|
 Here
is a clever technique that lets you turn the side of a cake into a
rustic-looking basket. You simply combine long vertical stripes of icing with
short horizontal bars to produce edible basketweaving.
To make a basketweave design
you'll need:
Crumb coat the cake with
a smooth base layer. For the
pastry bag, insert a
coupler base in your Featherweight bag and lock basketweave tip 47 onto it with
your coupler ring. Fill bag
1/2 full with buttercream (if you fill it too much, the icing will melt when
touched by your hands). If you want to alternate colors (and go crazy!), use 2
pastry bags; one for each color.
Sequence:
1. Squeeze evenly, vertically.
2. Stop squeezing.
3. Lift tip away.
4. Squeeze evenly, horizontally across vertical strip.
5. Stop squeezing.
6. Lift tip away.
 |
Positions: Bag: 45° angle at 6:00 for
vertical strips, at 3:00(9:00) for horizontal bars
|
|
|
Tip: lightly touching surface, serrated
side up |
|
With bag in 6:00 position, squeeze out a vertical
strip of icing. With bag in 3:00 (9:00) position, squeeze out short horizontal
bars across the vertical bar. Spacing between the horizontal bars should be the
same as the width of the tip. To expand the basketweave pattern, simply repeat
the two previous steps, one vertical bar at a time. Note that each new set of
horizontal bars fits between the horizontal bars of the previous set.
| You can mark
your cakes when doing a basketweave, so the vertical lines are straight and
even. Mark it with an Adjustable Dough Cutter that opens like an accordion
and has small cutting wheels. Besides pastry
making, I use if for marking sheet cakes. You can also use a ribbon
(flexible) measuring tape to know where to position your rows. Mark them
with the tip of a sharp knife and a straight ruler. |
When you make the basketweave pattern, be sure
that your horizontal bars are long enough so that the next horizontal bars are
long enough so that the next vertical strip can cover their ends without
breaking the evenness of the pattern.
That's how you get a deep, three-dimensional
look. After you have practiced your basketweave on a flat surface, try it on
your upright board so you get the feel of doing it on the side of a cake.
When covering the side of a real cake with
the basketweave pattern, start at the base of the cake and work your way up.
Continue all the way around the cake. You may decorate the top in the same
fashion. Pipe any border you choose to hide the seam around the top and bottom
edges. I usually do a rope design at the bottom and whatever I think at the
moment for the top! (from www.wilton.com)
Some information and a few pictures from
www.wilton.com. Photos by
Tami Smith
| 
