This Pastry Chef's Brilliant Trick Makes Frosting Cakes and Tarts Easier

Cake stands are timeless, versatile, and stellar centerpieces for any table. Whether you top them with seasonal decor, plants, charcuterie, jewelry, or dessert, our best cake stands never go out of style. 

While they look stunning and are certainly Instagramable, cake stands aren’t always the top tool for creating a magazine-cover-worthy cake or tart. Nearly all cake stands are immobile.

Even if you tuck small pieces of waxed paper or parchment paper under the first layer to catch any drips or excess garnishes, you still have to fuss with spinning the cake—or yourself around the cake—to frost it evenly on all sides. There has to be a better way.

Thanks to Karla Marro, executive pastry chef at Miller & Lux in San Francisco, and her brilliant dessert decorating hack, the solution might be in your home already. A vinyl record player!

After seeing Marro’s ultra-soothing demonstration on Instagram, we reached out to her for the dish on how she initially came up with the idea. She tells BHG that she remembers seeing the technique years ago on a French reality cooking show called “Qui Sera le Prochain Grand Pâtissier?” (Translated from French, the title is “Who Will Be the Next Great Pastry Chef?”)

“Years later, I was working in New York City, and the executive pastry chef was making a lemon tart with a marshmallow-topped cloud,” Marro recalls. “During the tasting, the head chef requested only meringue, so I told the pastry chef about the record player idea. He asked, ‘Do you have one?’ and I promised him, ‘I can find a record player before the end of the week!’”

Marro bought a record player on Facebook Marketplace and started practicing on food storage container lids until she mastered the pacing and spinning strategy.

Rotatin