Do you love cakes and are a passionate hobby baker? This sweet delicacy undoubtedly also includes an enchanting decoration. Depending on the occasion and the effort required, there are endless ways to decorate cakes. In this article we give you great ideas and instructions for decorating cakes,as well as valuable tips on specific decorating techniques. Even if you have no experience decorating, you can transform your homemade cakes into true works of art and treat your guests to real snacking pleasure.
Create great decorations with the right accessories
Depending on the decoration you need to decorate a cakethe right accessories, so that you can decorate safely and more easily. A basic set of equipment consisting of a rotating cake plate, cake smoother, a piping bag with various piping nozzles, modeling tools, a rolling stick, cookie cutters and stencils promises you a great baking and decorating experience with flawless results. When decorating cakes, you can use, among other things, whipped cream, butter cream, fondant, marzipan and fruit and conjure up real pieces of jewelry.
Decorate cakes with buttercream
Even if you are a beginner, you can easily make this beautiful cake with buttercream in rich royal blue at home. Decorating cakes takes time, that's why it's importantenough timeto plan for it and not to work under time pressure. When working with buttercream, you first apply a thin layer of buttercream to serve as a base. If the first layer of buttercream is already hard, you can spread it thickly over the cake and concentrate on decorating it. Place a large dollop in the center of the cake and start spreading the cream from the center over the edge.
Remove the excess cream with the pastry card and run it over the edges and sides until the surface is smooth. Now you can decorate your cake to your heart's content. You don't need any accessories to create the great striped look, just run the knife in a spiral over the cake surface. The buttercream is not only tasty, but also very suitable for piping various flowers, ornaments and ruffles. With a piping bag and the matching piping tips you can decorate your cakes with beautiful roses or other flowers.
Due to its high fat content, buttercream is a suitable base for fondant. For example, you can use additional buttercream when decorating cakesFondant accentsor add gum paste. You can also decorate cakes with fruit and give the cake a delicious fruity taste. With buttercream and the so-called petal technique you can achieve the impressive look of the cake in the picture above. Using the round piping tip, pipe dots of the desired size onto the cake. Using the round end of a spoon or round tip of a knife, pull the dot to one side. repeat this until you have gotten around your cake.
You can also create great color gradients with buttercream. If you use buttercream with different color intensity and flowing transitions, you can create a delicious oneCake in an attractive ombré lookcreate. When it comes to coloring the cream, it is always better to mix in a little less color and recolor it if necessary. Depending on the color, the food colors can be very intense. Whether you use the petal technique already discussed or pipe cute mini flowers close together, the cake will be great both in terms of taste and appearance.
ColoredfrostingUse for great color accents
Icing, which you can easily make from powdered sugar and water, is also suitable for decorating cakes. Depending on the taste you achieve, you can replace the water with fruit juice or add an aromatic note to the taste with a little rum. If you want to color the homemade cake icing, you can add the desired food coloring drop by drop until you achieve the desired color intensity. You are welcome to choose a bright color for the icing and create great contrasts.
Cake decoration with flowers
You can also decorate cakes with different flowers. Whether the flowers are made of fondant, buttercream, fondant or real flowers, they make every cake, cupcake and cake look enchantingly beautiful. If you want to give your home-baked cake a fresh and colorful look, you can use fresh flowers to decorate it. If you decide to use real flowers, you must get edible flowers that are unsprayed and unfertilized.
The classic – decorate with fondant
If you want to create a magnificent, lush, more detailed and modern decoration for the sweet delicacy yourself, you can create a cake decoration made of fondant. The sugar mass is suitable as rolled fondant for covering cakes, while decorative fondant can be used for modeling and cutting out various ornaments and figures. Since the sugar mass is perfectly malleable, you can conjure up an infinite number of themed cakes with the fondant. If you would like to cover your cake with colored fondant and give it an enchanting look, you can give the fondant cake a quilted pattern.
