Flooding a design in Visual Studio .NET

Print Code 128B in Visual Studio .NET Flooding a design

Flooding a design is a common way of decorating cookies, and it works for cake decorating, too To begin, you need a cake that s already been crumb coated, frosted, and refrigerated to form a crust With this decorative method, you use royal icing (refer to 9 for a recipe) to outline an image, and then, with a large round tip on a pastry bag (or even a squeeze bottle), you fill in the outline with a solid color of frosting You should squeeze out enough royal icing to flood or completely fill the outline Depending on the consistency of the royal icing, you may need to smooth it out with an icing spatula after you flood the outline If you want to add different-colored accents to a flooded design, you have to let the icing set and dry for several hours first

Flooding is just one way to fill a design; other methods add dimension and texture to the design For example, cake pans in the shapes of teddy bears, beach balls, or cartoon characters usually come with guidelines that tell you what icing tips and frosting colors to use to fill in the designs in a paint-by-number fashion You also have the option of coming up with your own tip and color designs to add color, character, and dimension to cakes in interesting shapes The easiest and most effective way to fill a design is to use a #16 star tip with multiple frosting colors Follow these instructions: 1 Frost your cake with a neutral-colored base frosting and refrigerate it for 1 hour so that the frosting hardens into a crust

2 Use a toothpick to section off or sketch out the different areas or shapes that you plan to fill in 3 With a #3 icing tip, outline those areas in the color frosting for that particular graphic component 4 Pipe stars, each one right next to the other, to fill in the design area The base frosting in the design area should be completely covered with stars For a star how-to, refer to the section Lining up dots, rosettes, shells, stars, and leaves earlier in this chapter To complete the design, you may choose to pipe straight lines or ruffles around the cake s perimeter for additional dimension Outlining your starfilled creation gives it a finished look

Sometimes, a simple message can really make (and take) the cake When you ve mastered letters in different styles, you can take your cake lettering and scripting to new heights Writing on a cake can be as simple as fashioning initials or as detailed as using a sheet cake s rectangular shape as a page in a book, complete with the text you d find in a fairy tale, for example For most, lettering on a cake is a way to express a snappy, happy greeting or warm wishes Granted, you re at an advantage if you already have good penmanship If your regular handwriting is messy or unattractive, practice your technique to get a feel for how to mold, shape, and guide letters and also the best way to hold and guide your pastry bag Practice is very important when it comes to lettering and scripting in frosting Use the different sizes of round tips, like #1 to #12, to get a feel for the size and thickness of letters they produce When you practice, don t be afraid to play around a bit and try block letters and cursive If you re feeling particularly adventurous, tip #44 is a great choice for calligraphy-style scripting If you re struggling with different writing styles, surf the Internet for calligraphy examples or pick up an instructional book on calligraphy at your local library and practice writing in different ways before you try piping (On more than one occasion, I ve literally drawn on the techniques I learned in a calligraphy class) When you feel comfortable enough to try writing on a cake, decide what you re going to write before you take the tip to the surface! Don t wait until you have frosting coming out of your pastry bag to choose your words you re likely to end up with a squiggly mess or misspelled words Also, the number of letters or words you re putting on a cake dictates the size of the