A keen and enthusiastic baker willing to give anything a go, there have been a number of flops over the years! One thing I know to be true is that…
You can blame your tools and your ingredients or at least try!
Here is the perfect example of a ganache that is not quite right and a lack of the right tools for the job. We will get to the ganache in a later blog.
Tools – to get perfectly smooth walls on your cake, you have to have the right tools. A quality turntable, a sharp edge scraper (that you keep clean), and a second cake board. This was a great tip I learned at one of my cake courses earlier this year. So easy to achieve! Check out the before and after!
Turntable and sharp edge scraper are a must!
For this not so smooth cake wall, I used your regular everyday spatula and a wobbly cake turntable. I applied the ‘lumpy’ ganache and tried to smooth it out. As you can see, I had limited success.
THEN… drumroll please…
Did I mention that patience is definitely the key!
To achieved this smooth cake wall – I used a second cake board applied to the top of the cake (wrapped in glad wrap to avoid mess everywhere, particularly on hands), align the scraper with the top and bottom cake boards, a few turns applying the scraper then importantly cleaning the scraper. Voilà (wah-lah), the walls of the cake are so much cleaner, straighter and smoother.
At Bluebird Baking Studio, we love a sharp edge on a cake! It gives you the chance to layer fondant without a wrinkle.
Checkout the cakes in the Bluebird Baking Studio Cake Gallery, some cakes I have achieved straight sides but some definitely need some work.
At Bluebird Baking Studio, while perfection is sought after, I am still a home baker that loves to bake and sadly not all cakes are ‘perfect’. What I strive to do is make the cake perfect for the customer!
What are your tips to get straight cake walls?