The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible

Learn over 150 cake decorating techniques with this bestseller from the renowned sugarcraft expert! This is the ultimate guide to contemporary cake design—you’ll learn how to make decorated cakes, starting with basic sugarcraft tools, baking recipes, and ingredients, and finishing with advanced modeling techniques, including royal icing stenciling, brush embroidery, buttercream piping, using sugar cutters and molds, making cake jewelry, and so much more! Get creative with simple, step-by-step instructions for more than eighty celebration cake, mini-cake, cupcake, and cookie designs. Essential tips and advice are included for all skill levels, from complete beginners to the most confident of cake decorators—and you can even learn how to make Lindy Smith’s signature “wonky cakes.”

Perfect the art of piping—and discover techniques for turning a simple design into a stunning cake. Many people shy away from even trying their hand at piping. This chapter, taken from The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible, will help demystify the art and inspire you to perfect the technique. The basics are not difficult to master—having the correct equipment and icing consistency is key, whether it's buttercream or royal icing. Then, all you need is practice to become familiar with the amounts of pressure required as you pipe. Lindy Smith shows you how to pipe swirls, peaks, daisies, and roses with buttercream, as well as dots, hearts, drop line work, and brushwork embroidery with royal icing.

“An absolute game changer in the industry of cake art . . . hugely aspirational yet completely approachable . . . Bravo!” (Chef Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes). This essential guide demonstrates more than fifty innovative techniques—via easy-to-follow step-by-step photographic tutorials—and includes over forty stunning cake designs to create at home, from simple cupcakes to three-tiered wonders. Valeri and Christina start by showing you how to perfect a basic buttercream recipe and how to pipe simple textures, patterns, and an array of flowers. They then demonstrate how to create a myriad of creative effects using diverse techniques such as stamping, stenciling, palette knife painting, and much more. “I look forward to learning all the skills that I, as an artist in rolled fondant, have only the most rudimentary grasp of. Not since Cakewalk by Margaret Braun have I been this excited about a cake book.” —Chef Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes “The authors’ examples are inspirational and a demonstration of what is possible if you ‘put your whole heart into it.’ Overall, Valeriano and Ong have created a book full of inspiration and encouragement that re-energizes the use of buttercream in modern cake design.” —Sonya Hong of American Cake Decorating “Fascinating techniques . . . lovely ideas.” —Lindy Smith, author of The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible

Stenciling is an extremely effective way to add impressive decorations to your cakes and cookies quickly. For the best and most satisfying results, Lindy Smith recommends using laser-cut culinary stencils made from durable food-grade plastic. How you choose to add a stenciled pattern will depend on the effect you wish to achieve and the size of the item to be stencilled. This chapter, taken from The Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible, shows you various techniques using both edible dusts and royal icing; it also shows you how to make your own stencils and some possible other uses.

Flowers are probably the most popular choice of all cake decorations. The simplest representation of a flower is a cut-out shape. Other more interesting ways of representing flowers are to create fabric-effect flowers out of paste or to try your hand at creating lifelike flowers. There are many books written on the art of sugar flower making; LindySmith touches on this subject here, showing you how to make lifelike poppies and peonies, as well as fabric roses, blossoms and dahlias, and simple cupped flowers.

Presents one hundred recipes and step-by-step instructions that teach the skills required to create uniquely decorated cakes.

Featuring techniques for beginner and professional wedding cake decorators, including fondant, piping, and sugar flowers, this resource is filled with design ideas and step-by-step techniques for making and decorating wedding cakes. It also includes directories of decorative fondant techniques, piping, ribbons and trims and sugar flowers.

Let your cake decorating skills bloom with help from the world-renowned experts and authors of The Contemporary Buttercream Bible. Learn to pipe one-hundred different buttercream flowers—from azaleas to zinnias—to showcase on your cakes with this complete visual reference book. Each flower is demonstrated on a cupcake, with five full-scale projects to show you how to combine your flowers into a masterpiece cake. In this aspirational yet accessible guide, the authors demonstrate how to build up each flower using simple piping techniques that even the novice cake decorator will be able to achieve. All the basics are covered to get you started—how to make stable buttercream icing, advice on coloring and flavor, how to fill a piping bag, and more essential techniques. Valerie and Christina then demonstrate in step-by-step photographic detail how to create each flower and how to use your newfound skills to produce stunning cake designs. The flowers are presented through the color spectrum so when you look through the book, you’ll see a lovely rainbow effect. “A wonderful encyclopedia that can be used as reference or jumping off point for the experienced decorator as well as an all-in-one resource for intermediate or even ambitious beginners.” —Pink Cake Box University “The best book on decorating buttercream icing that I own . . . The step by step directions make sure there is no guessing as to how to do each flower that is illustrated.” —Red Kettle Cook