The History of Cake Decorating

The e History of Cake Decorating Cake decorating is one of those often ignored culinary arts. The sight of a beautifully decorated cake delights almost everyone. 41% of Brits bake at least once a fortnight, but most people are not aware of the long and intricate history of the art. It indeed has a long and coloured history. Here is a brief overview of the history of cake decorating:- Decorated Cakes 1st made their appearance in England during the time of Queen Elizabeth I (1553-1603).Cakes were mainly decorated or adorned with a sticky Almond paste. Tn 1660 Charles IIl sat on the English throne aftet returningfrom exile in France. He brought with him his love for the French pastry. He suggested that the use sugar crust and trinkets in Cake decoration. In the mid 17th Century Cake pans came out across kitchen in North-East Europe. Cake Pans gained wide popularity to create elaborate desserts that were chiefly used for display. In the beginning, bakers had a limited selection of cake decorating sup- plies, tools, and equipment. Bakers would simply glaze cakes with a smooth, shiny icing, thus creating the perfect decorating surface. Then, these artisans would mold whimsical shapes and figures from marzipan (a sweet, sculptable almond paste still used today!) or other sugary pastes, and dye them to decorate the top of the cake. The celebrated confectioner Antoine Carème in his book "Patisserie Royal" illustrated with engravings showing that he used a form of pastillage for his highly structured cakes and desserts. It is he who likened the art of the con- fectioner to that of the architect and, in fact, took many of his ideas from architectural drawings. The cake decoration art of today truly got its start in the mid 19th Century. Decorated cakes started to come out in Banquet tables regularly. In 1894 Ernest Schulbe first competed at the London Exhibition. His book:-“Advanced Piping AINANCED and modelling" shows that the modelling tools we know today were in use in the late nineteenth century though made of bone rather than plastic. Flowers were modeled in a similar fashion, including the use of stamens. The paste used was a mixture of marzipan and gum paste. Brass crimpers, very similar to those on sale today, were also used. HPING A MOctING TN SOM The Wilton Method Arrives in the Early 20th Century: In about 1929, Wilton Enterprise began to advertise their own cake Tdecorating classes, apart from the intricate and difficult old English method. Wilton In 1947, Wilton Enterprises began their own line of baking products, and the Wilton method became a new and improved way of decorating cakes. Bake Easy! By 1960 the so-called Wilton Method became a stand-by method of cake decoration. A few years after the Wilton school came into existence, Joseph Lambeth published a book:- "The Lambeth Method of Cake Decoration and Practical Pastries". It became a classic of cake decorating. The Lambeth Method of decorating the cake uses dimensional over piping of borders which are very in- tricate. It uses one layer of icing over the other to get three dimensional effects. ' In 1976, a new organization known as the International Cake Exploration Society came into the decorating scene. Sources: http://cakedecoratingevenings.webs.com/ http://www.cake-decorating-online.com/History-Of-Cake-Decorating.-php http://confectionarychalet.com/docs/?page_id=146 http://thecakeandbakeshow.co.uk/media/thecakeandbakeshow-mediapack-2013.pdf Wedding Aorylies www.weddingacrylics.co.uk