Royal Icing collars and flooding work

This tutorial will show you how to make delicate royal icing collars to decorate the edges of your cakes, and also, using the same basic method, will show how it can be applied to all sorts of other uses!


You’ll need clear film, trex or vegetable fat, the image/collar you’ll be recreating in icing


Stick your image to a cake card of similar size and then cover the whole image with a sheet of clear film. Make sure it’s stuck down nice and flat!


Smear the entire area with Trex or similar vegetable fat….not too much, but make sure it’s an even layer…this will help you remove the image once it’s set.


Make up a parchment paper/greaseproof paper little piping bag…..start with a triangle and lay it in front of you so you have a 90 degree angle


Pull the top corner down to the bottom- starting to form a cone shape


Roll over the other corner to finish off the cone and ensure you have a sharp point at the top…pull the tails if necessary!


Fold the three tails/corner tips in….this will make sure the bag doesn’t fall apart!


snip twice, once on either side of your fold and fold again….now it’s nice and strong….


Insert a fine tip nozzle…I use PME 1.5


Make up some Royal Icing and take some out onto your board ready to paddle….If you’re making up mulitple colours take enough out and put them into seperate containers..cover them with cling film until you’re ready to use them and also be sure to cover the big bowl as this will be used to make the flooding icing later….


Paddle the icing with an offset spatula to remove any airbubbles….DO THIS PART!!! It’s important as any airbubbles can weaken your outline….


Start to pipe the outline of your shape/collar….if you make a mistake, it can be corrected with a damp paintbrush…


Finish all outlines….


Water down the remaining icing so it becomes runny…the trick to knowing if you’ve reached the perfect consistancy is the 10 second rule….if you run your knife through it, the “cut” line should disappear by the time you’ve counted to 10…if it doens’t you need to add a spot more water…..


This is the messy part now!!… make up another piping bag and fit with a slightly bigger nozzle… a PME 2 or 2.5….the fill the bag with your flooding icing…..working carefully, fill in the gaps!! If the icing needs encouraging use a damp paintbrush to ensure there are NO GAPS!! it’s VITAL that the flooding icing makes contact with your outlines…….put enough on that there is a slight dome effect….then walk away and leave to dry overnight, or longer if possible and if the piece is big….I would always make at least 2 of these just in case as they can break if you look at them the wrong way!!


Once it’s set you should be able to run a small thin pallette knife under it and it’ll release off the film….attach it to your cake with some more royal icing…..if you’ve made other work you can attach to sides of cakes or even to wires….

You can achieve some amazing effects, using different colours and shapes…this can be a lot of fun, but do always make more than one because it can be heartbreaking if they break!!

I have more examples on my fb page….. www.facebook.com/thewhiteboxcakeco

Thanks for looking!!
Sasha x

www.facebook.com/thewhiteboxcakeco

12 Comments

Wow Sasha! This is fabulous! Excellent photos, great, easy to follow instructions!! I’ve always wanted to try this…I’ll let you know how I go. Thanks for sharing :) xx

Raewyn, Sydney, Australia https://www.facebook.com/cakesbyraewyn

Thank you ladies!! I love working with Royal Icing…. to do detail work…not to cover a cake!!

www.facebook.com/thewhiteboxcakeco

Thankyou for adding this, you make the directions very clear and easy to follow so I am going to give this a go! I want to try some floodwork on wires (like I am guessing you have done in your pictures above). How do you integrate the wire? What gauge wire do you recommend for shapes the size of your stars (I will be making seagulls) and do you use the coated wire or plain type? Or do you think it will just be easier to roll out fondant instead? Thanks for the tutorial and I look forward to your advice!

Hello!! To make any items on wires, I pipe it as shown in the tutorial and then simply use a bit more RI to stick the wire to the back…..the thickness of wire depends on how big your piece is…. I use white coated wires, guage around #24 /26…fairly thin….the pieces really don’t weigh much at all….if you use fondant you’ll have to increase the guage as it’s heavier….The stars on the red carpet cake were made from fondant…it’s the glam lady that was done in RI!! I hope you do give it a go….let me know if I can help in any other way…. can’t wait to see what you do!! S x

www.facebook.com/thewhiteboxcakeco

Awesome! Thank you for sharing! Can’t wait to incorporate some royal icing decor:)

Tatiana, https://www.facebook.com/DeliciaDesigns

Beautiful work Sasha! You make it look so easy and sooooo not intimidating! Fabulous tute xo

Kate, Australia - visit me at http://www.facebook.com/thegreedybaker

Thanks for sharing this, I tried this by making walls and windows for a church model cake. It was time consuming and very delicate work.

Hanouna

What a fab tutorial :-) Have you tried using icing bottles for flood icing? I did after an incident with dark icing and my beige carpet, the hubbster moaned at me! The bottles are a lot easier to use and much less messy :-) xx