A photo done in the Pin-Up style is an image of a very sexy girl that gained incredible popularity in the period after the Second World War, thanks to American soldiers who massively bought posters with images of sexy girls, among whom were Hollywood actresses Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth.
Today, the popular Pin-Up decor is widely used in confectionery art, being one of the most popular for festive cake decorations and desserts, and requires the use of edible photo printing and toppers, complemented by a variety of decorations.
Decorating with edible photo printing
Pin-Up photo is a picture of a beautiful, half-naked girl, made in the style of American graphics of the mid-20th century.
Bright and original edible images of girls are liked not only by men, but also by women and in recent years have gained incredible popularity in the confectionery industry as an ideal decoration for an anniversary, International Women's Day or a friendly party.
There are several ways to decorate a Pin-Up cake using edible printing:
- You can transfer the image onto a thin layer of mastic by cutting it out along the outline, and then transfer the mastic with the image onto the cake.
- In the second case, you need to prepare a small portion of butter cream, spread it over the surface of the cake and glue the picture onto the cake.
With the help of edible photo printing Pin-Up, the image can be applied to gingerbread, chocolate or meringue. Such work does not require professional pastry chef skills, and allows anyone to make a cake in the Pin-Up style independently, at home.
Printed on a special food printer, the image of a girl in the Pin-Up style requires the use of food ink, sugar or wafer paper. Pastry professionals recommend using both a special printer and modified Canon or Epson printers filled with special food ink for making food printing.
Edible photo picture Pin-Up is made on:
| Type of paper | How to use |
| Sugar paper | Thick, almost opaque, elastic paper with a sweetish taste and vanilla tint, allowing you to get the highest quality, bright images, with a rich color palette, ideal for creating three-dimensional pictures. A distinctive feature of such paper is also considered to be its special softness, which requires making the picture no earlier than 3 days before use. Depending on the manufacturer, there are thick and thin sugar paper:
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| Wafer (rice) paper | Thin and very fragile, tasteless paper with a porous structure can be:
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To make a three-dimensional photo picture in the Pin-Up style, confectioners recommend using sugar paper. This coating will be an ideal decoration for a cheesecake, jelly dessert or a cake with butter, protein cream.
Wafer paper is used:
- for creating pin-up style decorations (medallions, toppers) for cupcakes;
- for printing a small image that can be further processed with curly scissors;
- to create a three-dimensional photo image of a Pin-Up girl without a bright background.
Edible Pin-Up style photo pictures for cakes are made on A4 sheets (21*30 cm), or A3 (29*42 cm), with white margins along the edges - 1 cm. The printed image can also be smaller in format, round in shape or be designed as a collage of several objects.
To decorate cupcakes, use pictures with a diameter of 6 - 6.5 cm. One sheet can contain up to 12 such round pictures.
Decorating the top of the cake
To apply a three-dimensional image of a Pin-Up girl to a cake you will need:
- photo printing made on sugar or wafer paper;
- clear food gel;
- silicone brush;
- scissors for adjusting and cropping the image;
- a special iron for smoothing out the image (optional).
Cake decorating process:
- The photo of the Pin-Up girl must be taken out of the transparent bag and first applied to the top of the cake being decorated.
- The white fields of the picture need to be cut with scissors. This should be done immediately before placing it on the cake, otherwise the paper used for printing will dry out and become very fragile. A special protective layer is attached to the sheet; professionals advise cutting out the image together with it. After the picture is cut out, the protective layer should be removed.
- The prepared image should be coated with food gel on the back side using a silicone brush and placed on the top layer of the cake. Wafer paper should be coated with food gel on both sides before being placed on the cake, which will give it additional softness, brightness and shine. Sugar paper should be greased with food gel only on the back side immediately before being placed on the cake covered with sugar paste. There is no need to apply gel to the image on the front side. When placing a Pin-Up style picture on a cake with butter cream or chocolate ganache, you can skip the food gel altogether.
- The Pin-Up style image placed on the cake should be smoothed out with a special iron (or spatula), and the hanging edges of the image should be carefully trimmed with scissors.
