Your cake decorating endeavors. Here are a few ideas you might like to try.

Every cake worth merit starts with a smooth icing. The cake needs to cool completely before they are iced and decorated. To keep crumbs from ending up in your icing and ruining the look of your cake, start with a thin base coat of frosting that is not quite as stiff as the regular layer will be. Once this coat is on, set the cake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. This will set the icing and any crumbs will be caught in this first layer. Now you can spread a regular layer of icing without worrying about crumbs.

Use an icing spatula to apply and smooth the second coat of icing. Once the icing is on the cake, start smoothing on the sides by running the spatula around the perimeter of the cake. One trick for smoothing the frosting is to dip the metal icing spatula in cold water, this will aid in smoothing the frosting. To smooth the top, dip the spatula in cold water and holding it horizontally over the top of the cake. Start at the point farthest from you, holding the spatula in both hands, skim the top of the icing by bringing the spatula straight toward you.

Simple Designs

Some cake decorators say learning to smooth the icing is the hardest part of cake decorating. Practice will make you a pro in not time. Once you have it down, show it off, even a cake without many decorations that is clean and smooth will make an perfectly elegant offering.

Instead of icing, cake tops can be dusted with powdered sugar. You can choose to use a stencil for a more decorated appearance, or just the powdered sugar for a clean look.

Edible decorations are a beautiful yet simple cake decorating technique. The use of sprinkles, candy, nuts, and coconut pressed into the icing before it sets, will make your cake stand out.

To apply a textured look for your cake decorating, use a small cardboard comb, available in baking supply stores.

Piping is achieved by using a pastry bag fitted with a metal tip that is held on by a coupler. This is your most important tool for cake decorating. You can make lines, words, shells, flowers, and many other designs on the top or sides of the cake. Fill the bag with no more than 1 cup of icing at a time, twist the top of the bag and keep steady pressure when piping the design. Use your other hand to guide the tip. It is wise to find out everything you can about piping before you begin.

Fondant a smooth white paste, is used in complicated cake decorating. Fondant is kneaded and rolled to cover cakes with a sleek smooth layer of icing. It is also used to make designs that are 3-D. It is less tasty than buttercream, but the cake will look sleek and elegant.

Fresh fish cake

This cake was created as a surprise for my cousin's birthday. He loves fishing, so I thought about a fish cake as would go smoothly!
This is added a little banana extract for extra taste a yellow cake where I.I started with two rectangular layers of cake and I was carved the fish minus the fins with a jagged Messer.Einmal
satisfied with the shape iced I use a dark chocolate frosting cakes. Then began the decoration really!
First, I rolled out plain white fondant (I use Satin Ice) over a 1/8 inch thick, to prevent the fondant from bonding with a small amount of icing sugar.To transfer the fondant on the cake, I rolled the fondant on my rolling pin it on the Kuchen.Ich immediately smoothes unfurled and trimmed the fudge before it has harden a chance at all.
As for the fins I used the same technique that is used to drape fondant. I rolled fondant know very
thin and placed it on thin Spears went the fondant ensure in between and across each Spieß.Dann I removed the skewers and the fins placed where needed to go.Note: for the end of the top fin I indented simply because the fondant with a spit you too close together, for the smooth effect were to be working well.Each fin was water angefügt.Diese same skewers were used, to the fish, make the body wells see.Once the anatomy is set, I was ready for the best Part…the colouring!
To start colouring fish, airbrush I whole fish with metallic silver.I moved the airbrush in a rapid, horizontal Bewegung.Ich shaded silver, so that the top of the fish was dark and was the belly of the fish
leave almost Weiß.sobald dried, I have a variety of different petal Codefarben.Ich dust explosion endangered began with basic colors (the Blues and Greens) and continued with the same shading technique, the formerly used. for detail I placed a small amount of light pink Staub in the mouth lip area and black dust to shade the fins and other wells fish (as well as the vertical lines on the body make) used. Finally installed I the fondant made fish eye with water.
Once I was able to step back and see the cake, it looked as if I it straight out of the ocean caught hatte.Nach all finished work, I got my cousin with his birthday cake to präsentieren.Sehen's was his reaction and everyone else without a doubt my favorite part.

