How To Decorate A Cake

For 60 years, The Culinary Institute of America has been setting the standard for excellence in professional culinary education. In this video series, experienced chefs and educators show you how to tackle essential cooking techniques.

Watch this video to learn how to decorate a cake that looks presentable for the fanciest of occasions.

Decorate a Cake

I'm Chef Rossomando from the Culinary Institute of America, and I"m going to show you this kitchen basic: how to decorate a cake.

We're basically working with 2 specific tips: a star tip and a straight tip. The straight tip, believe it or not, is harder to get a clean finish off. So I would start off with the star tip, for those beginners out here.

I have two plastic piping bags here. I'm going to fold over the top of this bag to form a cuff, so that you can fill your bag much easier. You'll then put in your pastry tip, and it floats right to the bottom of the bag.

I'll now feed my buttercream into the bag, just one large scoop, making sure it goes down toward the bottom of the bag by just giving it a gentle squeeze.

For the shell border, you press down and pull; it's basically a teardrop shape. And I just keep turning my turntable so that my design is going away from me, and I have a clean spot to work with each and every time. This is very quick, and can be used for any occasion.

For finishing off the bottom of the cake, I'm going to use my pearl tip. I'll fill my pastry bag again about halfway full, and I'm going to just squeeze out into the bowl to make sure I don't have any air trapped in there. Then I start piping on the border. It's basically pressing, staying in the same spot, and then pulling slightly toward you, so you have a little bit of a teardrop shape. This is an easy technique that really makes the cake look that much more special.

So now we have a beautifully decorated cake, ready to be served.