Decorating the side of the cake
In addition to covering the top layer, a Pin-Up style photo can be placed on the side of the dessert.
- Before applying the image, the cake must be leveled using a special spatula, carefully spreading the cream or mastic on the side of the cake.
- A Pin-Up style photo made on sugar or wafer paper should be cut out along the outline, the protective layer removed and the back side coated with melted white chocolate or decor gel.
- The prepared image must be placed on the side of the cake and carefully fixed with your hand.
In case of decorating the cake with edible printing like wallpaper, its sides should be pre-greased with butter cream or covered with ganache. The paper is placed on the cream until it hardens completely.
Since the side decor is not able to level the cake, its side part should be well leveled before applying the picture.
How to Choose a Photo to Decorate a Dessert
Professional confectioners advise taking a Pin-Up style photo used to decorate a cake from the Internet, giving preference to images with a size of at least 1200px. Otherwise, it will need to be enlarged, which will lead to a loss of sharpness. It is also not recommended to use an image obtained as a result of a screenshot of a smartphone screen.
Also, experts advise that when choosing a picture for a Pin-Up style cake, pay attention to the absence of watermarks, which are practically impossible to remove.
How to store a picture
The image should be stored in a dry place at a temperature not exceeding +25°C, avoiding bending, direct sunlight, water, or condensation.
To prevent dirt from getting on the photo, it should be stored in airtight containers. It is also permissible to store paper in regular files. Food photo paper with an image cannot be frozen.
What can be decorated?
You can decorate desserts covered with Pin-Up style photos made on sugar or wafer paper:
- mastic;
- butter-containing cream (butter with condensed milk, with chocolate or cottage cheese);
- protein-butter cream;
- protein cream;
- chocolate ganache;
- chocolate;
- icing for gingerbread;
- isomalt (caramel).
Pin-Up Style Decoration with Toppers
Pin-Up style photos can be used to make toppers, which are one of the most popular options for decorating a festive cake. This option is also suitable for decorating cupcakes and does not require professional skills in sculpting and painting figures.
Decorating with wafer paper toppers
Made from thick wafer paper, the toppers hold their shape well and do not require preliminary preparation of a mastic figure.
Manufacturing process:
- The pictures chosen from the Internet should be printed on a sheet of thick wafer paper, and then cut out using regular scissors. This should be done carefully due to the high fragility of the paper.
- Melt white chocolate in a plate or bowl, dip a stick (or toothpick) into it, and then apply it to the prepared topper from the back. The hardened chocolate will stick the Pin-Up image to the stick, creating the topper needed for decoration.
- The finished topper should be inserted into the cake base.
- Since wafer paper holds its shape well, a topper made from it can be used to make an edible figurine. In this case, you can print only the upper part of the girl's image, depicting the flounces of her fluffy skirt using cream.
- In addition to sticks, ready-made toppers can be placed on the side of one of the cake tiers, and also placed on top of the cream as a medallion. This option is suitable for decorating Pin-Up cupcakes.
- Toppers made of wafer paper inserted into or placed on the cream must first be insulated with melted chocolate or cocoa butter. There is no need to cover the wafer topper with edible gel.
Sugar paper topper
The Pin-Up style photo used to make the toppers can be applied to sugar paper. In this case, the image will be more vivid, and the process of cutting out the topper will be much easier due to the softness and elasticity of the paper.
Unlike wafer decorations, sugar paper toppers do not hold their shape, so before using it, you need to make a base from mastic or gingerbread.
Materials required:
- sugar paste;
- images printed on sugar paper;
- silicone mat and rolling pin;
- starch;
- melted white chocolate or decorgel;
- knife or special glass;
- scissors.
Manufacturing stage:
- Roll out 100-150 g of quick-drying mastic (white or colored) on a silicone mat. Roll out the sugar paste in a thin layer if a stick will be glued to the back side with melted chocolate. To insert a wooden skewer into the mastic, the layer thickness should be 0.5-1 cm. If you don't have a silicone mat, you can roll out the mastic on the surface of the kitchen table, having previously sprinkled it with starch to reduce stickiness.
