Wedding Decoration Terms

What is 'cornelli lace'?

Cornelli lace is a type of design on the wedding cake. It is a piping done on the cake where it's a string. It's a random order, but the string cannot touch the next string. So for example, you can do the S shape over and over again, but ensuring that the strings don't touch each other, the icing doesn't touch each other. Cornelli looks like a very lacy design.

What are 'dragees'?

Dragees are sugar balls, typically the shape of a pearl. They are banned in California unfortunately because of a choking hazard, but wedding cake decorators use it to enhance like a flower. They can put it in the middle of the flower to bring out the petals. They can surround the cake with dragees so that the cake looks like it's strung with pearls. They can use the dragees to make the cake look like there are bubbles coming up from the bottom like champagne.

What is 'figure piping'?

Figure piping typically is buttercream frosting put into a piping bag, and the decorator pipes out a figure of a man, a woman, animals, or roses onto the wedding cake.

What is 'flood work'?

Flood work typically is done with royal icing. The decorator, for example, pipes out a figure of a petal. Inside the petal, she draws the icing inward, making it look like an airbrushed painting.

What is 'gum paste'?

Gum paste is a sugar dough, typically used by cake decorators to make flowers on a wedding cake. It is much like fondant, but the dough turns really hard like royal icing, but unfortunately, with royal icing you can't form it into flowers, but with gum paste you can. They can be made into roses, orchids, calla lilies, Stephanopoulos - basically any flower you can name.

What is 'latticework'?

Latticework is a type of design where royal icing is used on a wedding cake. You can think of latticework as like a castle, the windows of a castle, where the windows are interlaced in a diamond pattern. Basket weave is another prime example of latticework. Think of roses growing in your garden through the stakes: that's a form of lattice.

What is 'marbling'?

Marbling is a technique where you take two different colors and combine them together and mix them around so that it looks like a marble. If I was making a marble wedding cake, I would take yellow cake batter and chocolate cake batter, put them together and swirl the knife around so that it looks like the colors are intermingling with each other. You can also use this type of technique when you cover cakes. Typically, a marbled look would be good with tempered chocolate: white chocolate and dark chocolate mixed together, and then the decorator runs a knife through the two colors making a marbled effect on your cake.

What are 'pearls'?

Pearls are round sugar coated balls brushed with pearl dust, so it looks like real pearls, but they're edible.

What is 'piping'?

Piping is a technique used by most cake decorators to draw on your cake. They can draw swirls; they can draw cornelli lace; they can draw the basket weave. Piping is basically icing in a piping bag, and the wedding cake decorator uses the piping bag as if it were a pen or painting.

What is 'pulled sugar'?

Pulled sugar is a process by which the sugar is boiled to a certain temperature and it can be manipulated and literally pulled into any shape. You can pull it and make it into ribbons. You can pull it and cover the wedding cake so that it surrounds the cake like ribbon as well. You can also use pulled sugar to make figurines or flowers.

What is 'spun sugar'?

Spun sugar is boiled sugar, where the decorator will pour the cooled sugar over a rolling pin, making long strands. The strands resemble webs, so it looks like cotton candy but stretched out.

What are 'Swiss dots'?

Swiss dots are a piping technique where the decorator randomly puts dots onto a wedding cake to make a very decorative pattern