Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I’ve looked at the free tutorials and Paul mentions about getting sharper edges on a round cake but says he’s not going into that today (this was on the covering a round cake with sugar paste). Is there a cake tutorial where I can see how he gets super sharp edges on round cakes? I’ve seen the Jimmy cho shoe cake box where Paul talks about panels but I’d like to know about round cakes. Thanks

Hi wardshar

The brief technique which Paul demonstrated in the free tutorial is how sharp edges are achieved. It does help to have a sharply ganached cake to begin with and is seen in every tutorial. However Paul uses the upside down method in this tutorial http://www.cakeflix.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/vintage-pearl-cake to give even sharper ganached edges which help when the cake is iced. The two smoothers are used to draw the icing up and across to the rim of the cake and gently tapped together to pinch out a sharp edge. It’s then just a case of going round several times until the desired sharpness is achieved as seen here http://www.cakeflix.com/introduction-round-bow-cake-lesson-4-sugar-paste ( this is the original bow cake, not the same as you have already viewed).
The upside down ganaching method can be employed on normal tiers with great effect.

Hi frannot1

I don’t use butter cream but I think you will achieve sharp edges if you work on a very chilled, not frozen cake. The crumb coat should be really hard and completely smooth so a little pressure can be applied to the icing when sharpening the edges.

I don’t want to ganache cakes before icings so how do I get a sharp clean finish with my icing if I use buttercream to ‘dirty ice’ my cakes