1.Importance of the design

Cake designing is the most important thing that bakers spend time on to make their cakes look perfect. The cakes’ appearance needs to be appealing to the buyers when they purchase the cake. Customers like their cakes to be appetizing and look pleasing. In the cake industry the main aspect about the cake is the design and how well the finished cake looks.

Colour is one main thing that bakers use to help make their cakes look amazing and capture the beauty of it. Bakers use a variety of colours to select a theme and using different colour combinations to give the cake a rich and bright look. The shape of the overall cake is also important because when building a 3-tier cake or any size cake. You must have the perfect shapes, so the cake will sit still when designing.

http://www.fabulousfunctions.com/blog/?p=18

http://www.wilton.com/decorating/icing/coloring-icing.cfm 

2. 8 Steps for designing a cake

Ingredients	Tools
All –purpose flour- 2-1/2 cups	Spatula
Eggs- 4	Electric mixer
Milk- 1 cup	Bowls
Butter-3/4 cup	Cake pans
Vanilla- 1 teaspoon	Piping bag
Sugar-2 cups	Measuring cup
Baking powder- 2-1/4 teaspoons	Food colouring

Step 1: You will need the ingredients listed above to create the cake batter except icing sugar that is used last to ice the cake. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and use the electric mixer to blend the ingredients.

Step 2: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Considering you are making a hello kitty cake you will be required to use a hello kitty cake pan.  Add some butter to the cake pan so the cake will be easy to remove once it comes out of the oven.

Step 3: Pour the cake batter into the cake pan shown in the picture below.

Step 4: Put the cake in the oven to bake for a 25 minutes.You should also check on the cake in the last 10 minutes to see if it needs to bake more by poking a toothpick or a butter knife through the cake. If the toothpick or knife has cake batter on it this means it still has to bake. You can adjust the time and let it continue to bake.

Step 5: Once the cake is done baking, take it out of the oven and let it cool down for 15 minutes.

Step 6: To make your butter cream icing, you can use icing sugar, milk and butter. Put all of these ingredients into a bowl and use the electric mixer to blend. The icing should be soft and sweet.

Step 7: Take 4 separate bowls and add icing to each bowl. Add red food colouring to one bowl, yellow to another and black to another. Take a piping bag and pipe the facial features of the hello kitty.You should start off with the eyes, nose, whiskers and bow. Finally add the white icing to the cake.

Step 8: Put the cake in the fridge to cool off and serve when the party begins.

http://spoonful.com/recipes/simple-vanilla-cake

3.How to make a hello kitty cake

This is a short clip on how to make a hello kitty cake.

                                              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6BlbiX9qdE 

These are some of the pictures I have taken when I made the hello kitty cake and the 3 stages it’s been through.

The first stage is when you put the cake batter in the cake pan waiting to be put in the oven.

The Second Stage is when I added the facial features of hello kitty.I started off with the eyes by adding 2 black ovals. I made a yellow oval for the nose and made black whiskers. Lastly I decorated the bow which took some time to make it look perfect. I made the black outline of the bow and filled it in with red icing.

The Third Stage is when I filled the whole cake with white buttercream frosting to add the finishing look. This process took me about 30 minutes to complete, after I finished icing I put the cake in the fridge so the icing stays in place and doesn't melt.

                                                

4.The History of cupcakes

How were cupcakes invented? Cupcakes are very popular around the world because of how delicious they are. Cupcakes were invented in the 19^th century in the United States. Cupcakes were available because they take a shorter period of time to cook and cakes take longer to cook. They were also produced to save time in the kitchen when baking, it has become a great innovative dessert in the baking industry. As the cupcakes started to grow in bakeries, there were a variety of flavours, different sizes and each cupcake was provided with a rare name. In the baking industry today, cupcakes are a huge part of many sales. It Is affordable to buy and can be found anywhere.

http://www.kupcakz.com/

http://cheekycupcakes.com/cupcakes-the-history-of-these-cute-little-cakes/

5.Flavour of the cake

Why do cakes taste so good?customers look for a tasty cake when they want to purchase one. The flavour of the cake is what makes it a cake. It is important to have flavour in cake because without the actual flavour it wouldn't taste good and it would taste plain. In bakeries, there are different varieties of flavours that they make to satisfy customers. Everyone likes that first bite you take into a cake to be moist and sweet. Customers like the varieties of cake flavours that many bakeries have because they get to choose as many cakes they may like. 

If you had a chance to make your own cake flavour, what would it be?

The 5 most popular cake flavours are:

1.    Chocolate 

2.    Black Forest

3.    Pineapple

4.    Red Velvet

5.    Vanilla

                                     

                   http://www.belgiques.com/wedding-cake-flavors/wedding-cake-flavors-286223/

http://listdose.com/top-10-delicious-mouthwatering-cake-flavors/

6.Cake Decorating and Icing the cake

Cake decorating helps professional cake designers make their cakes look elegant. Decorating a cake takes time to complete and it may also be difficult or easy depending on the cake structure you are decorating. Cake designers use different decorating techniques when adding simple touches to make it look flawless. These decorating techniques include piping flowers, borders and simple designs. When decorating a fondant cake it should perfectly be smooth without bubbles. When you are icing the cake it should be clean and colourful. As you are decorating or icing a cake you should usually start from the bottom and work your way to the top.

Tips to decorating and icing a cake

·         You should plan ahead of time what you want to put on your cake so that you don’t have to worry about making a mistake when you start without planning

·         Icing should look smooth and clean to give a polished look

·         Use stencils to make shapes

·         Adding colour to the icing gives the overall cake a finished look

Here is a short clip that shows you how to decorate a cake with icing.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI9ITH0xgjo

http://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/bake/how-to-decorate-a-cake