How To Make And Decorate Your Very First Cake

How To Make And Decorate Your Very First Cake It's 3 o'clock on Thursday afternoon and your best friend has just asked you to make a cake for her son's birthday... On Saturday! The only problem is the last cake you made came out of an easy bake oven 20 years ago. Oh no!! So here's what you need to do in order to make this magical moment happen. First things first, take a big deep breath in and don't panic. You can do this. Trust me.

Cancel any girls night out, appointments, pedicures, etc... you're going to need these precious moments! You have two days to pull this off, and you bet you will! Now anyone can make a cake, it might not be all that pretty (or edible for that matter) but it's really not as hard as it looks or sounds to be. Decide if you are going to make this cake from scratch or if you want the help of lovely lady by the name of Betty Crocker - she's awesome. If you decide you want to go from scratch make sure you have a good recipe on your hands. Ask whoever has given it to you if it's a real hit or was just okay. Don't touch anything that's too difficult. You can impress them another time. If you decide to go the Betty Crocker route it's a great choice and an easy one. Run out to your nearest grocery store and pick up a few boxes of whatever flavor has been requested. If you don't have a cake pan, pick one up while you're there. Also, don't forget all the ingredients, these kind of come in handy. Flip the box over and read carefully everything you'll need to make this masterpiece. It's usually only a few things, enough to fit into one hand and you're ready to go. Now it's Thursday night, do you start baking the cake or do you wait until tomorrow? Definitely don't wait until Saturday unless you love being completely stressed out and pushed to the last minute. Hopefully you're not that kind of person! You can bake your cake on Thursday, freeze it overnight and start decorating it on Friday after you race home work. This gives you enough time just in case something goes terribly wrong. Back to making your delicious cake! In the kitchen, get you cake pan ready, greased to perfection and have all your ingredients out on the counter, easily accessible. Follow the directions on the box and pour batter into your cake pan, about 3/4 full. This will leave some room for it to rise nicely. When the timer goes off make sure you do the all-important toothpick check. Grab a toothpick and insert it into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean it's ready, if not then you need to leave it in for a few more minutes. Test again. Let you cake cool completely before you attempt to remove it from the pan, unless your best friend wants the cake to look like it went through the blender. Once you've taken it out of the pan wrap it well with saran wrap and place it in your freezer for a good nights sleep - it will still be there in the morning! Friday afternoon, take you cake out of the freezer and let it thaw at room temperature. While this is happening you will make your delicious icing recipe to cover this beautiful cake. You can make this from scratch as well or you can run out and grab icing in a can/tub/box etc... it's all the same! Decide if it will need any food coloring and adjust as needed. Taking a wide spatula or butter knife start spreading out large globs onto your cake, making sure to get most of the icing on the cake and not the countertop! Smooth out the frosting as best as you can - this may take awhile but it's one of the most important steps in cake decorating. Once your cake has been completed iced you can decorations, sprinkles, cake toppers or anything you'd like. Make it unique and make it your own! Now that you've made your first cake you're on your way to making bigger and better cakes.... And you just might have caught the cake decorating bug! How To Make And Decorate Your Very First Cake