A cake decorator is a skilled professional who can turn an ordinary cake into a fantasy of color and design. Able to create anything from realistic flowers to giant animal cakes, cake decorators are the artists of the cake world. For many, becoming a cake decorator combines two fantastic passions: a love of sweets and a love of art.
Training for cake decorators can be quite serious and strict, or casual and self-determined. Cake decorating is often an important part of pastry chef training programs found at cooking schools and culinary institutes. Many formal pastry chef programs take years to complete and result in degrees and certificates of completion. For the home baker, craft shops, cooking stores, and community colleges often offer cake decorating classes for all skill levels. Whether learning to make flower petals or embarking on a wedding cake for 200, there is sure to be classes, books, and even websites that can be of great assistance to a decorator.
A cake decorator may or may not also work as a baker. While most can certainly follow a recipe, decorators often specialize in frosting and decorating cakes rather than putting them together. Whether the decorator bakes the cake or not, flavor is obviously as important as fancy design. If the cake doesn't taste wonderful, it probably will not matter how great it works. For this reason, many decorators partner with talented bakers or pastry chefs if they do not bake their goods themselves.
The first step in most cake decorating is laying down a base level of frosting or icing. This can be done with soft icing such as buttercream, or firm icing like fondant. Buttercreams tend to give a more uneven but textured finish, while fondant or rolled chocolate can give a cake decorator a perfectly smooth, seamless canvas on which to work.
After laying down the initial coat of icing or frosting, decor may be added. A cake decorator can pipe icing into designs and create figures and forms out of frosting, chocolate, fondant, or even candies and fruits. Tiered cakes can be created by stacking layers of cakes or balancing cakes on separate levels and supports. Cakes in the shapes of items and animals can be cemented together with supports, cut down into correct shapes, and built up with extra layers. Part construction worker, part artist, a decorator's ability may be limited only by his or her imagination.
A cake decorator may choose to specialize in a type or signature style of cake decorating. Some choose to focus exclusively on wedding cakes, which can be immensely elaborate and enormous in size. Others advertise their ability to make whimsical and fantastical cakes to fit any theme or need. An established decorator can choose to accept orders based on what she herself desires to work on, much like an artist making commissioned works. If you are a home baker who has proved his or her decorating skill, however, prepare to be bombarded by friends and relatives begging for special requests.
