Adding Knowledge To Your Base

Over the past months, I really feel like I'm starting to learn something about cake decorating! Finally! After many mistakes and mishaps, my cakes are coming out better than ever. I'm feeling great and encouraged that I really do know what I'm doing and then it happens: the fondant on my cake board cracks at the delivery site when the cake is moved; a gumpaste figure looses it's key feature piece when moved out of the car and it's too late to do anything about it; my gumpaste monkey seems to be shrinking as his legs are lost in his boots, buckling under the pressure of his body. Great! I guess I don't know anything after all!

My mishaps and overconfidence in my ability is identical to my relationship with God. Things get going well, I'm learning more about him, my life is going great and I think I start to figure him out. Then it hits. My life seems to fall apart as I realize how little I really do know about God and I absolutely cannot predict his next move! It's a humbling feeling and a lesson that I fear I'll be learning until the Lord finally lets me come home.

Isaiah records in chapter fifity-five, verses eight and nine, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (ESV, 2001) God is so much bigger than I am and my human brain will never be able to understand why he does what he does. He will open my small eyes to many of his great wonders and ways, but not all of them and not all at once. God is big and mysterious, but he is always good.

Humbled as I now am knowing how little I really do know, I have been given a choice to continue down a path thinking that I know everything and stumbling through cakes and going through countless boxes of tissue to deal with the disappointing outcomes, or I could admit my weakness and look to God for help. I'm not the smartest, but I'm not stupid enough not to request help when it's available! In response to my cry for help, I was blessed with lots of new information, tips and tricks for constructing a cake! I am now humbled in my weakness and ready to listen and learn all I can and feeling so blessed by how God has chosen to provide exactly what I needed to know!

In case you didn't know this either, I'd like to show you the secret to constructing a base for your cake.

For a thick sturdy base, use 3 cardboard cake boards and glue together. One decorator suggested turning the boards so the coragated lines where going in opposite directions. I found that the cardboard circles I have were not cut perfectly therefore that concept would make the edge look sloppy even after covering with a ribbon, so my lines all went the same direction. I prefer using tacky glue for this job.

To ensure that the cardboard cicles are as close together as possible, I set something heavy and just smaller than the cicle on top. In this case, my flour jar works perfect! For larger boards, I use a glass bowl turned upside-down.

 

If you are going to cover your board with a decorative paper or liner, do that now. A little tip: put down the aluminum foil! If that's your only option, get a cake board covered in a plastic coating and just leave it exposed. A ribbon around the edge will hide the yucky edges. I promise, this looks much more professional than aluminum foil! For fondant covered cakes, a fondant covered board looks best, but for buttercream cakes, I prefer to use Wiltons Fanci-Foil Wrap in aluminum. It's a little pricier, but it looks great! For many of my buttercream cakes, I do cover the cake boards in the same color fondant.

This next step makes the difference in how easy it is to pick up your cake! Take a single cake board that is one size smaller (if your cake board is 12 inches you'll want a 10 inch cake board) and glue the smaller board to the bottom center. At this point you can cover the board with fondant if desired and add a decorative ribbon around the edge. The end result is a cake board you can get your fingers under making picking up your cake a breeze without running the risk of cracking the fondant on your board. Customers won't even realize the riser underneath the cakeboard, but I promise the difference is well worth putting one more item into your cake!

Hope this makes your next cake a little easier to handle!


God Bless!

Shannon