HOW TO ICE A CAKE

This takes practice! I would suggest starting with a smallish cake, about 6 inch square or round is best to start with.

Before you start, your cake should be free of crumbs. If it is a fruit cake which has been marzipaned, then the marzipan should be dampened slightly with a little alcohol or boiled water. Do not make this too wet else you will get "bubbles" in your icing. If you are icing a maderia cake, then you should coat the cake lightly with buttercream.

Any gaps between the board and the cake should be filled with a little sugarpaste. If your cake has risen in the middle, then you should level the top with a cake leveller. Always use the bottom of the cake to ice so as to ensure a flat finish.

1 Start by dusting your rolling pin and board or work surface with a little icing sugar. Not too much or you will dry your icing out too quickly.

2 Knead your sugarpaste so that it is soft. Shape it into a round blob. You are now ready to roll.

3 Roll the icing out evenly. If you are covering a square cake, try and keep the icing in a square shape when rolling out, if it is a round cake, then try and keep the icing to a circular shape.

4 The icing needs to be about 3-4mm thick. You can use marzipan spacers to get the right thickness. It is important that the icing is not too thick or thin. Too thick and it will crack, too thin and it will tear.

5 Using a piece of clean string, measure across the width of your cake and then make sure that your icing is big enough to fit over your cake. The icing should be slightly bigger. If you have too much "overhang" then the icing will pull and you will end up with splits and cracks.

6 Once you are satisfied that you have the correct width and length, gently roll the icing up on to the rolling pin. Carefully lift it and roll over the cake. I always start from the "front" of the cake and then roll the icing towards the "back" of the cake. The icing should now be laying loosely on the cake.

7 You now need to smooth out the icing. If you are icing a round cake, you need to lift the icing slightly away from the edges and smooth down with your hands, lifting and smoothing as you go around the cake so that you don't get any creases. If you are icing a square cake. Lift the corners out on each side and smooth down. This will stop it from creasing up. This is quite a hard technique to master and takes a bit of practice.

8 You can now use your cake smoothers to smooth and shine the icing. Trim the bottom of the cake against the board. Take care when you do this that you do not cut the icing too short. It is a very easy mistake to make!