Etha Margaretha Trezise: Cake decorating

My name is Etha Margaretha Trezise, I'm Indonesian, live in Ljubljana and I am a student of the IBS International Business School Ljubljana.

This article is about cake decoration which is my hobby and turned out to be my passion that brought me to an accomplishment. First of all I would like to share about cake decorating. Cake decorating is one of the sugar arts that use icing or frosting and other edible decorative elements to make plain cakes more visually interesting. Cake decoration is not considered popular in Europe (especially in Ljubljana); London is the only city in Europe that is known for the cake decorating. Opposite from Europe, cake decorating is very popular in the United States. For the past few years cake decorating has been growing tremendously fast in the US, people are willing to pay a lot for a great cake for their event. In fact decorated cakes are often a focal point of special celebrations , whether it is birthday party, anniversary, baby shower, bridal shower and any other events, and of course the biggest market for cakes are weddings.

Cake decorating started with butter cream decoration.  That kind of decoration is now called "Old school". Not so many people do that kind of decoration cake anymore. With the time cake decorating evolved and became more modern from the design and color to the ingredient point of view. Cake decorating now uses ingredient called Fondant.

Fondant texture looks very much like clay, but its taste is sweet like sugar and of course it is edible. Fondant allows the baker to express creativity in decorating cakes.  Fondant was primarily used to cover cakes, it also can be sculped, rolled, molded. We can do with fondant much more than with butter cream.

Fondant covered cakes have a smooth look. Fondant is also easily colored, with food coloring that is edible and this gives more variation to decorating a cake. Beside fondant there are other edible material used by cake decorator such as gum paste, modeling chocolate and pastillage.

In the inside such cakes are very American, in Slovenia known as biscuit with butter cream as a filling.

I learned about cake decoration not long time ago. I saw a reality show about cake decoration when I was in the USA which opened my eyes and made me realize that cake decoration is not only cake decoration anymore, but it is "Piece edible of art". I did not know about cake decoration because not every country develops cake decoration like America does. In my own country Indonesia cake decoration is not evolved as much as in the US. After I got introduced with cake decoration I fell in love with it right away and said to myself "I want to know more about cake decorating".

 My husband and I are always moving and live around the world. His job requires us to move every 2 or 3 years.  It is not always easy (especially for me, his wife) because every time we move I have to find a new activity or job and leave the old one behind. I started to learn cake decoration as soon as I arrived in Ljubljana. I am a self-taught cake decorator and never went to a culinary school to study baking. I just combine my passion to art and passion to bake, and develop them by learning from the Internet, books and video.

Cake decoration business does not only mean selling cakes. It keeps growing in entertainment business, educations and books. For entertainment field, there are 6 different TV programs about cake decoration in the US, two of them are competition programs. One of the competition programs started in 2005 and still exists because there are thousands of cake decorators in the US. In the USA there are many cake decorating classes. They are offered even by professional culinary schools.  There are also many cake decorating books.

Cake decoration was just a hobby for me until I found the way to share my skill and experience with cakes with other people. Then I decided to write a book about cake decorating for everyone who wants to learn without going to culinary or art school. I wrote it in Indonesian language and got a publisher in Indonesia who is very interested to publish my book since there are not too many cake decorating books in Indonesia. I have written two books about cake decorating: "Cake decorating for beginners and intermediate" and "Cake decorating 3D and stacked cake". These two books are now in process and will be published sometimes in 2013 in Indonesia. Now I am starting the third book which is Cake pop, other popular American dessert. Cake pictures that are enclosed in the article are some of my work for the books.