How to cut a cake correctly and beautifully

An important event is coming up, and you're wondering how to properly and beautifully cut a cake to impress your guests not only with its vibrant flavor but also with its original presentation. We'll explain what to consider when choosing a recipe and offer several simple and original ideas for beautifully slicing round, rectangular, and tiered cakes into uniform slices.

Choosing the right cake

Professional pastry chefs know that not every cake can be beautifully cut into portions, so customers should discuss plans for beautiful cutting into the required number of pieces with the chef while choosing the recipe and decoration method.

That's why popular recipes are most often chosen for the holiday:

• classic "Medovik" and its various interpretations;
• Milk Girl;
• Red Velvet
• "Spartacus";
• "The Golden Key";
• "General";
• Esterhazy;
• Prague and others.

These desserts should only be cut when well chilled. If you serve the cake early and it's too hot, you'll likely fail to get a perfect cut. Furthermore, when the mousse layer between the two layers softens, it may become crushed when the knife passes through the denser top layer of sponge.

The hardest part is cutting cakes into perfect portions:

• based on puff pastry that has not been soaked enough (for example, Napoleon);
• with fairly hard, crispy and at the same time crumbly cakes (for example, “Kiev”);
• prepared from individual pieces, not cakes (for example, "Ladyfingers");
• with a thick layer of nuts or fruits (for example, Snickers).

That's why, when planning a cake for a birthday or other celebration that you plan to cut into pieces before serving, it's important to choose the right recipe.

Important points

To actually make a beautiful cake cut, you need to follow these rules:

• use cakes of the same thickness;
• coat with thick, stable cream;
• assemble the cake in a ring to make the shape as perfect as possible;
• cover with soft types of coating (hardened mastic is sometimes very difficult to cut beautifully);
• let the cake soak completely (depending on the recipe, this may take from 4 to 8 hours);
• defrost properly at room temperature (if the dessert was stored in the freezer);
• Rinse and wipe the knife dry after each cut.

A perfect, even cut is obtained by cutting the cooled cake with a large, sharp, slightly warmed knife.

How to cut a cake

There are many different cake cutting options. Let's take a closer look at how to properly cut a cake based on its shape and size.

Small round

For 8 pieces of round cake, cut the cake in three stages, dividing the pieces exactly in half each time.

This step-by-step photo will help you divide the cake into 12 pieces.

A tall cake with a diameter of 22 cm can be divided into 16 pieces by following the 8-piece cutting pattern and then cutting each piece in half again. However, keep in mind that the wedge-shaped pieces can be quite thin at the tip, so for larger cakes, other, more complex geometric cutting patterns are often used.

Big round

If you are expecting 12 or more people to visit, you can use these popular techniques.

Chamomile – a simple but original method for beautifully cutting a round cake into pieces of approximately equal weight.

Scheme of division into 12 parts.

Scheme of division into 16 parts.

This division is also useful for huge cakes, which are often found at weddings and anniversaries. For example, a cake with a diameter of 40 cm can easily be divided into exactly 100 servings. It all depends on how many guests you're serving and the size of the cake you plan to serve.

Another mathematical method Also suitable for dividing large round cakes for more than 20 people.

Diamonds (Star shape) can be used to cut large, but not very tall cakes. This method is borrowed from the traditional baklava cutting method.

Rectangular

Methods for cutting a rectangular cake are much simpler. You can cut it into perfect rectangles or right triangles, as shown in the diagram.

Square

Small cakes of this shape can be divided into squares or triangles.

For large square and rectangular cakes, the following patterns are most often used:

Non-standard shape

If your cake is heart-shaped, elliptical, or flower-shaped, consider these cutting patterns to ensure each piece looks beautiful and neat on your guest's plate.

Narrow and tall

Tower cakes are still trending, so we suggest watching a master class on cutting this unusual cake:

Multi-tiered

If the cake is assembled correctly and well secured, then the universal algorithm for cutting it will be as follows:

1. We remove all inedible decorations onto a pre-prepared plate.
2. The topmost tier is usually not sliced, but removed whole and left for the newlyweds to make their morning sweet.
3. Carefully cut the next tier after the top one, placing all the pieces on plates.
4. We remove the released backing.
5. We cut the next layer, remembering that such a high cake usually has reinforcing elements in the middle, they must be removed.
6. We repeat the algorithm for each subsequent layer.

It's worth noting that the bride and groom don't cut the wedding cakes themselves, but rather only take a symbolic first slice, which can be chosen from any tier. The slices are then handed over to experienced servers, who already know how to beautifully cut such a large, beautiful cake and how many guests they need to share the treat among.

How do you usually cut cakes? Is it important to you that the cut is perfect and the portions are uniform? Share your personal life hacks in the comments.