When we are going to a birthday party or a wedding party, they must serve you with the cake. Either it is a cupcake or a piece wedding cake, you will find that those cakes have decorations on it. These decorations make the cake not only look pretty but also taste better.
The decoration of the cake is made of cream. This cream will later be transformed into various kinds of shapes. Most of the times, especially on a wedding cake, you will see the decorated creams are made into the shape of flowers. So, how does a cake decorator make this? They use the tools namely Russian piping tips. What are the Russian piping tips? and what is the popular Russian piping tips for the wedding cake? Let’s talk about that
Cake Decorating Using Russian Piping Tips
- What Are The Russian Piping Tips
In general, Russian piping tips are the tools we use when we want to decorate our cakes. They are different from the regular pastry tips which usually only provides you with common shapes, such as a star. At the end of the Russian piping tips, you are going to find a well-designed cut out so with one shot, you can have the whole shape of a flower. Can you imagine how easy it is for you to top your cakes with many buttercream flowers if you have the Russian piping tips?
You do not need to be worry if you have no skill in cake decorating. You would not need any skill in decorating as long as you have the Russian piping tips. Since it comes in numerous kinds of sizes and shapes, you only need to choose which one you want to use, put some icing on it, and with one press, you make yourself a beautiful flower!
- What Are The Size And The Designs Of The Russian Piping Tips
The first thing that distinguishes Russian piping tips from the regular ones is its size. These piping tips, which allegedly come from Moscow, are huge. The height is around 3,8 centimeters while the size of the nozzle is around 1,9 centimeters. This size benefits you especially when you want to add colors to your decoration. You will have a big enough space to put in another color so your decorations will look colorful. Another benefit of it is you are going to use a big pastry bag. In this case, it is good to use the 30-centimeter pastry bag. Using this size of bags means you can insert a good amount of frosting. That way you would not waste your time in refilling.
As mentioned above, the abundant designs of Russian piping tips are one of the reasons these decorating tools are not the same as the common one. You can pick many kinds of flowers, which supposedly represent all the flowers in Moscow, from the simple ones, such as tulip, to the more complicated shapes, such as rose. If you want to complement the flowers with some leaves, you can do the latter part by using the regular piping tips.
- What Are The Popular Russian Piping Tips For The Wedding Cake
Among all of the designs, you can find online or in the market, which are the popular Russian piping tips for the wedding cake? The most popular ones are rose and tulip. The flower rose is widely known as the symbol of love. Because of this reason, this is a very popular flower to give to a woman you are in a relationship with. The same reason applies when you decorate a wedding cake. Since a wedding is an event which represents love, you will find many wedding cakes are decorated with buttercream roses.
Another popular Russian piping tips for the wedding cake is the flower tulip. Just like the rose, the tulip is also a symbol of love. When it comes to decorating, it is not unusual that cake decorator will make a different color of tulips. This is done not without a deep meaning since the different color of tulip represents different meaning. The red one symbolizes love and passion. The yellow one means eternal love, while the purple tulip means being loyal to others. With all these meaningful symbols, no wonder these two designs are very popular for the wedding cake, right? 🙂
The wedding cake is not only decorated with flowers frosting. The flowers are indeed made colorful. But, to make the decoration even more perfect, you need to add greeneries on it. The color green will balance the bright-colored flowers.
- What Is The Best Way To Make The Frosting
Yes, it is easy to use the Russian piping tips to decorate a wedding cake but an important factor you cannot ignore in decorating is the frosting. You need buttercream to make the frosting and you can use any kind of it. You only need to make sure the texture is neither too stiff nor too soft. If it is too stiff, you would not be able to shape it through the piping tips. If it is too soft, it would not hold up and you would end up with formless decorations.
So, what should you do to get the right consistency of the buttercream? First, you need to check that the buttercream you buy contains cream or milk. Those ingredients help to make the consistency more pipeable. Second, if you find that your buttercream is still too soft, just store it in the fridge for a few minutes, take it out, and mix it. The temperature will make the texture more suitable for the piping tips.
For a wedding cake, you must want the flowers decoration to look not only bright but also resembles the real flowers. A way to make this happens is by using not one tone of color for the frosting, but two, or even three! When you are making two-tone or there-tone flowers, remember to mix the colors lightly. Mixing them lightly gives a natural touch to the color.
If you do not want to mix the color, it is okay, too! Since the size of the Russian piping tips is huge, you can manage the color easily. For example, you can make three-tone colors tulip putting in two colors on the side of the piping tips and the third color on the center of it, and voila! You will amaze yourself with how simple yet so beautiful the flowers decorations are.