Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi everyone, I am going to be making a Christening cake and as part of the design I need to pipe some lettering to all 4 sides of the cake. My piping is ok when it’s on the top of the cake but I’m worried about doing the lettering at such an angle. I had thought of maybe buying some sugar sheets, cutting them to size and piping the words onto them before attaching them to the sides of the cake?? Has anyone ever done this, or have any other suggestions please. Thanks guys.

HI Jude3011

Do you need to pipe them or could you do large cut sugarpaste cut out letters? All you’d need do is make a cardboard template of the letter and cut round it. To make it stand out either pipe around the letters with royal icing or extrude some sufarpaste round each letter.
Anne Reardon of ‘how to cook that’ has an excellent video on how to make stand out letters in four different ways. which you can see here:
https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/four-different-ways-to-do-fondant-lettering/

To pipe the letters first trace the letter onto parchment paper with an HB or 9XXB pencil. Turn the paper over and go over the image quite firmly, be careful not to smudge the reverse image. Position the paper on the cake right side facing front and anchor it with a a tiny dot of royal icing or a pin. Take a veining tool and etch over the letters again to emboss the icing leaving a pencil guide line to follow with your royal icing. Pencil is graphite and food safe.
I know it’s difficult to pipe up the sides of a cake. Steady your piping hand with the other under the wrist. Practice first, lots of times on a dummy until you get your confidence.
Hopefully other members will share their tips.

I meant to say earlier a tilt and turntable helps because you can position the cake at a better angle. Anyway I’m glad some of the above suggestions help. Good luck with cake! x

Hi madeitwithlove, thank you so much for this. I need to pipe some words from a quote from Winnie The Pooh so your second suggestion would probably work best for me. I’ve watched the video clip you mentioned and that’s a great tip for spacing the letters out perfectly. I just need to practice piping on the sides. Thank you again x