Fancy Plating Food With Cooking Powders Technique: Cinnamon, Cocoa, Sugar Powder

       I show how to use this plating technique with cinnamon powder but it can be any other powders as well. The technique is very useful if your stencil design has an unusual shape or plate is much bigger than your stencil. I am using foil to cover plate and unwanted design. It is the way how we can use any stencil for plating food garnish.

The best way to keep stencils in a notebook or magazin, so they not deform.

1. Cooking foil (to cover plate)
2. Cooking brush (to brush excess of powder)

1. I place the stencil on the square of foil.

2. I folded the side of the foil over the stencil. I left 1 inch of foil on the stencil and fold foil back.

3. Now I repeat with all 3 sides. So my stencil can stay secure in foil when I am going to use it.

4. I turn stencil with foil over. Smooth foil and the design appears, so I easily can tell what part of the stencil I need to open.

5. Next step we are going to open a desirable part of the design. Make a small hole on a foil with a knife and it helps to start to remove the foil.

6. I use a tea strainer to spread cinnamon on the plate. I try to press the stencil as close as possible to the plate and sprinkle cinnamon in even layer.

7. I remove the stencil very gently, try to keep it vertically and don’t move to right or left. This way extra powder will not fail on the design. I remove excess of powder around the design with a brush.

Tip. For small template or you need a certain area the design, I used a cookie cutter and shake inside cutter my powder. In this case, the best works for me a tea infuser in the shape of a spoon.

⇓ Here are just a few examples, what I used for food plating. If we look around in the kitchen we can find many shapes! ⇓

1. Stencils
2. Cookie cutters
3. Small plastic containers or other shapes
4. Make stencils from paper
5. Plastic lid from food jar

Garnishing Plate with Cookies Powder 

1. Convection (powder) sugar
2. Cocoa
3. Coffee
4. Cayenne pepper
5. Chili pepper
6. Cinnamon
7. Powder made from cookie

1. Strainer with very fine mesh
2. Shaker made from Maison jar with a fine mesh
3. Tea Infuser
4. Coffee filter with mesh

To make nice design not necessary to have stencils, just look around in your kitchen. I going to make a list of what I used to make designs.

1. Paper to make simple stencils.
2. Plastic containers lids, it works great for round shapes and it is easy to pick up from a plate.
3. Cookie cutters.
4. Wilton lily nail set I like so much because of perfect size for plates and so easy to remove from a plate.
5. I use paper punches to create a stencil for delicate snowflakes. However, keep in mind they designed for paper, I just had already and tried it (some of my punches didn’t punch the film).

Decorated carrot cake with sugar powder. Sugar powder looks great on plates with darker colors. I used half of a paper doily and tea diffuser for powder.

Check the recipe → Carrot Cake with Almond Flour

      We can make stencil yourself. We can make plastic stencils with the electric cutter. It is so relaxing process and if you are the artistic person it can take you to a new passion! I tried but not a big fan for detailing the design. I found many tips and technique on YouTube on how to make stencils yourself but be honest, after I made a snowflake, I quit and stick to store ones. It is not what I like to do for fun. However, I am sharing my experience, so it may help you to make the decision to try or don’t try to make yourself a custom stencil.

     I didn’t find a good stencil blank at our craft stores. So used very thin blanks from a roll to get a feel, I like or not. However, I found later a very good price and good quality stencil blanks under $3.00 at our local Walmart at the craft department.

ATTENTION!

Please, read safety requirements comes with the tools before use knife and electric cutter! It is really important, especially with an electric stencil cutter.

What you need to make stencil:

1. Stencil film
2. Knife
3. Electric stencil cutter (optional)
4. Glass or marble surface to place film
5. Scissors
6. Foil to protect your table (optional)
7. Pencil
8. Black marker
9. Paper
10. Oven mitt

     Tips

1. Choose at first simple designs to practice.
2. Lay flat film before use, if you buy it in a roll.
3. When drawing design, remember to leave some connections on design in a large opening area or will be not easy to pick a stencil from a plate.
4. I use my oven mitt to hold foil to clean the tip of the tool (it is very hot!).