Cake Decorating Ideas

Cake Walk-through: Cake Decorating Made Simple

Nearly every celebration in our lives has one common ingredient: cake. The sweet treat's been around for centuries. At the time of America's colonization, cakes were small loaves of bread made with the most expensive ingredients available, and therefore, something special.

Today you can take your cake's singularity to new levels with cake decorating. Home bakers, don't be intimidated, with the right tools, a few ideas and a lot of patience, you can decorate your cake just as nicely as any professional baker.

We'll give you a few cake decorating ideas of varying degrees of difficulty; choose one or a few to try, and relish a new reason to eat cake.

Base Coat

Every good cake design starts with a good base coat, which, in cake terms, means a smoothly frosted surface.

Allow cakes to cool completely before decorating. Use an offset spatula, which has a long, bent metal blade, to apply frosting to your cakes. To keep crumbs from marring your frosting, apply two coats; the first will secure any crumbs, and the second, perfected coat will be on display.

Keep crumb coats very thin, and allow them to set before applying the second icing coat. When smoothing the second coat, start by gliding the spatula along the cake's perimeter. Finish off the top by rotating the cake while holding the spatula horizontally above the cake.

Simple Designs

Icing: Some bakers say learning to smooth icing is as tricky as the most complex frosting designs. Once you've mastered the technique, though, don't hesitate to show it off. A simple, flawlessly frosted cake is clean, elegant, and perfect for any occasion.

Dusting: Sprinkle cake tops with powdered sugar freely or with a stencil for an easy, rustic appearance.

Edible decor: Press candy, nuts, sprinkles, or coconut into icing before it sets. Ideal for little bakers, edible decoration is a creative, and relatively forgiving, way to sweeten family favorites.

Combing: Use a small cardboard comb, available at baking supply stores, to create a textured look.

Complex Designs

Piping: Use a pastry bag or parchment paper cone and metal tip to pipe lines, words, flowers, and shells on the top, sides and base of your cake. Be sure to fill only half the pastry bag or cone; twist the empty part of the bag and grip it between your thumb and forefinger while squeezing icing out with your palm.

Fondant and other sugar pastes: Fondant, a smooth, white paste, as well as various other sugar-based pastes, is perfect for complicated cake designs. Where as piping is relatively free-form, fondant shapes are bold cutouts that can be bright and, though not tasty, look delicious.

More information on Cake Decorating Tools