No Knives Needed. Slice a Cake Like a Professional With Dental Floss

Fragile piping: Ruined. Frosting: a extensive smear. Crumbs stacked on top rated of what employed to be a perfectly iced cake. These are all symptoms you’ve utilised the incorrect tool to reduce your cake — even if that software was a knife. No make a difference how sharp it is, every time I use a knife to slice into a cake, I’m normally left with a gob of icing that I close up scraping onto someone’s plate to “cleanse” the blade for the future slice. But what other alternative do I have? Astonishingly, a little day to day tool does the trick: dental floss.

A spool of dental floss tucks conveniently into a kitchen or desk drawer, or a get the job done bag, and it is constantly at the completely ready. I not long ago tested five forms of dental floss to cut a few types of cake. The result: some of the cleanest slices that would make any professional bakery very pleased. I’m not kidding. This system works fantastically perfectly, and it really is surprisingly quick to do. 

The only drawback: Applying floss may perhaps not be the most exquisite way to reduce cake slices and you may well get icing on your fingers. But the results are truly worth it. Here’s how to minimize your cake with floss, which kind of floss is effective very best and some pitfalls you should completely prevent. For one more cool kitchen area-similar trick, this is how to make distilled water for cost-free.

@cnetdotcom Your #cake may taste a bit #minty relying on floss you pick. #lifehack#dentalfloss#trythis#didyouknow#cookinghacks#baking#howtotok♬ son authentic – SHIMMYA

Why use dental floss to reduce a cake?

There might be a selection of explanations you arrive at for the dental floss as a substitute of a knife for reducing cake. It’s possible you are in the business office or at a birthday party in the park and the only offered reducing utensil is a 6-inch compostable knife. Potentially you are exhausted of buttercream buildup and want to try anything new. Just one colleague saved the working day at a celebration when a giant dice cake appeared at a bar that didn’t have utensils for visitors to use. Thankfully, the container of floss she had on hand did the position.

Here is why it is effective: A strand of floss is normally thinner than the typical kitchen knife blade, and it’s intended to slide simply through restricted areas (that is, between your teeth). If you’ve ever flossed much too aggressively, sore gums are all the proof you require that the floss “edge” can be sharp. 

Incorporate them together and you have a really great instrument that can get you neat, cleanse slices after reducing. Even though slicing by one cake, I could scarcely see in which the floss sliced by means of the frosting simply because the cuts were so neat. 

In my experience, employing dental floss to minimize cake also did a far better occupation of preserving the delicate decorations. For instance, the carrot cake I utilized for this exam experienced a piped carrot style and design on leading of the cake. Slicing by means of it with the floss held that design intact. In my practical experience, making use of a butcher knife to reduce as a result of decorations generally spoils the glance, leaving a smeared layout — but it depends on the sharpness, width and length of the knife blade.

And that dilemma of amassed frosting on the edge of the knife? Typically long gone — with the exception of buildup on your fingers.

How to reduce any cake applying dental floss

1st, make guaranteed your cake is on a flat floor so you have space to pull the floss all the way to the cake’s base. You could put it on a cake stand to give you much more area as you slice down. Upcoming, spool out a duration of floss more substantial than the widest aspect of the cake. I left numerous inches on each end to wrap the floss close to my fingers comfortably. When you wrap the floss about your fingers, never make it tremendous tight: You are hoping to slice cake, not your fingers. 

If you’re attempting to make each and every slice the very same measurement, you may possibly want to use the floss to evenly mark guideline lines prior to cutting through the cake. 

Ready? Here is what to do.

Sq. or rectangular cake: If the cake is formed like a sq. or rectangle, it may perhaps be simpler to minimize because people cakes are typically shorter than round cakes. Employing your floss, make your cuts across the cake lengthwise, urgent firmly into the cake to slash all the way by means of. Now make your cuts widthwise, slicing to the base of the cake. 

Round cake: If your cake is formed like a circle, it’s maybe a layer cake so you may need to utilize a bit much more pressure to make it all the way to the base of the cake. Employing your floss, firmly reduce by means of the heart of the cake to create two halves — you may well require to go the floss in a sawing movement to completely cut it. 

Then, make a perpendicular cut to the just one you just made — you really should now have four triangles. Keep on making cuts, relocating all over the cake, until finally you have the range of slices you want. Notice that the thinner you want your slices, the more durable it will be to lower simply because the slices start off slipping apart.

Can you also use dental floss to provide cake slices?

To see if it was feasible, I attempted to choose up a slice of cake with floss. It was tricky and kind of labored, but the floss little by little reduce by way of the spongy texture as I attempted to take out the slice. I advise employing a fork or serving knife to provide slices to a plate, alternatively.

My professional tip for reducing cake with floss

When you might be creating cuts, after you have sliced to the base, will not pull the floss back up. Initial, accomplishing that will make your floss messier, which signifies you may want to get a new strand each individual time you make a slice. But more essential, pulling the slice again up delivers crumbs to the top of your cake and pulls up a bit of the frosting much too, so you you should not get the thoroughly clean, tidy glance you’re just after. 

As an alternative, when you’ve got sliced all the way by to the bottom of the cake, enable go of a person conclude and pull the floss out. Most of the icing and crumbs on the floss will be swept off as you slip the floss out, and you can be remaining with a cleanse strand that you can reuse to slash the up coming slice. 

This is where by the floss failed to do its career

When slicing the larger cakes, I discovered the floss in some cases failed to effortlessly slice all the way to the bottom, probably for the reason that of the improved resistance. If this comes about to you, I recommend reducing the cake in fifty percent to start with and then performing with just about every fifty percent so you can find fewer cake — and resistance — to cut as a result of. It may also help to set the cake on a stand to help you slice all the way through.

An additional take note: If you’re baking a cake at residence, this process is not going to do the job except if you get rid of the cake from the baking dish or cake pan to start with. 

Which sort of floss worked very best

For my exams, I made use of waxed floss from Kroger, two kinds from Oral-B Glide (1 mint flavored, the other unflavored), and two designs from CVS’ retailer brand name: a thicker, waxed dental tape and a standard, unwaxed floss. I tried out the floss forms on a few cakes: A layer carrot cake that contains bits of grated carrot, just one taller and lighter texture sheet cake, and a person shorter and denser sheet cake (almost like brownies).

All the floss worked terrific and manufactured neat cuts, even with the bits of carrot from the more textured sample cake. The Glide first floss sliced via the cakes a little bit less difficult than the Kroger waxed floss. I believe it is simply because the Glide floss felt smoother to the contact and truly did glide through the cake. 

Inspite of my getting fearful that it would snag, the unwaxed floss worked astonishingly perfectly and created neat slices.

The only one that smeared a bit when building a lower was the dental tape — which looks more like a ribbon than a thread of nylon floss. It manufactured a clear slice, even though, and I’d use it in a pinch. 

Flavored vs. unflavored floss: Will it change the style of your cake?

I was concerned about no matter if using flavored floss would also transfer flavor to the cake slices, but we lower items of a chocolate sheet cake utilizing mint-flavored floss and none of the four flavor-testers could detect a minty taste. To be safe, I would adhere with simple, unflavored floss if you can, and steer absent from cinnamon or coconut or bubblegum flavors. 

So the up coming time you happen to be chopping cake, attain for the dental floss or anything equivalent — like fishing line, sewing string or a slender wire.