Cake decorating

Cake decorating is art that is performed in places all over the world. That is why contests and baking show competitions are very popular, especially in the Western World. Cake decorating is one of the sugar arts that uses icing or frosting and other edible decorative elements to make plain cakes more visually interesting. Alternatively, cakes can be molded and sculpted to resemble three-dimensional persons, places and things.

In many areas of the world, decorated cakes are often a focal point of a special celebration (such as a birthday, graduation, bridal shower, wedding, or anniversary), or are given as gifts. They can also mark national or religious holidays, or be used to promote commercial enterprises.

Decorating a cake usually involves covering a cake with some form of icing and then using decorative sugars, candies, chocolate or icing decorations to embellish the cake. But it can also be as simple as sprinkling a fine coat of icing sugar or drizzling a glossy blanket of glaze over the top of a cake. Icing decorations can be made by either piping icing flowers and decorative borders or by molding gum paste, fondant, or marzipan flowers and figures. Fondant allows the baker to express creativity in baking. Fondant exists in many different colors, and its initial form is soft and easy to handle. In this form, cake decorators are able to mold fondant into many different artistic expressions. Many of these art expressions are also taught in professional cake decorating class. Fondant is primarily used to cover cakes but is also used to create individual show pieces for cakes. Gumpaste is a substance used in cake decorating to create flower decorations.Royal Icing is a sweet white icing made by whipping fresh egg whites (or powdered egg whites, meringue powder) with icing sugar.[2] Royal icing produces well-defined icing edges and is ideal for piping intricate writing, borders, scrollwork and lacework on cakes. It dries very hard and preserves indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but is susceptible to soften and wilt in high humidity. Marzipan is often used for modeling cake decorations and as a base covering underneath fondant.[2] Professional institutes, such as the London Culinary Institute and Le Cordon Bleu, have begun segregating their cookery schools to create completely separate institutes, dedicated to cake making.[3]

baker is someone who makes, bakes and sells breads, rolls, biscuits or cookies, and/or crackers using an oven or other concentrated heat source. Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades. The place where a baker works is called a baker

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