We asked professional bakers of the BuzzFeed Community to give beginners their best cake baking and decorating tips, and their responses were super helpful. I also included some tips from a past post that could help your cakes out.
1. Invest in a good digital food scale and weigh all your ingredients.
2. Always use room-temperature ingredients (like butter and eggs) unless otherwise noted in the recipe.
3. Avoid clumps in your batter by sifting all your dry ingredients.
4. Never pack flour into a measuring cup; always spoon it in and gently level.
5. Grease your pan and line it with parchment paper to prevent any sticking.
6. Fill your pan three-quarters of the way to avoid overfilling. Anything past that will cause your cake batter to rise up and over the pan and straight onto your oven floor.
7. Allow your oven to fully preheat before using it, invest in an oven thermometer, and make sure you're not constantly opening and closing it.
8. Let your cake cool down a bit before you remove it from its mold.
9. Don't forget to level your cakes if you're going to stack them.
10. And if you want to flatten the top without cutting it off, use a damp cloth to get rid of the dome while the cake is still hot.
11. Allow your cake to cool completely before decorating it. Doing otherwise will result in a big, drippy mess.
12. Put a bit of buttercream on your cake board so that your cake will stick to the board.
13. Always make a crumb coat prior to frosting your cake.
14. It helps to then chill the cake a bit after applying the crumb coat so that those pesky crumbs are locked in place.
15. Invest in an offset spatula and bench scraper. Both will save you a migraine and tons of time.
16. It's also important to clean your spatula every time you lift it off your cake.
17. For maximum smoothness, dip your bench scraper and spatula in hot water.
18. Make easy buttercream flowers by using a large star tip.
19. Invest in piping bags, since using ziplock bags can lead to unpredictable results.
20. If you want to make black frosting, use chocolate frosting as the base, add black food coloring, and then let the color develop over night.
21. If you can, use gel food coloring with your frosting.
22. Avoid piping mistakes by using a toothpick to draw guides first.
23. Go easy with the cornstarch when working with fondant since too much can cause it to dry out and crack when stretched.
24. Transfer fondant safely by rolling it onto a rolling pin and laying it on top of the cake.
25. Finally, if you don't have access to dowels and need to stack cakes, put three straws in a triangle shape to help hold it up safely.
Now it's your turn! What cake baking and decorating tips do you have? Share yours in the comments below for a chance to be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post and/or video!
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.