History Cake Design,
the art of decorating cakes and sweets

The Cake design it is a real "art" that consists
in decorating cakes and desserts in general.

In recent years this practice has also spread between the domestic walls and not only among professionals in the sector.

In Italy the great success and the diffusion of the modern cake design we owe it to television programs like "The cake boss", a program to bet with a pastry chef and decorator of pies par excellence, Buddy Valastro of Hoboken in New Jersey

Buddy Valastro, Of Italian origins, it is a real magician and master of Cake DesignAnd helped to spread this culinary art not only in America and Italy, but also in other countries.
His episoded television program tells his work and that of his team of decorators has a lot of fans who have been passionate about cake design, looking at the real monumental sculptures and cakes made by the boss of the cakes and from his team.

Also Italian television programs like "The cakes in progress"With the very good cake Designer Renato Ardovino or the television program conducted by the Super cake Designer Paola Azzolina they got to the screen thousands of people who thank these programs took place in this decorative culinary art dedicated to cakes and desserts.

The great help in the diffusion of cake design in modern times are:

• television programs dedicated to Cake Design
• the release of lots of magazines dedicated to the Cake Design
• books dedicated to the subject
• online forum of pastry and cake design and sites
• the birth of lots of groups on Facebook dedicated to the decoration of desserts
• blogs and sites, dealing with cake design, tutorials, recipes and much more
• video Tutorial of Pastry and Cake Design on You Tube

Here are some examples of Cake Design cakes

We now take a step back in time and discover the origins of the cake design.

The history of the Cake Design

The decoration of the cakes was born roughly in the mid-seventeenth century. The decoration of the desserts has begun to spread through time to prepare elaborate desserts for the banquets of the rich aristocracy, but only half of the nineteenth century is considered the real beginning of Cake Design

In this period the French began to serve desserts as a distinct reach at the end of the meal. Decorated cakes and desserts begin to appear more and more often. The development of cake design was also supported by the arrival of the ovens at controlled temperature in 1840, thanks to these modern ovens and ease with which the desserts could be cooked with their help, more time was to be dedicated to the decoration of the cakes.

Furthermore, the preparation of desserts thanks to the spread of modern ovens even in the domestic area has also spread among non-employees in the sector. At that time there is also baking soda and then even the baking powder as we know it today. The decorations of desserts at that time were made with a very elaborate and not easy to perform English method using the actual glac.

In 1840 the first real weding cake was prepared very scenographicly created by Buckingham Palace pastry chefs. This is the marriage cake of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxony. We can't dwell on this historical event.

Here is the fascinating history of this imposing cake, which marked the cake design of the modern era.

The cake was of imposing dimensions, resting on a structure created specifically to support a high weight.

The cake weighed 300 pounds (about 176 kilos) and had a circumference of about 3 yards (about 2.7 meters) and at the time cost 100 pounds.

Today there may seem to be a unresolst figure but in 1840 it was a higher sum.

At the top of the cake we find the figure of Britannia who blessed the Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxony, clothes with clothes from ancient Greece.
At the foot of the Prince a dog was placed, which represented fidelity. Two tortor were placed at the foot of the queen, who had to represent the happiness of marriage.

A sitting cupid wrote the date of marriage and other cupids carried the symbols of the United Kingdom. The master cake was also decorated with numerous bunches of orange and myrtle flower. Sprigs similar to flowers on the cake were arranged as gifts for guests during bridal lunch.

The cake was placed on the queen's breakfast table at the Buckingham Palace following the ceremony in the royal chapel.

Around the year 1929 American company Wilton Enterprises he began to organize the first ones courses of cake decorations for professionals of the sector and for pastry enthusiasts. The founder of the Wilton Enterprises Deweney McKinley Wilton he exploited his skill and knowledge in the courses, who acquired during work in a candy factory.

The courses obtained a huge success.

The Wilton he began in 1947 to develop his own product line for preparing and decorating sweets. The unstoppable development of the Wilton it carries in the 60s to the creation of the so called "method Wilton", Which became a method of decorating cakes known throughout the world.

The decoration school Wilton has never stopped working and today there is also in Italy, where thanks to the courses organized under Patroncinio della Wilton it is possible to study their decoration method and get diploma Wilton.

The Wilton after joining in 1983 with the copco kitchen utensils company and in 1991 with the Rowoco company changed its name Wilton Industries and became the world producer of products for cake design par excellence.

There is also another dessert decoration method, which has developed shortly after the birth of the decoration school Wilton. This is a method of decoration Lambeth, which became the popular and very followed decoration method.

How was Lambeth born?

Some years after school's birth Wilton, Joseph Lambeth published a book that would become a classic of the decoration of cakes. The book was known as Lambeth Method of Cake Decoration and Practical Pastries.

The book has become very popular among the decorators of cakes, industry professionals, but also pastry enthusiasts and cake design.
The book contained everything necessary to understand the LAMBERTH method - step by step photo shoot, instructions and designs to clearly explain the method of cake decorations.

Thanks to Wilton and at the Lambeth method the Cake Design began to spread very quickly up to the present day.

The modern cake is spreading very quickly with new inventions and new decoration methodologies and new tools, which help in the processing of desserts.
Nowadays we have available to decorate cakes and desserts, which helps both professionals and cake design fans.

Here is some examples

• Airbrush, which allows coloring sweets in a very scenographic and artistic way.
• Several cutting pad and cutter that allow crankcuts or sugar paste of any shape.
• Silicone mats and molds, which allow different designs on sugar paste or create three-dimensional decorations.
• The food printer, which was a real revolution in the Cake Design, allowing you to print on sugar paste and wafts any design or photographs to decorate cakes and sweets.
• Mats to create sugar lace.

In recent times the culture of different types of desserts like Cream Tarts or Drip Cake is also spreading.

Furthermore, the fashion of modern cakes is also beginning. They are very different from the cakes decorated with sugar paste.

They are often very simple appearance, with glossy mirror glaze and modern decorations or with colored velvety cocoa butter cover. They are simple only at first sight, because they are created quite difficult and complex.

I am the new frontier of Cake Design and are increasingly enjoying successfully among pastry enthusiasts.

The world of cake design is infinite. Just have a little fantasy, so much patience and you can create anything you want.

Thanks to the use of sugar paste, which we can shape at our liking, you can create real three-dimensional sculptures. Instead if you prefer to give a more modern touch to the cakes, just follow numerous online tutorials like those on Sugarmania to create real works of art.