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Santy Gibson/Need Media

Cakes tin be beautifully decorated in a number of ways, with anything from carefully piped swirls and curlicues of icing to gum paste butterflies or fresh flowers. Many of those alternatives are fussy and require skills of a high social club, but that isn't the case with fruit-topped cakes. Fruit can be uncomplicated plenty for everyday or elegant enough for special occasions, and you don't demand to invest years in learning how to practice information technology.

Some Quick Pizzazz

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If you accept a cake already made up and iced, either bootleg or from a store, it takes just a few moments to requite it a fresh look with fruit. Sturdy berries such as strawberries and blueberries, for their bold color and lack of cake-staining juice. Seedless grapes are too a good choice, or slices of non-browning fruit such as kiwis that won't discolor your cake. Simply arrange them in an centre-pleasing design, and serve the block immediately.

A Larger Palette

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Santy Gibson/Need Media

When speed is less important than the overall appearance of your cake, you lot can augment your palette by selecting fruits that require some preparation but advantage you with assuming colors and flavors. Peaches, nectarines and mango offering deep, golden yellows; plums and blood orange segments lend deep, wine-line reds; kiwi its dramatic seed-flecked green; and berries bring all the hues of the rainbow.

Basic Fruit Grooming

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Santy Gibson/Demand Media

Pare the fruit if appropriate, and dip quick-browning favorite such as peaches or bananas in diluted lemon juice to go on them looking fresh. For oranges, cut away the skin with a pocketknife and and so cutting private segments from their protective membranes. Strawberries and larger fruit are usually halved or sliced, so they're seize with teeth-sized.

Some Simple Principles

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Santy Gibson/Need Media

Arrange the fruit in bands or rings on your block, or in a repeating pattern that will effect in individually decorated slices when y'all cut the block. Unremarkably it'southward best to place larger, easily sliced fruits first, then utilise small, vividly colored fruit and berries in betwixt as visual punctuation. If you wish, you can arrange sliced fruit in the middle to make a sort of centerpiece for the block. You lot might detect information technology useful to sketch your pattern first with colored pencils, before yous get-go putting fruit on the cake.

Protecting the Surface

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Santy Gibson/Need Media

Nearly frosting has a high fat content, so juice from your fruit won't soak through and make your block soggy, but the color of some fruits and berries can leak into the icing and get out it discolored and messy-looking. To guard against this, you can heat a flavor-appropriate jam or jelly in the microwave, and so brush it over the portion of your cake that volition be covered in fruit. When it cools, the jelly provides a bulwark against colorful juices.

Glistening and Fresh

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Santy Gibson/Demand Media

Professional pastry chefs use a diverseness of glazes to keep their fruit garnishes glistening and fresh-looking. You can observe neutral-flavored glazes in your supermarket'due south produce section, or plough again to melted jam or jelly. European pastry chefs typically employ apricot jam for yellow fruits and red currant for red fruits, or you can use apple tree jelly if you adopt. Brushed over your fruit with a pastry castor, it keeps them pretty and helps prevent drying and slow deterioration.

Frosted Fruit

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Santy Gibson/Demand Media

For more than formal occasions, frosted fruit offers a more exotic variation on the theme. Dip each slice of fruit in beaten egg white -- use pasteurized whites or meringue powder, for food safety reasons -- and and so milkshake or dredge information technology with extra-fine saccharide. Once the egg whites dry, the fruit will appear to be covered in a fine frost.

Frost On Frosting

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Santy Gibson/Demand Media

The best choices for frosted fruit are those you can go out whole, such every bit grapes, and berries, because their skins contain the juices that would otherwise seep out through the carbohydrate. Their brilliant colors, peeping through the frosty encompass, make a hitting appearance. For serious drama, frost an unabridged bunch of red seedless grapes and use them as a centerpiece on your block.

Writer Bio

Fred Decker is a trained chef, old restaurateur and prolific freelance writer, with a special interest in all things related to food and nutrition. His piece of work has appeared online on major sites including Livestrong.com, WorkingMother.com and the websites of the Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Relate; and offline in Canada's Foodservice & Hospitality magazine and his local daily newspaper. He was educated at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.

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