Here is a great video on writing with icing. David gives some great tips on how to practice your writing before putting it on a cake.

For those of you who have never heard of if, ganache is a chocolate glaze icing. It can be used to cover cakes, thickened to fill truffles, or whipped to fill cakes. Once ganache cools, it become a hard coating on your cake.

Before covering a cake with ganache, take a wire cooling rack and place it in, or on top of, a cookie sheet. This will catch all of the chocolate that drips down. Make sure your cake is as level and smooth as you can get it as ganache can pick up imperfections in the cake.

2 cups of heavy whipping cream

1 1/4 lbs of bittersweet chocolate

1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces (or use small chocolate chips) and place them into a large stainless steel bowl.

2. In a large sauce pan, heat the cream over medium heat. Be sure to stir frequently until it starts to boil. Watch the cream closely as it will want to boil over. Once heated, pour the cream over the chopped chocolate.

4. Cool completely on the kitchen counter before use. Ganache can be stored in the refrigerator but will need to be reheated. To reheat, use a stainless steel bowl over hot, but not boiling, water.

5. Once cooled, place the cake on your wire rack and pour the ganache on top. With a spatula, lightly guide the chocolate down the sides of the cake. Keep doing this until the cake is completely covered with ganache.

My first recipe is for buttercream icing. I learned to make this during my Wilton cake decorating classes. It is a little sweet but is the best icing you can use for decorating cake because it is very easy to work with.

Ingredients:

1 cup of Crisco or any white vegetable shortening
1 tsp. of flavoring (vanilla, almond, butter, etc.)
2 tbls. milk or water (I always use water)
1 lb. or 4 cups of confectioners' sugar
1 tbls. of Wilton Meringue Powder
A pinch of salt (optional-cuts down on the sweetness)





Directions:

Cream shortening, flavoring and water (or milk). Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend an additional minute or so, until creamy

*Decorator's Tip* Add the confectioners' sugar a cup at a time or your whole kitchen will be white.

This will give you a stiff consistency icing. It is great for making flowers with upright petals like roses (post on how to make buttercream roses to follow).

Medium consistency icing is used to create stems, figure piping, borders and flowers with petal that lie flat. Add 1 tsp. of water to each cup of stiff consistency icing. Mix well until blended.

Thin Consistency is used or writing, making stems leaves, and icing a cake. Add two tsp. of water for each cup of stiff consistency icing (2 tbls. of additional liquid for the full recipe). Mix until well blended.