Your cake may be entirely crumb-free - or it may be fairly crumb-y, as this one is. Frosting a warm cake is an exercise in futility akin to making iced coffee by adding ice cubes to hot coffee - yeah, you can do it, but not if you want great results. Let’s see how to do a crumb coat on one of our favorite cakes, Classic Birthday Cake.įirst, make sure your cake layers are entirely cool. Though the cake needs a couple of quick chills in the fridge to set its frosting, these short rests are the perfect opportunity to get out your sprinkles, consider your spatula strategy, and maybe check Instagram. A crumb coat smooths over every imperfection - literally - leaving a pristine surface upon which you can swirl, pipe, and style your remaining frosting.Īnd the best thing of all, for casual cake bakers like me? It’s easy. Applying a crumb coat means your finished cake will never reveal its inner issues: the crumbly side, dimpled top, or that thumbprint you inadvertently made with your oven glove. How much difference can it really make?”Īs it turns out - a lot. So until very recently, I’d never done a crumb coat, which is basically your layer cake’s underwear: a thin coat of frosting applied prior to the thicker layer of “real” frosting. Learn how to do a crumb coat, one of the first steps you take on your evolution from “Sure, I can slap frosting on a cake” to “Every cake I bake is a reflection of my brilliant inner artist.” You know which camp you fall into, right? If you’re a Cake Baker, feel free to skim this post just for the satisfaction of thinking to yourself, “Yeah, yeah, I know all that it’s SO basic.”īut if you bake cakes without the complete buy-in of a dedicated Cake Baker - then read on. That way I can smooth the frosting more effectively.There are people who bake cakes - for the occasional birthday, office party, or just because it’s so fast and easy to go from “I NEED some chocolate” to chocolate Cake Pan Cake.Īnd then there are Cake Bakers - with their complete arsenal of multi-sized pans, cake strips, offset spatulas, piping bags, and the all-important revolving cake stand, without which no self-respecting cake decorator would consider finishing their perfectly baked confection. Since the cake is approximately 9-inches tall when filled, I use a 10-inch long icing spatula. SARAH SAYS: To apply and smooth the crumb coating, I use an offset icing spatula that is a little longer than the height of the cake I am working on. Refrigerate your cake, uncovered, for 1/2 hour before applying the final frosting coat. Toss out the crumb coating frosting portion afterwards because it may contain lots of crumbs.Ģ. Crumb Coat your cake with the same icing you are going to use for your final coat, except separate out a small portion of it to use just for this purpose. A crumb coating of icing works the same way as spackling goes on a rough wall it fills in the holes and cracks in the cake's surface so the next frosting layer goes on looking smooth and is ready for decorating on.ġ. SARAH SAYS: I like to think of crumb coating as akin to the way spackling paste is used on a wall to prepare it for painting a fine layer of spackling paste is used under the layer of paint to fill in the cracks and holes in the wall to smooth it's surface so the paint dries smoothly. The crumb coat provides an extra layer before the frosting layer is applied and helps prevent the dark underlying cake from showing through. Go to our Nouveau Christmas Fruitcake recipewhere we show you how to crumb coat the cake, step-by-step.Ĭrumb coating is also helpful when the cake is dark, such as a chocolate cake, and a lighter color frosting is placed on top, such as a white color buttercream frosting. It is often described as a way to seal in the cake's crumbs so they won't get into the final coat of frosting, which follows, or the cake can be frozen with the crumb coat applied. Now that the cake layers have been filled, they are crumb coated with a thin layer of frosting, in this case, buttercream. Copyright © 2000 Sarah Phillips All rights reserved.
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