includes techniques for making petit fours and other small treats, while the Cake and Confectionery Gallery provides inspiration for decorators with nearly 20 full-page photos of breathtaking cakes and information on the techniques needed to complete each one. Garrett also includes recipes for cakes, fillings, icings, cookies, and more, as well as an appendix of templates to help decorators replicate the designs shown in the book.

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Excerpts from the Book (Click on images to enlarge)

	Basket of Fruit This work of art is a magnificent collection of nearly life-size marzipan peaches, pears, oranges, and apples. The fruits are flanked with marzipan leaves, berries, and gumpaste blossoms. On the bottom, the basket is iced in smocked panels with stitchwork, and finished off with clusters of blossoms. The result is truly an outstanding piece that’s suitable for the finale of a lavish dinner party. SKILLS NEEDED Marzipan fruit modeling Smocked panels Gumpaste flowers
SKILL: BASKET WEAVE Ingredients 6 oz (170 g) Practice Buttercream Icing Equipment #46 or #48 basketweave tip 12-in (30.5 cm) flex pastry bag or lightweight pastry bag 8-in (20.32 cm) round Styrofoam attached to a 10-in (25.40 cm) cardboard round Although basket weaving is an old-world technique, it is still commonly used and produces a stunning cake without a lot of effort. Amateurs and pros alike can give a tailored look to a cake with basket weave. With a little effort, your basket weave cake can be a work of art. Basket weaving can be accomplished with several types of icing tips. Although the #46 and #48 are popular tips and often used to create this look, you can use round tips (#7, #8, #9, #10, #12), star tips (#16, #18, #20, #21, #22), or even petal-shaped tips (#101, #102, #103, or #104).
	Illustration Left, top to bottom: The steps to create basket weave, using different colors and a #18 star tip for the downstroke. Right, top to bottom: The downstroke, crossover strokes, another downstroke that covers the first round of crossover strokes, and a crossover stroke over the second downstroke. Decorator's Hint: If you are practicing on a flat surface, position the icing tip and pastry bag at a 45° angle to it. Use the lift-and-drop technique to move the icing to the desired points on the surface.