The Bakers Guide

Get some firm lard and work it up lightly with a little flour, then use ordinary icing pipes or paper tubes to ornament a cake tin turned bottom-upwards; the lard can be scraped off and reused.

Make paper tubes or pipes: cut a small square of good paper from corner to corner to form a triangle shape, fold into a cone, cut the point off to the desired size, place the tube and icing inside, fold down the mouth when icing is put in to prevent squeezing out when the paper is pressed. Use the thumb on the top to press the sugar out, not the guiding fingers at the bottom; keep fingers clean but do not lick them with the tongue.

Prepare icing: dissolve 1 oz of gelatin or isinglass in a gill of water, add a pinch of tartaric acid or 4 drops of acetic acid, beat in icing sugar until stiff. Put the mixture in a clean dry basin and beat until it stands in shape (about ten minutes). If coloured icing is desired, beat in the colouring.

Put icing on the top of the cake, covering it all over or only the top as desired, using a palette knife large enough to cover the diameter of the top. Work the icing from side to side, always keeping one side of the knife upon the sugar. Do not take the knife off, turn over, or scrape the cake. After the top is well and evenly covered, draw the knife off with one sweep.

If the surface is a little rough, lift the cake and knock it gently on the table to fill the ridges left by the knife. If the sides are to be sugared, let the sugar run over, put the knife round once roughly to cover the cake, then give one even sweep right round the sides.

For the sides, use a slanting knife rather than a flat one so that it carries the excess sugar before the finish of the stroke. Put a frill of white tissue-paper around the side, then a slightly narrower pink frill over it, so that the white shows a little above and below the pink.

Ornament the top with twelfth-cake ornaments or other desired ornaments. Wedding cakes should be all white; birthday, christening, or other table cakes should be coloured. Do not make the colours too glaring and deep; use delicate tints.

Use pipes as shown or use a thread pipe as you would a writing pencil. A modern and nicer form of ornamentation is to glaze with fondant sugar and then decorate with glace fruits, angelica, etc. Royal icing to eat is an abomination.