TD Community Sunday: Paint Your Cake with Libby Brewer-Dulac from Sift Baking Co.

Try your hand at decorating a cake using Libby’s palette knife techniques!  To follow along with the workshop recording, you’ll just need to collect the materials listed below.

• A baked, layered and crumb coated cake of your choice on a cake board or a serving plate – it could be three layers tall like mine, or it could be a simple single layer cake. If it’s tall, you can paint top and sides, if it’s short, your top is your canvas. Crumb coated: spread a thin layer of buttercream over the entire cake to seal in the crumbs and prepare for painting
• Buttercream (Swiss Meringue is best) or frosting – enough to cover the cake plus about half a cup for painting
• Edible colours – gel food colours like Wilton or Chefmaster are best for vibrant colours, natural powdered colours can also be used but sometimes impart their own flavours
• An offset cake spatula – alternatives: a butter knife, the back of a teaspoon
• Other food safe tools for making marks in your buttercream – examples: a silicone spatula, bamboo skewers, wire mesh sieve, your Grandmother’s cookie cutters
• A cake turntable or lazy susan – alternatives: the turntable from your microwave, a small bowl upside down, with a dinner plate placed on top
  Another dinner plate to act as your palette
• A soft cloth or kitchen towel for wiping off your tools
  Inspiration! Take a cue from artist Michael Lin and find patterns from textiles around your home, wrapping paper, your favourite shirt or throw pillow

Here is another cake that Libby created, this one inspired by Michael Lin’s work Archipelago (far left):

Here you can see some up-close demonstrations of icing techniques: