How To Decorate Cakes For Beginners

Ready To Roll Fondant Or Sugarpaste

Cake Decorating for Beginners | How to Frost a Cake

Ready to roll fondant can be bought in most supermarkets in the cake decorating aisle. It’s ideal for making your cake stand and is really easy to work with. You can buy all sorts of different colours or you can add a few drops of food colouring to white fondant for your own colour palette.

Top tip: Before working with fondant make sure you have a clean, dry surface to roll the fondant or sugarpaste onto. Dust with icing sugar to stop it from sticking and use a clean rolling pin.

Recipes to try using ready to roll fondant:

Written Message Sheet Cake

Because of a sheet cakes large surface area, it is easy to write a message big or small! Use a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle. Then, add some semi-soft buttercream frosting inside or royal icing.

You can write your message however youd like, in any font, size, and even color.

A nice touch is if you add a border of buttercream piped decorations around the edges of the cake. It helps create a clean look. Otherwise, you can just add some decorative details where youd like.

Cake Decorating Ideas For Beginners

Cake decorating is truly a wonderful craft. You can do it alone or with friends, and its suitable for all skill levels. It doesnt matter if youre a beginner or if youve been doing it for years theres always something new to learn and improve on. Cake decorating is all about experimenting and trying new ideas, and its a fun way to put your own spin on it.

Thats why weve compiled a list of 5 cake decorating ideas for beginners. Whether you want to do a specific cake design, color scheme, or just want to try something different, this list has something for everyone!

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Easy Birthday Cake Decorating Ideas That Only Look Complicated

A couple of years ago, my sister was visiting over her birthday, so I figured Id throw together a quick cake, decorate it a little bit, and graciously accept my Sister of the Year award. The cake part came out fine , but the icing kept hardening, so by the end I was essentially plastering thick slabs of icing to the side and praying they wouldnt fall off on the walk to the table. And that is when I learned that being able to make a kickin chocolate slice is a far cry from presenting someone with a fully decorated birthday cake.

This is exactly is why Ive put together twenty cakes that are totally adorable and will make you look like a birthday goddess, but are easy enough to fudge that even I can do them. And I say, if youre not a baker or are short on time, a shop-bought cake with one of these decorative hacks will taste just as delicious and win you as many accolades.

Here are my favourite easy birthday cake decorating ideas that look hard, but are simple enough that anyone can do them. Check them out in the slideshow.

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Have Fun With Fondant

Cake Decorating Ideas With Fondant For Beginners

Ready to roll fondant can be found in most supermarkets in the cake decorating aisle and is a super-easy way to decorate your cake as its pre-made.

Choose from a variety of different colors and get creative with your designs. For a confetti-inspired style, randomly place lots of colorful fondant circles across the cake, sticking them on with lemon extract as a glue.

The finished look is an easy yet effective one!

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How To Crumbcoat Your Cake

You may or may not have heard about a crumbcoat but for the sake of learning, Im going to explain it. I told you I wasnt going to skip anything!

A crumbcoat is a thin layer of your buttercream all over the cake to seal in the crumbs. This is an important step so that you dont get any of those crumbs in your final layer of buttercream frosting.

Place a big dollop of buttercream on the top of your cake and use your small offset spatula to spread the buttercream into a thin layer all over your cake. You dont have to be neat and tidy, just a thin coat will do. You can see there are a lot of crumbs and chunks of strawberry in this layer of buttercream, thats totally ok.

Once your cake is fully covered, you can place it into the fridge or the freezer to firm up. Once the buttercream is firm to the touch you can put on your final coat of buttercream without the crumbs getting into it.

My Final Tip: Have Fun

Often, I joke with people that I have no life because I know there is so much out there I still need to do. I have a crazy busy life right now: my oldest does ice skating, band, and UIL. My youngest girl does dance twice a week, UIL, and she started a club that helps people at her school. I am in graduate school, I am a teacher, I am a Junior Class Sponsor .

Also, I am the sponsor of the culinary competition team at our school, I write on here, and I am taking a cake decorating class.

All this is to say that I have no time for Youtube. However, my girls love watching Nerdy Nummies and when I can sneak in some time, I watch it with them because its fun and gives me some great ideas.

I was not good at cake decorating my first go-round. I didnt put time and effort into it the way I should have and it did nothing but frustrate me. Now that I am taking these classes, I can feel my confidence rising and I am excited to be creative in the baking area the way I am in the culinary area. Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone excited about a culinary creation I came up with.

If you feel the same way then I recommend taking a class or doing some research and learning from others who are willing to share what they learned. Most importantly? Have fun with it- be a Nerdy Nummy!

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Its Probably Not Stiff Enough

This, I think, is my biggest struggle. My icing is not stiff enough. Writing this post really has me wanting to go in the kitchen and practice .

I just did and I felt like my icing was not stiff enough. So I added more. Still not stiff enough. If it is not, nothing will stick from the 3-dimensional roses that leave you scratching your head to the leaves none of it will stick around.

Buy lots, and lots, and lots of powdered sugar.

More Easy Cake Decorating Ideas

Cake Decorating for Beginners | How to Fill, Ice and Crumb Coat a Cake ð?°

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Cake: The Star Of The Show

This is the main item of your dish, your prima donna. There are a wide variety of options for you to choose from, all depending on personal considerations like taste preference, dietary restrictions, and color combinations.

If you are looking to build from classic flavors, try our basic recipes like chocolate cake or vanilla butter cake.

These flavors actually combine well, so you can even layer one of each.

Super Easy Spiced Glaze

For the buttercreams, you can choose to use the original recipes, which are both flavored with vanilla extract. If you want to add any food coloring to personalize your treat, it is best to work with one of the vanilla buttercreams as a neutral base to get the brightest colors.

If you want another flavor instead of vanilla, you can opt for one of the suggested variations to create a variety of flavors like chocolate, citrus, and much more.

Its all up to you, chef.

Want To Be The Best Practice

Practice, practice, and practice some more. Since I started this class, I told you that I have gone through several icing bags and cake boards.

I have the benefit of being in a culinary classroom so I rotate between classes of who bakes my cake that day and gets to eat it the next day . They love it and I do too because then I am practicing on a real cake and not having to eat it.

I also recommend if you are eating it especially, to not stick with the traditional chocolate or vanilla. So far I have made an earl grey tea cake and apple pie cake. Before I leave today, I will have cooked a Smores cake that we will decorate tomorrow.

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Create A Fairy Princess Castle

This is another one where at first glance it looks like a really tricky cake to make, but when you break it down it’s totally doable. The towers are ice cream cones atop crackers with candy heart flags, while the drawbridge and windows are waffle cones decorated with . Truly fit for a princess and a mum who doesn’t have a ton of time.

Find the full details: Princess Castle Birthday Cake at Bondville

Different Ways To Frost Cakes

You dont always have to apply frosting all over a cake. If done the right way, cakes with minimal amounts of frosting can be just as gorgeous!

Discover the different ways to frost your cake in this section. Know what to expect from these cake frosting styles, and how to successfully execute each one.

They can be frosted in these three ways:

Naked

Image source: Freepik

Naked cakes are essentially layers of cake with some filling in between, without any frosting on the exterior. It started as an alternative to heavily frosted cakes we are familiar with.

However, making a good naked cake requires more finesse than it looks. If not done well, naked cakes can look messy and sloppy. Its something you definitely cant serve to your guests!

There should be just the right amount of buttercream between layers, and the outer edges must be completely smooth.

If you want to try your hands on a naked cake, invest in an offset spatula. It helps to even out the layers of frosting, giving your cake a neat and clean-cut appearance.

Another problem with naked cakes is that they tend to dry out quickly. This shouldnt be a concern if the cake is served within several hours from making.

However, if the cakes going to be on display or refrigerated for a longer period, its better to opt for a semi-naked or fully frosted cake.

The frosting keeps the moisture intact, ensuring that the cake remains delicious even after storage!

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What Will I Learn In Cake Decorating Classes

For whatever baking skill you possess, there is a lot you can learn to add up to what you already have. As a beginner, you can go from learning how airbrush, stack, and using cake toppers to more advanced lessons like making a unicorn, pastilage, and high-design cakes.

Moreso, the cake decorating online classes is where you can explode that tiny idea ringing inside of you to a multi-business career.

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A Few Tips For Working With Edible Images:

Do not open the image out of the foil pouch until you are ready to use it. One time I opened mine up because I just couldn’t wait to see what it looked like, Then waited several weeks to use it. They were much too difficult to work with.
Freeze your images for 30 minutes if it is too hard to peel from the backing.
Use clean, dry hands to rub or tap image on smoothly.

Easy Cake Decoration Ideas For Beginners

Maybe its your kids birthday or maybe your child was finally successful in achieving something they had been trying to achieve for months now and you wanted to celebrate or maybe you just felt like eating cake, because who needs an occasion to eat cake? And you want to try a hand at baking for a change instead of buying a store bought one but you have no clue how to decorate and what you need to decorate one!

Dont worry because you are at the right place! Weve listed down 12 super easy cake decorating ideas for beginners with a few tips to make your life easy! So keep scrolling to read more and get your kids and nieces and nephews who are beginners and try out these simple and classy cake decorating ideas with them today!

Q. How do you make simple cake decorations?

If you think cake decorating is difficult, heres the thing- it isnt tricky at all! With only two simple ingredients anyone can make a cake look pretty! Whether its melted cadburies and colourful confetti, fresh fruits, marshmallows, m& ms, Oreos and so much more! And it doesnt necessarily even have to look perfect! Messy cakes with rough textures topped with a flower or macaroons are the go-to these days! So fret and start baking today!

Q. What do you use to decorate a cake?

Turning table: A turning table makes icing a cake so much more convenient and saves an enormous amount of time! Without a turning table moving the cake board to decorate the entire cake hampers the flow of your hands.

Use Wafers An Ice Cream Cone And Nougat To Create A Circus Cake

3 Simple Cake Decorating Hacks for Beginners | Wilton

This birthday cake is probably the most labour intensive of the bunch and, fine, would take some patience and tools. But can you imagine how thrilled your two-year-old would be to see the lion of their dreams come to life? I’ll let you make the call whether that thrill is worth the pain that mane might instill on your psyche.

Find the full details: Lion Cake with Mane at Wilton

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How To Crumb Coat A Cake

Taste of Home

Strange as it sounds, the crumb coat is to prevent a mess, not make one. A crumb coat is a thin layer of frosting applied to the exterior of a cake to help contain crumbs that the cake may shed. This foundational layer means any decoration you apply on top will be neater and cleaner.

To crumb coat a cake, use an offset spatula and apply the icing, and spread it as thinly as possible. Make sure you get the sides and the top. Then pop the coated cake into the freezer for 15 to 30 minutes to firm up before adding more decoration.

Crumb Coat & Simple Syrup

First, dollop about a tablespoon of buttercream or frosting in the center of your cake plate or a cake board. Then place the first cake layer on top of it. This will keep that bottom layer from sliding around on you as you build upwards.

Brush each layer with simple syrup, then dollop about a cup of frosting in the center. Spread the frosting evenly and to the edges. Repeat with the remaining layers. Stack the last layer on top upside down and brush it with simple syrup. Then spread a thin layer of frosting all over the cake, starting on the top and working down and around the sides.

And perfection is not the goal here. You just need the buttercream to trap cake crumbs. Make this coating of frosting as thin as possible by gently scraping away any excess.

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Fancy Fruit For The Win

For a taste of summer, brighten up a drab cake with light and refreshing fruits.

From fresh raspberries to dried raisins, to succulent strawberries, theres a range of fruit that will make your cake look fancy and fresh.

Using fruit isnt just limited to the summer either. Theme your cakes with seasonal fruit, for example, you can use clementines and dried fruits for a winter cake.

Cut Up Fruit By The Foot For A Cool Fox Cake

10 Famous Fondant Cake Ideas For Beginners 2020

I tend to stay away from animal cakes because there seems like a lot of room for error. This fox-face cake keeps it super simple, though, and if you can cut up Fruit by the Foot and draw a triangle, you are good to decorate it.

Find the full details: Fox Face Birthday Cake at Betty Crocker

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Find the full details: Ice Cream Sandwich Cake at Sprinkle Bakes

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Cake Decorating For Beginners

Having my cake board ready is part of my basic cake decorating work before I even bake my cakes. Once my cakes are baked however, there are a list of other basic cake decorating steps I complete before I cover my cakes with fondant or butter icing or even buttercream. These are the steps:

Cooling a cake
Leveling and patching a cake
Crumb coating a cake

These basic cake decorating steps are all covered in my second and last article in this series. You can read all about them here.

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