The Icing on the Cake Part 1 - Plastic Icing
When it comes to how you want your Wedding Cake to look, the first question you will need to ask yourself is “What type of Icing do I want? And the options are many!!
This article & those to follow will cover off some of the most sought after types of Icing used on today’s Wedding Cakes:
Plastic Icing (also known as RTR-Ready to Roll or Sugar Dough)
This is the smooth white icing most commonly seen on Wedding Cakes. It is extremely versatile when it comes to how you want your finished cake to look. It can be coloured, flavoured, painted, airbrushed, piped on, embossed, cut out, modelled, used on sculpted cakes & the list goes on. It is kneaded out till pliable, rolled out, placed & smoothed over your prepared cake.
Plastic Icing most suited to the more dense types of cakes, such as Mud Cakes, Fruit Cakes, Butter Cakes & cakes of similar ‘heavier’ texture. So if you are planning a Victoria Sponge cake for your Wedding reception, you can cross this type of icing off your list right now. Your delicate sponge cake would collapse at the mere sight of the rolling pin coming anywhere close to it & be absolutely crushed before making it through the covering process.
Within 24 hours of your cake being covered with Plastic Icing, it has generally firmed up enough to allow your cake decorator to start adding the finishing decorations to your delicious creation.
Most people seem to either love or hate this type of icing. Those not liking it, most likely due to having wedding cake handed to them in the past that was smothered in an enormously thick layer of this stuff. The good news is gone are those days. When you look around for your Cake decorator, find out how thick a layer of icing they decorate your cake with. Generally this icing is rolled out to between 3mm & 10mm thick. What’s also nice with this type of icing is a generous layer of chocolate ganache underneath the RTR icing (providing it’s a mud cake of course). Very tasty indeed!!
One thing to note however, is that Plastic Icing is not to be confused with Marzipan Icing. It is a common misconception that these are the same things. Marzipan Icing is generally only used if specifically requested. It rolls out smoothly like plastic icing does, but contains almond meal, which gives it it’s creamy/yellowy colour and it also has a very distinctive nutty taste to it. If used, it would mainly be as a base layer of icing on a fruit cake, on top of which the white plastic icing would then be used.
Kylie Stidwell
www.divinecakedesign.com.au
kylie@divinecakedesign.com.au
This article & those to follow will cover off some of the most sought after types of Icing used on today’s Wedding Cakes:
Plastic Icing (also known as RTR-Ready to Roll or Sugar Dough)
This is the smooth white icing most commonly seen on Wedding Cakes. It is extremely versatile when it comes to how you want your finished cake to look. It can be coloured, flavoured, painted, airbrushed, piped on, embossed, cut out, modelled, used on sculpted cakes & the list goes on. It is kneaded out till pliable, rolled out, placed & smoothed over your prepared cake.
Plastic Icing most suited to the more dense types of cakes, such as Mud Cakes, Fruit Cakes, Butter Cakes & cakes of similar ‘heavier’ texture. So if you are planning a Victoria Sponge cake for your Wedding reception, you can cross this type of icing off your list right now. Your delicate sponge cake would collapse at the mere sight of the rolling pin coming anywhere close to it & be absolutely crushed before making it through the covering process.
Within 24 hours of your cake being covered with Plastic Icing, it has generally firmed up enough to allow your cake decorator to start adding the finishing decorations to your delicious creation.
Most people seem to either love or hate this type of icing. Those not liking it, most likely due to having wedding cake handed to them in the past that was smothered in an enormously thick layer of this stuff. The good news is gone are those days. When you look around for your Cake decorator, find out how thick a layer of icing they decorate your cake with. Generally this icing is rolled out to between 3mm & 10mm thick. What’s also nice with this type of icing is a generous layer of chocolate ganache underneath the RTR icing (providing it’s a mud cake of course). Very tasty indeed!!
One thing to note however, is that Plastic Icing is not to be confused with Marzipan Icing. It is a common misconception that these are the same things. Marzipan Icing is generally only used if specifically requested. It rolls out smoothly like plastic icing does, but contains almond meal, which gives it it’s creamy/yellowy colour and it also has a very distinctive nutty taste to it. If used, it would mainly be as a base layer of icing on a fruit cake, on top of which the white plastic icing would then be used.
Kylie Stidwell
www.divinecakedesign.com.au
kylie@divinecakedesign.com.au
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Heather Redgen wrote: