Frosting and Crumb Coating a Cake is like doing a foundation for decorating the cake.
For frosting the layers you can use a variety of things from flavoured Buttercream, Ganache, Mousse, Ice Cream, Jam or Fruit Custard.
For a Crumb Coat use Ganache, thinned Apricot Jam or Buttercream that is a little thinner in consistency.
Tips n Tricks :
Always wrap a baked cake in a plastic wrap and refrigerate well in advance. This will make it much easier to handle the cake for trimming and dusting off the crumbs.
Before beginning to frost the cake slowly rub the cake with your fingers to remove the crumbs.
Materials Needed:
Big Knife Or Cake levelling tool
Offset Spatula
Long rectangular strips of Parchment Paper or Butter Paper
Turn Table or a heighted stand that will help you to rotate the cake ( an inverted bowl can do the trick )
Method:
Trim the top of all the cakes to get a flat top. You could use a cake leveller that is easy to trim the cake or mark the cake at the edges with toothpicks to use as a guide and then run a long knife to get a flat cut through the cake.
Place the cake board over the turntable or any mounting object you are using.
Dab a spoonful of frosting in the center of the cake board that will help to hold the cake and avoid it from slipping and moving.
Cut strips of parchment paper and place it all over the edges of the cake board. This will help you keep the cake board clean later.
Place the cake over the prepared cake board and spread the frosting of your choice with an offset spatula. If you are using some fruit in the frosting receipe then to avoid the juice oozing out of the cake later a good way is to first pipe a buttercream frosting at the egde of the cake and then spread the frosting in the center. The buttercream at the edge will act as a bridge and prevent the juices from the fruits to ooze out later.
Repeat the frosting with as many layers the cake is going to be.
For the top layer place the cake with the bottom part on top. This gives you a perfectly flat topped cake for decorating.
The basic idea of crumb coat is to cover all the crumbs on the cake and get a clean surface for working over.
Use the buttercream that is thinned down a little as a consistency of a little thicker than a drizzle. You can thin down the same buttercream frosting you are using with 1 or 2 Tbsp of milk or warm water for a cup of buttercream. Check the consistency as you crumb coat such that the cake does not break up and stick to the offset spatula.
Now slowly turning the turntable or the cake board in case you are using a different mounting object frost the top and sides of the cake with buttercream . A thin coat will do to cover all the cracks and crumbs.
Now put the cake in the fridge for 15 - 20 mins till the crumb coat is dried.
If you are going to cover the cake with fondant, then you can go ahead now.
If you are using buttercream then you can go on for another coat of buttercream to top the cake.
After you are done with all the decoration slowly pull out the parchement paper stripes from under the cake and now you have a clean cake board.
