Baking with Miele – Cake Trends

Words: Julie Velosa

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Much like fashion and food, baking trends seem to come and go. When it comes to cakes, this is usually at a peak during wedding season when the well-known bakeries and patisseries of the world push the boundaries, using inventive techniques to create showstoppers for their clients. These trends usually filter down to home bakers and the results are plenty of fun interpretations of these ideas. Instagram is awash with stunning images of cakes from across the world, and we’ve identified four cake trends that we’ve seen popping up regularly – they are the naked style cake, cakes with yummy decor piled on top, watercolour cakes and drip cakes. We look at each of these in a bit more depth…

The Naked Cake
The naked cake was inspired and popularised by celebrity pastry chef Christina Tosi, of the Momofuku Milk Bar. Naked cakes come in a few shapes and forms – some are devoid of any icing on the sides at all, and focus on generous icing in between the layers instead. The second option is a thin layer of icing that is scraped closely to the cake, which gives the cake a beautiful ‘whitewashed’ effect. The thing to remember when baking a naked cake is that there is no icing to hide any issues, so the cakes need to be perfectly baked, be as even as possible and have no crusty edges that would normally be trimmed. It’s a challenge, but the effect is so worth it. This look fits right in with a vintage or country chic party theme.

The Drip Cake
Drip cakes seem to have been popularised by the team at Unbirthday Bakery in Sydney, Australia. With over 198k followers on Instagram, these ladies know what they are doing. They are a strictly no fondant bakery, which we can totally get on board with. These cakes are iced in a brightly coloured base buttercream and then chocolate ganache is used to create the drips down the sides. Although the ganache looks like it’s just been poured on and formed those perfect, mid-cake drips, it takes a little more skill than that. The technique is to spoon the ganache near the edge of the cake, coax it over with a spoon and then fill the top in with the rest of the ganache. It will probably take a few tries to master this technique… but then again, there’s never an issue with ganache covered fingers.

Pile Up Decor
The pile of decor on top of this style of cake has also been popularised by Unbirthday Bakery and their most famous cakes combine the drip cake technique and the mass of goodies on top. This style is probably the most whimsical of all, and is really only limited by the baker’s imagination. We’ve seen everything from gold dusted Oreos, to KitKat fingers, Flakes, Ferrero Rocher’s, caramel popcorn, macarons and more stacked on top. The great thing about this trend is that the point is to go wild, get creative and use your own personal favourite ingredients. Another trend that is also combined in these cakes is piping with a tight star nozzle to fill in gaps. These cakes are a little wild, a little crazy and probably not for everyone, but one thing is for sure, they make a serious centrepiece for any celebration. Just be sure to keep an eye on those toppings, as it’s super tempting for guests to pinch something to nibble on.

Watercolour Cakes
Watercolour cakes have seen a huge surge in popularity and there are two sides to this coin. Some seriously artistically inclined bakers have taken to actually painting elaborate and beautiful images onto fondant-wrapped cakes and the results are quite staggering – like works of art that are almost too good to eat. For some mind-blowing examples search watercolour cakes on Pinterest and see what pops up, you’ll be amazed. We’re firmly on the buttercream side of the fence though, and since painting elaborate designs on this style of icing would be seriously tricky, we favour the effect achieved by blending more than one colour of icing. It’s a fairly easy technique to master and the best part is that errors can form part of the look – your mistakes can be easily blended to look purposeful.

So now you know what’s hot, its time to try your hand at our versions. Be creative- we’ve seen examples where these trends have been mixed and matched in one cake, you could even go as far as putting together a watercolor iced cake, with a drip ganache topping and pile it high with decor. The sky’s the limit really and the pleasure is all in the eating.