Guest Post: Pastry Hacks When You Lack Equipment!

Sample Pastry Decorating Hacks When You Lack Equipment

 

While scouring through Pinterest, Instagram or watching the endless stream of cooking and baking channels available on TV, it’s easy to get swept away with the desire to create beautiful intricate designs that pastry chefs so easily whip up in their fully kitted out kitchens. However, what happens to all the people who want to produce fantastic cakes and other edible delights that don’t have every baking tool out there?

If you want to know how you can decorate your homemade bakes easily, even though you may not have all the bits and bobs. Hopefully, this will encourage you to try baking as 83% of all Americans report that baking some kind of dish at home improves your disposition.

Cupcakes

If you would like to decorate exquisite cupcakes for your child, one of the easiest ways to decorate icing without piping bags or any other tools is simply by using your hands.

Now, to ensure that the icing sticks make sure your cupcakes are no longer warm and then spread a good quantity of icing onto the cupcake using an ordinary spreading knife.

From there, you can either proceed to take your clean finger and gently push the icing down and pull the finger back up, in order to create little ridges throughout the icing which end up resembling a flower. But if you wanted something a little more feminine, you could always simply use your finger to create a circling spiral motion throughout the icing.

If you like the idea of a patchwork quilt or a chessboard of some kind, then you can either use your finger or a toothpick to run lines through the flattened icing. Make sure to do it so that way the one set of lines overlap the other so as to create a crisscross pattern. And remember if it doesn’t turn out perfectly you can just say that you were trying to achieve a rustic buttercream look.

Other treats

One of the easiest wow-factor bakes that doesn’t require any equipment and can be taken to any event from a birthday party to a wedding is a layered ombre cake. For the cake all you need to decorate it is a few zip lock bags, your usual spreading knife, a pair of scissors and a couple of bowls to mix the icing with the various food coloring shades.

Simply take your cooled cake, stack it with a little plain white icing and then spread a little of the icing around it so that it creates a solid layer for your piping to go through. Now you mix all your various icing shades, pipe them on in sections and then simply use your knife to smooth them into an ombre fusion. If that sounds a bit too advanced for the moment, might I suggest homemade fudge instead?

If by the end of this you are extremely exhausted and find yourself slammed with the rest of your long list of to-do’s then perhaps a little caffeine is in order, make sure to reward yourself with a nice cup of coffee and delegate the washing up to those who will be devouring your baked goods within seconds instead.

With so many options for you to create, that require minimal skill and equipment but yield outstanding results, all that’s left to say is “Ready, Set……Bake.”

 

Bio: Sarah is the author of Simmer and Zest. She is assionate about food and how it’s made, where it comes from, and how people can enjoy it to the fullest extent.