- A sheet of sugar paper with pin-up images on it should be taken out of the package and cut out with scissors along the outline. Carefully remove the protective film from the picture, use a silicone brush to grease it with food gel on the back side, and then apply it to the mastic.
- Using a knife or special glass, you need to cut out the exact outline of the picture from the mastic.
- A wooden skewer (stick) should be inserted into the prepared topper or glued with white chocolate melted in a bowl. To prevent the stick from slipping out of the topper, the joint can be greased with melted chocolate (decorgel or liquid honey).
- The finished topper needs to be dried. Its drying time depends on the quality and composition of the mastic and takes from several hours to one day.
- After drying, the mastic toppers should be inserted into the layers of the finished cake. As additional decoration in the Pin-Up style, you can use mastic figures, ribbons or bows.
How to complement the decor
Additional decorations for a Pin-Up style cake include:
- Caramel lollipops. You can make your own from tinted caramel and attach it to a wooden skewer placed on top of the cake;
- Various berries and fruits. The most popular decoration for Pin-Up desserts are strawberries, placed in a waffle cone and covered with melted chocolate.
- Sprinkle "Disco Balls" in gold, silver or bronze shades, giving the dessert an original shine and a flirty look. You can also use confectionery sprinkles made in the shape of hearts or mini-merises of various shades.
- Sugar or butter roses, running in a ribbon across the entire surface of the cake, or butterflies cut out of fondant.
- Mastic inscriptions and numbers used to decorate a Pin-Up style cake (used for birthdays or anniversaries).
- Chocolate drips, Ferrero Rocher or Raffaello candies.
The decoration can be arranged in any order, depending on the pastry chef’s wishes, placing it on butter cream, protein cream, ganache or chocolate mastic.
Inedible decorations
Pin-Up style photos used for cake decoration can be combined with non-edible decorative elements:
With ribbons
Satin, rep or velvet ribbons will beautifully emphasize the multi-tiered shape of the cake and its idea, and will also give the dessert the innocence and playfulness inherent in the Pin-Up style. Scarlet or pink ribbons can be tied around the cakes or used to make spectacular bows.
In addition to the obvious advantages, this decoration option also has a number of disadvantages, since it can squeeze the cakes during transportation and cause the cream underneath to melt.
Flowers
Fresh flowers are ideal for decorating a Pin-Up cake, emphasizing the femininity of the composition. They can be used both to decorate the top of the cake and to let them flow in multi-tiered ribbons, beautifully encircling the cake or framing the main picture. In addition to brightness, floral decor can be used if you want to create a cake in a single composition with decorations in the hall.
Despite their wide popularity, professional confectioners do not recommend using calla lilies, daffodils, lilies, lilies of the valley and carnations in decorating a Pin-Up cake due to the dangerous toxicity of their inflorescences.
Inedible toppers
Inscriptions, various inedible figures or pictures will help to emphasize the originality of the decor in the Pin-Up style. Such decor is inserted into the upper part of the cake and, in addition to being easy to use, is also valued by confectioners for its ability to remain unchanged, despite temperature changes and the storage period of the dessert.
Plastic dolls
An original way to decorate a cake in the Pin-Up style is to use a plastic doll dressed in a dress made of cream flounces. The doll can be placed on the top of the cake and be seated on the mastic so that its legs reach the bottom tier of the dessert.
The doll can be fixed with melted white chocolate or a special fixing cream. Her outfit is created with a pastry syringe, turning into a flirty dress with frills and flounces in the style of the 50s of the last century.
Pin-up decor is considered a fashionable modern confectionery trend used to decorate festive cakes and cupcakes. Photos of smiling flirty girls printed on sugar or wafer paper are used to decorate the top and side of the cake, as well as in the making of toppers.
Combined with berries, candies or ribbons, this decor allows you to create the perfect festive dessert for a birthday, anniversary or International Women's Day.
Video about Pin-Up style photos
How to decorate a Pin-Up cake quickly and easily: