Given that bakery cake fails take pretty much become their own category on the net, spawning sites like Cake Wrecks and several Pinterest boards devoted to the topic, it'southward tempting to desire to take matters into your own hands, lest y'all wind upwards with a miscommunication that turns your "blonde daughter" block topper into a "bullheaded daughter," or makes y'all seriously question whether the baker sculpted lady parts onto your kid'southward birthday cake.

At the very least, then your #cakefails are your own, right?

Yolanda Gampp, a cocky-taught cake creative person, is on a mission to prove that baking your own fondant masterpieces—no matter how complicated they may seem—is easier than you recall. Every Tuesday, the quondam SugarStars contestant uploads a new cake tutorial to her YouTube channel, How to Cake It, breaking down how to make everything from a Minion to Emojis out of sugar, flour and eggs.

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Watermelon Cake - Yolanda Gampp

How to Cake It

Hither are her secrets to keeping your cake from ballsy fail territory:

1. Choose Your Cake Flavor Wisely.

Movie Night Cake

How to Cake It

Super-moist cakes, like banana or carrot block, tend to crumble when you try to sculpt them into character cakes or massive layer cakes. Gampp recommends starting with a firmer block (specially if y'all're making a cake that'southward a foot alpine or taller!). Dumbo chocolate or vanilla cakes tend to be less probable to plummet. Here's her go-to chocolate cake recipe, consummate with measurements to make different-sized cakes.

2. Let Yourself Deviate from the Recipe—This Once.

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How to Make a Stack of Behemothic Huckleberry Pancakes out of Cake! With Maple-Infused Buttercream!

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You've heard a million times that baking is a science, and that y'all demand to follow the recipe to a T, simply there's 1 crucial time to curve the rules: The cook fourth dimension. Everybody'south oven is dissimilar, or you might live at a dissimilar altitude than whoever wrote the recipe, and that can lead to your cake needing a little more—or less—time to bake. Cheque it five minutes before the recommended time, and use the toothpick rule: If you insert a toothpick and it comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, it's done cooking.

3. Always Play It Cool.

Ice Cream Cone Cake

How to Block It

Many people let their cakes cool for but ten to 15 minutes before popping them out of the pans—and that tin lead to cracks, melted frosting and other disasters. When Gampp removes the cakes from the oven, she immediately puts them on cooling racks and leaves them there for an hr or longer. "I'll slide my hand under the rack, and I want to experience zero warmth coming from that pan before I'll have the block out," she explains.

4. Going Fancy? Strength That Block to Chill Out.

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How To Make a BOB THE MINION from Despicable Me out of Cake | Yolanda Gampp | How To Cake It

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While you lot'll go swell results working with a cool cake, if you lot're carving into it at all—say, to create the domed head of a Minion or slanted border of a Tim Horton's cup—stick it into the freezer to absurd information technology farther. A cold cake tends to crumble a lot less, belongings its shape so information technology'southward easier to mold into whatever your carbohydrate-loving soul desires.

5. Borrow Your Kid's School Supplies.

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How To LEVEL YOUR Block LIKE A PRO! Yolanda's levelling and layering tutorial!

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One of the most useful tools to making pro-level cakes is more probable to be found in your desk-bound than your kitchen: A ruler. One time the cake's removed from the pan, holds a ruler upwardly to the border of the cake, marks where they're 1 3/4 inches alpine, and uses a serrated pocketknife to cutting the cake in one-half cleanly. That way every layer is perfectly level.

6. Take That Your Block Will Be A Niggling Wooden.

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How To Make A TIM HORTONS Loving cup AND TIMBITS...OUT OF CAKE!! Oh... CANADA!

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When yous're building a monument out of cake, you're going to need a few wooden dowels. There, we said it. "You need that support to proceed the block from collapsing," Gampp says. Her dominion of thumb? Identify dowels for every four to 6 inches of superlative, and when you lot go to serve the block, just remove them, layer past layer. "Trust me, your knife isn't going to cut through them," she says.

If your block is top-heavy—like the Tim Horton's cup cake, which tapers at the lesser—add dowels every 2 to iii inches.

vii. Know When to Sugarcoat Things.

Yolanda Gampp Pouring Simple Syrup on Cake

How to Block It

Surely, if you've made a moist cake, there'southward no reason to slather it in elementary syrup, right? Not quite. "Information technology's the No. 1 question I'one thousand always asked," Gampp says. "Creating a character cake takes hours, and in reality, you're typically not decorating them and immediately eating them, then you need to utilize elementary syrup to lock in wet."

Rather than paint the syrup on the top of the cake with a brush, like many bakers do, Gampp uses a graduated squeeze bottle to shower every layer.

viii. Ease into Your Fondant Game.

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How To Make your favorite EMOJIS out of Cake!!! Chocolate cakes, buttercream and fondant!

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Fondant—that thick, Play Doh-similar frosting  yous scroll out and pall on a cake—seems super-like shooting fish in a barrel to use, but it tin can actually be a huge hassle: If the cake underneath is uneven, the fondant can wait lumpy or go wrinkled like the craggy folds of an elephant'southward skin. Not sexy.

That'due south why Gampp recommends putting a thin layer of frosting on the cake to make full out any bumps or holes, then letting it chill (it's easier to shine the frosting once information technology's cold) earlier adding the fondant. The easiest cakes to work with are small, 6-inch round ones, Gamp says.

"The emoji block is bully for beginners," she suggests. "It'south not shaped, there are no dowels in information technology, and you don't even have to layer the cakes. Plus, it uses Italian buttercream, which is so shine that you won't have to worry about lumps or bumps."

The hardest office is choosing which emotion you want to convey start.

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