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| Place snowflake stencils on top of a base-iced cake, and airbrush the cake top blue. Remove the stencils, and pipe additional snowflakes with tip No. 3. |
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| Position pieces of uniced cake next to the design, and airbrush them using brown, green and gray. |
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| To create textured color, place a piece of lace over a base-iced cake, and airbrush the cake top pink. |
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| An airbrush allows you to freehand designs quickly and easily. Switch colors often to create a dynamic cake design. |
An airbrush is a quick and easy way to add color to your decorated products. The small, hand-held tool is well worth its cost. As with other machines, proper use and care are important. Follow the manufacturer’s directions for cleaning and replacement of parts. Usually, if color splatters from the airbrush, it needs cleaning, the needle might need replacing or the crown is bent. Bakeries typically use a single action airbrush that is simple to handle and achieves good results.
An airbrush can achieve many different effects. To attain quality results, practice first before applying color to your products to be decorated. First-time users may want to practice designs on paper towels or in children’s coloring books. The spray pattern can be altered by changing the distance between the airbrush and the product and by adjusting the air pressure.
The featured cakes show different airbrush techniques. The snowflake cake uses stencils for the airbrushed design. Base ice a cake with white buttercream. Then, let the icing dry until a light crust forms; this prevents the stencils from sticking. If your customer prefers a non-dairy icing, cover the base-iced cake with a piece of nylon tulle to keep the stencils from sticking. Place snowflake stencils on top of the cake, or you also can use tree ornaments. Use an airbrush to spray the top of the cake blue. After the color has dried, carefully remove the stencils. Pipe additional snowflakes and an inscription using writing tip No. 3. Use large leaf tip No. 115 to add a border that covers the sides of the cake. Sprinkle edible glitter on the icing for sparkle.
Airbrushes also work well to add backgrounds to your designs as shown in the dinosaur cake. After base icing a quarter sheet cake, apply a dinosaur edible design to one half of the cake top. On the other half, place some pieces of un-iced cake. Airbrush the cake pieces varying shades of brown, green and gray to create realistic rock formations. Then, extend the background of the edible design by airbrushing the rest of the cake blue and brown. Add some sugar dinosaurs, edible rocks, and pipe tufts of grass using tip No. 233. For the top border, use tip No. 233 to pipe grass along the bottom edge. On the three remaining sides, pipe a blue shell border using star tip No. 22. Add a bottom blue band border with tip No. 48.
Another airbrushing technique is to use lace to add textured color to cakes. Base ice a quarter sheet cake, and place an oval-shaped stencil in the center to keep the area under it free of color. Then, lay a piece of lace over the cake, and airbrush the entire cake pink. Remove the lace and stencil. Use tip No. 87 for all of the borders. This unique tip is half flower tip, half star tip, and creates a ruffled look when used to pipe shell borders. Pipe top and bottom shell borders on the cake as well as a shell border around the oval on top of the cake. Within the oval, pipe a small floral bouquet, leaving room for an inscription. Pipe vines with tip No. 3, leaves with tip No. 352, and place sugar flowers and a butterfly along the vines.
Airbrush scenic designs
The rainbow cake demonstrates how an airbrush can be used to create a scenic design. To airbrush a rainbow, spray a thick, curved pink stripe (see p. 49). Then, leaving a fair amount of space, airbrush a second pink curve below the first one. The second line should be about half the width of the first. Spray yellow over the bottom half of the first pink stripe and halfway down the white area. Spray blue over the lower portion of the yellow, over the remaining white space and over the bottom pink curve. The result is a six-color rainbow: pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, created using only three colors.
For the clouds, tear a paper towel and use it as a stencil by placing it on the cake. Airbrush blue around the edge, and keep moving the paper towel until the top of the cake is filled with clouds. For both borders, use star tip No. 22. Pipe the top border with a triple ’e,’ reverse triple ’e’ motion, and add a bottom shell border. Finish the design by garnishing the borders with pastel sugar dots.
Freehand designs are very easily accomplished using an airbrush. Spray a message in hollow bubble letters, and fill the letters with another color. Then, use the airbrush to fill the cake top with free form designs, such as squiggles, concentric circles and dots. Use tip No. 22 to pipe a reverse shell top border, and add a repeating ’el’ bottom border with tip No. 18.
An airbrush is a valuable tool for decorators. It saves labor and adds color to entice purchases.
1. Spray two curved lines of pink on top of a cake, leaving space between the two lines. The top line should be about twice as thick as the bottom one.
2. With yellow color, spray over half of the top pink line and cover half of the space between the two pink lines. Finish the rainbow by spraying blue over half of the yellow line, the remaining white space and over the bottom pink line.
3. Use a torn paper towel as a stencil for clouds. Place the towel on the cake and airbrush blue around the edge. Keep moving the towel until the remaining cake top is filled with clouds.