You can easily press the cute checkered pattern into the fondant with a knife. You can also make attractive ruffles and create different cake designs with them very easily. You can ruffle one side of long fondant strips with the ball tool. Brush the fondant cake with water and attach the strips in a wave pattern to create ruffles. Arrange several rows around the cake. You can also create a nice decoration for your cake with a beautiful bow made of sugar paste.
Cut a rectangle out of the sugar mixture and press the middle together with your thumb and forefinger. Bring the right and left sides to the center and secure with some sugar glue. Now you need to create two ribbons for the bow. You need to cut a triangle out of two rectangles to create the pointed ends of the ribbons. You can create great creations with plain, colorful or glittering beads. You can also make beads yourself from fondant. Use a hole nozzle to cut out circles and shape them into balls. This way the beads will be the same size. For a charming pearl shine, put some “Perweiß” food coloring in a bag and add the balls. Shake vigorously. The balls got some of the paint. Fix the color by holding the beads over steam for two or three seconds.
Simple trick: create a cake with a honeycomb look
Check out this awesome honeycomb pattern! If you want to surprise your guests with a sweet delicacy like a master confectioner, you can easily replicate this nice cake decorating idea at home. You can easily get the attractive pattern using bubble wrap. A strip of foil that has the width and circumference of the cake is coated with melted chocolate and then glued to the edge of the cake. Place the cake in the refrigerator and carefully remove the foil only when the chocolate has solidified
Decorate cakes with chocolate
If you want to decorate your cake elegantly, you can easily achieve this with beautiful homemade chocolate ornaments. To do this, use chocolate or couverture melted in a water bath. Place a sheet of baking paper on a flat surface and pipe the desired ornaments using a piping bag. For delicate lines, use piping tips with smaller openings. There are no limits to your imagination when it comes to designing chocolate decorations. Pipe on hearts, zigzag lines or circles, let them set for a few hours and then carefully remove them from the paper.
Cakes also look fantastic with a chocolate lattice. If you find it difficult to achieve the desired pattern, you can trace the desired shape with a pencil on the baking paper and repeat with the chocolate. Whether you make the edge of the cake as wide as the cake itself or make it higher is entirely up to you. Both results are simply great!
You can also elegantly decorate the surface of a cake with chocolate shavings, chips or rolls. For a great chocolaty decoration, you can grate the chocolate finely or coarsely using a standard household grater. If you want to make your own chocolate rolls, you first have to melt the chocolate and some fat in a hot water bath. Spread the chocolate thinly on the back of the baking tray and let it set. You can then use a spatula to scrape the chocolate into rolls.
Pretty decorations for cakes are made from colorful chocolate pieces that you can prepare quickly and easily yourself. Spread white, melted chocolate on a flat surface. Color some of the chocolate as desired and spread it onto the white chocolate. Finally, sprinkle the chocolate with colorful sugar pearls, glittering sprinkles or other decorative sugar.
Make your own caramel decorations for cakes
If you would like to conjure up a great and eye-catching decoration for cakes with nuts, perhaps this fascinating decoration with caramel hazelnuts would be something for you. First you need to skewer whole hazelnuts on toothpicks. Caramelize the sugar and remove it from the heat. As soon as it becomes viscous, pull the hazelnuts through the caramel to create a sugar string. Attach each toothpick with the caramel thread facing down until the sugar thread sets.
Not only does caramel taste deliciously sweet, you can use it to create beautiful ornaments to garnish cakes. For example, you can use caramel to create caramel baskets. Oil small metal bowls and pull the slightly cooled caramel criss-cross over the bowls. Let the baskets cool and decorate the dessert.
Caramel angel hair is an elegant decoration for cakes. To make them, you need to dip a fork into the caramel, pull out long strands and quickly pull them in a zigzag shape over the cake. Caramel spirals are a lovely decoration for cakes and cakes that are easy to make. Use a spoon to pull long threads out of the caramel and quickly wrap them around the handle of a wooden spoon. Gently pull the fragile spiral from the spoon.
Last minute cake decor
Even if it has to be done quickly, with a little sensitivity, patience and simple techniques you can create enchanting decorations. For example, you can make waves or decorative indentations with the back of a spoon or use a fork to carve great patterns into the surface.
