A small but crucial detail that often separates homemade cakes from bakery cakes is only revealed once you start slicing: perfectly even layers.
But with this quick tip from pastry chef Lasheeda Perry—which she reveals in her new YouTube video demonstrating how to decorate a colorful and dotted terrazzo cake — you can make pro cakes at home. It turns out that the secret to achieving that eye-catching look with minimal fuss is a tool more often used for cookies than cake: a spoonful of cookies.
The video is a great way, but here are the basics: After PIPELINES a frosting dam (a ring of frosting on the outer edge of the cake layer, designed to prevent loose fillings from seeping out the sides of the stacked cake), Lasheeda uses a Jumbo cookie scoop to cleanly fill the dollop in the center of the cake layer. (She notes that the size of the spoon depends on the size of the cake: “The bigger the cake, the bigger the spoon.”) As she explains: “It serves as a form of measurement; giving each layer of filling precisely the same amount.”
Then, she gets one small compensating shoulder to evenly smooth the filling – in her video she uses raspberry ganache, but this is applicable to any cake filling, even just regular cream – to the edges of the cake, to the cream dam . Place the next layer on top and then repeat.
The result is a homemade cake with professional-grade finesse—perfectly even lines of filling sandwiched between towering layers. Finish with one crumb coat AND final freeze design (probably a basket weave pattern?) to complete the view. Then wait and enjoy your gorgeous layers – as Lasheeda says, “The real benefits of using a spoon are revealed once the cake is sliced.”
Cover photo and food styling by Liz Neily.
