Okay- I had a request on how to crumb coat a cake.  It’s really quite simple.

First you start off with a cake.

Mine has grid marks because I cooled it on a cooling rack and then put it back in the pan overnight covered with saran wrap so I didn’t have to deal with it until morning. Once again it was baked in a 3″ pan. Less waste and better cake. First you put your cake on your board or plate or whatever you’re using. You want to secure the cake to the plate with some frosting. (Nothing worse than a cake that slides around).

Isn’t that a pretty blue?

If your cake is domed on top then level it. Mine baked up pretty flat. See?

The secret to baking a flatter cake is in the physics. Bake it slower so it bakes more evenly. I bake all cakes (except cupcakes that I want to dome) at 325 or less. This one was at 300 for the first 45 minutes and 325 for the last 30. It’s a BIG cake though.

Now if you have one three in cake then you need to torte (cut and fill) it. If you baked two two inch cakes then you can just level them and then fill them. This was a wedding cake so I torted it twice. The secret to even torting I’ve found is matching up the top to the bottom where they started. I use toothpicks. Then after I fill it I can put it back together like it started.

This is where my first cut will be- between the toothpicks. Also- always put the bottom up- it’s MUCH easier to frost.

Using stiff frosting create a dam around the edge of the cake. Give it a little room to spread towards the outer edge of the cake or it’ll create a bulge when you put the top on. You’ll not be able to get rid of it and it’s so frustrating. Fill with desired filling- this was raspberry. I did put a thin coat of buttercream underneath it so it wouldn’t all soak into the cake.

Put the top back on- or the next layer. I filled mine again.

Then you need to make your frosting. When you make the dam you want your frosting to be still. Stiff enough that you don’t really need to pipe it- you could pick it up and roll it into ’snakes’ for the dam.

When you crumb coat you want it fairly thin. The object of crumb coating is ’sealing in’ the crumbs. It’s not supposed to be pretty or perfect.

I don’t know if you can see the difference. The frosting on the left is thin for crumb coating and the frosting on the right is thick for the dam.

Then spread it on as thin as you can. You’re making a seal- you should be able to see the cake through the frosting.

Let the frosting set or crust. This is where meringue powder in your frosting makes it easier to work with. Then spread on your main coat- this frosting should be somewhere between the thin and the stiff. We call it medium consistency.

This cake turned out like this:

It looks like the one from a couple weeks ago right? Same little people- smaller cake for the open house.

Any questions? Happy cake making!

Day four