The decoration of the cakes is as important as their taste, especially when it comes to the dessert prepared on the occasion of the New Year. This article reveals the most popular sweet decorating techniques, as well as ideas that you can repeat in your own kitchen.
Content
- Creamy christmas cake decoration
- Secrets of decorating baked goods with mastic
- How to use fruit for decoration?
- Baking with chocolate decor
Creamy christmas cake decoration
To decorate New Year's baking, absolutely any butter, protein, cottage cheese, chocolate or custard cream is suitable. It all depends on the taste and skills of the hostess. As a rule, the cream is used not only for the layer of cakes, but also for leveling the surface of the dessert and creating decorative elements.
Usually, the sides and surface of the product are leveled with cream in two stages. At the first (rough coating), the baked goods are covered with a thin layer of cream, collecting all the crumbs from the sides that can appear through the cream. Then they send the dessert to the refrigerator to settle for a little so that the cream grabs, and cover with another layer.
It is not always possible to neatly align the sides and top, but it doesn’t matter, because now the textured surface is in vogue. It is very easy to create it with your own hands using an ordinary fork or knife. Naked desserts with rough coating also continue to be popular.
To create a creamy baking decor for the New Year, you cannot do without special attachments. Of course, you can try to replace them with improvised devices, but even without this, you can create a beautiful dessert by decorating it with gingerbread cookies, berries, fruits, meringues and other sweets.
Gingerbread will adhere perfectly to the surface with a small amount of cream, or you can set them on baked goods using bamboo skewers, only they need to be inserted into the still hot gingerbread.
When spreading sweets on cream, it should be remembered that meringues can simply melt from a wet coating, so it is better to insulate it by dipping the place of contact into melted chocolate.
The cream dessert should be stored in the refrigerator before the celebration, but half an hour or an hour before serving it should be allowed to warm up at room temperature.
Tips for decorating baked goods with mastic
Many housewives fell in love with mastic due to its availability and ease of use. It can be used to cover (fit) baked goods on top, sculpt various figures or create sweet applique pictures. To color the sweet paste, food colors or juices of fruits and vegetables (beets, carrots, blueberries, spinach, etc.) are used.
New Year's cake can be covered with white or blue mastic. This will fully match the color scheme of the event, but be sure to even out before wrapping. On an uneven surface, the mastic will begin to gather in waves or folds, which will not look appetizing.
More often, baked goods are leveled under the mastic with chocolate ganache. This is a mass that includes heavy cream and chocolate. The leveled product is allowed to cool well, and then covered with a layer of thinly rolled mastic. The coating is leveled on the cream, and the excess is cut off.
Making a Christmas decoration from mastic in the form of openwork snowflakes will not work without special cutting plungers, which can be purchased in specialized stores. But you can mold snowmen, cut a Christmas tree or make an applique in the form of bullfinches using an ordinary knife and your own hands. Children can be involved in the process of sculpting the decor, they will really like it.
How to use fruit for decoration
At home, you can beautifully decorate the cake using fruits, which can now be bought in the store even in winter. You can use both seasonal citrus or cranberries, and more summer cherries, strawberries, raspberries and others. On top of them, you can sprinkle them with powdered sugar, which will imitate snow.
It is not recommended to take fruits and berries from the freeze, since after thawing they can lose their attractive appearance, and the liquid that will stand out at the same time spoil the appearance of the entire dessert.
You need to lay out the New Year's fruit and berry decor for dessert immediately before serving, and if you do this in advance, then they must be covered with decor gel or jelly for cakes. So they will acquire a beautiful glossy shine and retain their appearance.
Thin slices of oranges, pears or apples can be caramelized. This will make cake decorating less "capricious" than fresh fruit.
Baking with chocolate decor
Fans of decor without mastic can decorate their New Year's cake with chocolate. This product was also used by our mothers. If earlier houses only covered the finished product with a layer of chocolate glaze, now they create more complex compositions with smudges, chocolates, flowers and figures of people, animals and trees.
In order for the icing to lay on the sides of the cake with beautiful smudges, the cream with which the dessert is lined must be well cooled. Pouring the glaze follows from a pastry bag with a cut off tip on top, moving along the edge.
For example, you can make a Christmas tree out of chocolate by drawing its stencil on parchment and then covering it with melted chocolate. After hardening, carefully remove the Christmas tree from the paper and place it on the baking sheet.
Cake decorating is almost never just creamy, mastic, chocolate or fruity. More often than not, various techniques and types of decor are combined in one dessert, and the appearance of the treat only benefits from this. How to harmoniously combine cream, mastic, fruits and chocolate with the given photos of cakes, which can be used for inspiration.
