30 Cake Textures & Techniques

Hi friends!!

I know a lot of you have wondered where I’ve been lately and why I haven’t made any cakes in a while.  Well…here’s why!

Over the past 6 months I’ve come up with over 50 textures and techniques you can use on your next cake projects.  I’ve created 15 cakes to showcase some of the textures, then I’ve divided them into two classes.  The reason I wanted to take this on is because I know how much time you can spend (countless hours) searching and searching for how to do techniques like these before you start a cake project.  I wanted to help you out by having them in one simple place…like a library of cake textures!  Now, when you want to make a cake with one of these techniques…you know right where to look, saving you a TON of time!!!

So, today kicks off my fourth class with Craftsy called, “The Clean & Simple Collection: Playful Techniques”.  This class is for you all my sweet cake friends!!  It is an incredibly diverse resource style class with around 30 textures and techniques!  It’s all based upon the simple techniques you learned in my first class, “Clean & Simple Cake Design“.  But we go DEEP!!! – and WIDE!!

Let me explain what you’re going to see in this online class…

The first lesson is called “Animal Textures“…

I’m going to show you how to create cow hide, giraffe, leopard and jaguar as well as zebra!  You will be able to create any handbag or purse or pair of shoes with ease! – yes, there’s painting involved, but you can do it!  I walk you through it all step by step!

Here’s my cow hide cake.  The jean and lace are in the Western Textures lesson which I’ll explain a little further down the page.  EEEK!

Then we head off to “Feathers and Wings“!  I show how to create beautiful wafer paper feathers, gelatin wings and beautiful peacock feathers!  I don’t have a panel for this one because it got taken apart and some of them broke…but I can show you a few close ups of some cakes that had the feathers and wings on them!

Gelatin Wings!!  And Edible Peacock Feathers!!

Then off to “Fish & Scales” (no airbrush needed)!

In this lesson I show you how to gradient your fondant to create realistic fish scales, beautiful metallic scales that have an airbrushed effect (but again, without an airbrush), wafer paper and modeling chocolate scales with a dragon scale variation!  TONS to learn!  Here’s a cake I made I like to call my Metallic Mermaid!
I have a tutorial video coming out this week that will show you how to create that gold metallic band on the top of the cake.  So, stay tuned!!  It’s free and just for fun because we didn’t have time to cover it in the class!!  Yay for all of you!!

After Scales, we move on to…

“Wood Textures“.  I love this one!  I show how to hand sculpt bark (and what molds to use if you don’t want to), how to create a no-paint white washed wood effect (YES…no painting required for the one on the upper left) as well as a cut wood effect for the top of your stump cakes!  Check it out here…

And, here are a few pretty cakes for you all to see the bark effect…

…and the white washed wood.

Alright…tired yet!?!  YES…I am!!  It’s been a lot of work…but you are all going to LOVE it so it’s been totally worth it!  Okay…what’s up next????

Woven Effects!!  Did you notice the knitted heart in the cake above!?  Yes…that’s one you’ll learn, as well as some beautiful modern woven textures.  Sorry about this photo…the color is terrible…but it’s all I got!

BUT, I do have a pretty cake to show you!  With my herringbone woven effect…

I love this darling basket full of bright, cheerful flowers!  BUT, you won’t find the flowers in this class…only the basket and gelatin butterfly are in there.  SOOO, another free tutorial will be coming your way this week!!  I just finished editing it.  It’s for these sweet little wafer paper flowers.  Yay!!  With so much content, we just didn’t have time to cover it all…so, I’m filling in the cracks!

And now…Yeeeeehawww!!!  My favorite…”Western Textures“!
There’s tooled leather, jean (LOOK AT THAT JEAN!!), edible lace and leather!  The one thing that didn’t make it into the class though was the burlap!  I was SO bummed, but again, we were out of time.  I crammed too much and they had to cut me off.  SO, the burlap is a bonus tutorial I’m adding to the class.  You’ll find a link to the free tutorial within the class in a comment by me at the very beginning of the Western Textures lesson.  Look for it!

Here’s a cake I made with the burlap…

And lastly, “Building Materials”!!

I show you how to create brick two ways and how to get that realistic finish on it.  I’ll show you how to make galvanized metal, cobblestone and a castle stone by hand with simple painting techniques.  Nothing complex in this lesson…I promise!

Here’s my building materials cake…

Oh, I love galvanized metal!!  My maiden name was Albert…so, on the heart, the JA+BH (Ben Harris my true love!) is for me and my man! I know…sappy…but I love him and without him this class wouldn’t have happened!! – he was my rock and Mr. mom while I was working…so, everyone give Ben a big thank you!

Can you believe all that?!?!?!  I’m so excited!  It’s been months and months of work to come up with all this stuff and I did it for you!  I wanted to give you a huge assortment of simple techniques you could use for your cake projects.  I wanted to put them all in one easy place to save you hours and hours of searching around online!  I hope it makes you all smile!  There’s over 30 textures you’re going to learn…and you can keep this class for life.  So, whenever you have a cake project that requires one of these textures, you know where to turn!

And, it’s all $20 off through me!!!  Yay!  Here’s the link to save BIG and for you to check out the intro video for the class…click HERE.

I’ll be posting free tutorials and more close up pics in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!!

AND, remember, this class is part of a COLLECTION!! – which means there’s more!  There’s one more coming the middle to the end of July called, “Elegant Techniques”.  It’s a GORGEOUS class full of beautiful techniques and textures and set up like this one…filled with tons textures and techniques that will blow your mind!  So, stay tuned!!!

Happy cake making!!