Cake Jargon
The world of cakes can be overwhelming if you don’t know cake jargon or lingo. Trying to decide on a design can be difficult especially if you’re not sure what everything means. Our cake jargon blog will outline some of the most used cake terms to simplify and help you understand the world of cakes.
Tiers
These are the number of cakes stacked on top of each other. The majority of wedding cakes have more than one tier. However, we regularly make birthday and other celebration cakes in two tiers or more. Ideal if you want a larger showpiece cake, or indeed more portions.
Layers
These are layers of sponge inside each cake. (Often confused with tiers). Although standard cakes have two layers of sponge, with a filling in the middle (e.g. jam and buttercream) most wedding cakes contain three layers of sponge. Generally, this gives a slightly larger portion and makes the cake taller. The more layers of sponge you add, the taller the cake becomes.
Buttercream
Buttercream is soft icing made from butter, sugar and other flavourings (such as vanilla, lemon or chocolate) it goes in between layers of sponge to hold them together. It is also the swirly bit at the top of cupcakes. In order to create a smooth finished cake it is also applied to the outside edge of the cake, underneath the fondant or sugarpaste. It can be used a as full cake covering, on semi-naked or ribbed buttercream cakes.
Sugarpaste
This is a soft white or coloured icing that is used to cover cakes. Sugarpaste can be super smooth or used to create textures as listed above. It is sometimes referred to as fondant, or simply icing. It has a very gentle vanilla flavour.
Dragees
Dragees are little balls made of sugar (like a boiled sweet) which are often coloured or given a metallic texture. Sometimes called sugar pearls. These are used to add a touch of sparkle to cakes and cupcakes.
Textures
Wedding cakes are a great opportunity to add some style and creativity to your cake to turn it into a piece of edible art. We can create textures using icing and other edible items such as cake lace, and isomalt. You can go for the clean modern look and keep it plain and elegant, or you can add some texture in the form of ruffles or quilting to the fondant to create patterns and illusions. See our texture blog for more details.
Royal Icing
This is the traditional icing used to cover cakes, it was used on the Queen’s wedding cake. Royal icing is made of whisked egg whites and icing sugar. It dries very hard and is very sweet, we use it to “glue” things onto cakes as it acts as a great bonding agent, and it is used to pipe words or decorations, read more about Royal Icing here. Since the invention of sugarpaste however, it is now rarely used. It is difficult to work with, it is not as smooth and takes a lot longer to do. In summary, we do not use royal icing to cover our cakes, we use sugarpaste.
Airbrushing
A spray to add colour to cakes. It creates a soft finish and is used when you want to create an ombre finish. It can also be used for shading on our novelty and sculpted cakes.
Ombre
An ombre finish is the graduation of colour. Usually in one colour going from a darker to a lighter shade from bottom to top.
Cake Board
This is the board the cake is placed on. We sell these in the shop for home bakers in round, square and rectangles. These are either slim which are mostly used to place between tiered cakes for structure. Or around 1cm thick which is called a drum board. These are foil-covered boards made of compacted card. They can be covered in sugarpaste to match the cake or left as their original colour, silver or metallic. In some cases we incorporate the board design into the cake, making it look like metal, wooden flooring or grass. The wording is often added to the board, or additional decorations.
Cake Stand
These are a stand to place the cake on when it is going to be on display. The cake is still on a cake board, the stand is an optional extra. These can be a plinth stand, a tiered stand, a hoop or a pedestal. They give the cake height and grandeur or make an easy way to display cupcakes for your guests to grab and go. You can hire a variety of cake stands from us.
Figures
These are decorations made from sugarpaste in the form of humans, characters, animals or cartoons. These kinds of decorated elements are a skilled item to make that often take a lot of time and something a lot of cake makers cannot do.
Printed Images
These are images printed onto a very thin sheet of icing using a specialist printed using food colouring. They are completely edible and very useful in so many cake decorations that need to be very detailed, photographs or in the form of logos. Find out more about our edible printing service.
Cascade
This is when a decorative item, usually flowers, is applied to the cake starting on top of the cake, and literally cascading down the front. Her are examples with leaves, flowers and treats.