First name: Erin
City State: Annandale, NJ
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Kai-LAN cake

I baked this cake for my daughter 4th birthday party. She wanted a NI Hao, Kai-LAN themed party (it's an educational cartoon on Nick Jr..) I made a two tiered vanilla Cake…each animal has two layers with cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries.
I have a crumb coat of buttercream frosting and it in Marshmallow Fondant, I light covered tinted blue and rolled out with a Wilton fondant roller.I have a small pizza cutter to ink cut out, the cloud Shapes.I used a paint brush, dipped in water and brushed a bit on the back of the cloud sections and things
the blue fondant. I used Wilton cookie / fondant cutters in several forms that intersect different flowers, flowers from the fondant I with Wilton gel tinted colours.
Before attaching them to the cake I put you to gently in an egg crate encourage to bend a little little as you dried (hardened and).Again, I the backs of flowers with water and gentle added brushed
Ihnen.Das same goes for Mr sun.Die characters above are on the cake download bought toys.
To stack the cake, I carefully inserted plugs right height in the lower cake cutting and smooth the top cake (on a cake Board was) on those for additional support stacked.

First name: Lacy
City State: Dayton, Oregon
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Shoe and Hand Mirror Quilted Cake

This is for my daughter’s ninth birthday party. She “designed” it, and told me what she wanted on it, and then I had to figure out a way to actually DO it!
The entire cake is edible EXCEPT for the tinfoil in the mirror, and the plastic jewels in the jewelry box! I had every intention of making candy jewels, but didn’t realize that hard candy molds are not easily available at
local stores – you have to get them online.
The cake is a layered white cake with a vanilla cream filling, covered in a strawberry marshmallow fondant. The mirror, the shoe, and the drapery are made of fondant, and the jewelry box is rice krispie treat covered with fondant.
It took a little while to figure out how to structure the shoe. I ended up copying one of her mom’s! And since this is only the second time I’ve used fondant, I’m continuing to learn lots of stuff about how to work with it.
First, make sure that anything you make is placed on waxed paper and then to remove it, lay it on a table edge and pull the wax paper down as you slide the object off. It’s REALLY easy to crack marshmallow fondant after it’s dried if you’re not careful.
Second, the thinner you can make the covering layer, the better it tastes! But at the same time, the “glue” layer of frosting you lay the fondant on top of must be smoother.
Also, Play-doh tools work GREAT! Not just the hand tools, but the pressure tools that squeeze out long ropes in different shapes work really well with fondant! Anything you can make with Play-doh, you can make with fondant.
This was also my first attempt at “quilting”, and it’s more difficult than it looks! Actually, the “quilting” part is easy using a stitching sewing wheel, but keeping the actual design uniform around the entire cake was
interesting to say the least! On the plus side, the quilting certainly adds a major charm component to a cake, and her girlfriends went crazy over her cake!
There’s no amount of money that can replace a “That’s the best cake EVER Daddy!!”
Thanks again for letting me share my hobby with everyone!

First Name: Kipp
City-State: Los Angeles, CA
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Pull-Apart Turtle Cupcakes

The cake is definitely the highlight of any child’s birthday party so it is important that it is not only delicious but well-decorated too. Instead of a layer of cake, you can also opt to serve cupcakes. How about a Pull-apart Turtle Cupcakes? The children will surely love pulling them apart before devouring them!

To make the Pull-Apart Turtle Cupcakes, you’ll need 12 cupcakes and two different colored icings. Start by taking 7 cupcakes and place them in the center of your serving platter. To create the turtle’s shell, position 3 cupcakes in the middle and 2 in the top and bottom. Next, take chocolate frosting and cover all 7 cupcakes. Make sure that the frosting is evenly distributed and smoothed out.

Then, you’ll need to frost the remaining 5 cupcakes individually. Use green tinted frosting for greater effect. Once you’ve had the cupcakes frosted, position the green frosted cupcakes as the head and legs of the turtle.

After arranging all the cupcakes, you can now start with the details of the turtle shell. Round out the shell by adding a bit of chocolate frosting unto the “leg” cupcakes. Smooth out the added frosting with your spatula. Next, take a pastry bag containing green icing and just trace the contour of the shell as well as adding triangles in the middle to make the turtle shell pattern.

Finish off your Pull-Apart Turtle Cupcakes by adding mini-candies for turtle’s eyes and nostrils. Add a small bit of licorice string for the smile. Don’t forget to add a bit of green licorice for the tail!

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Disney Ratatouille Cake

This delicious cake was inspired for my daughter’s 5th birthday party where 18 kids made their own pizzas and baked their choice(s) of 3 cookie recipes that had been reduced to individual batches of 8-12 cookies per batch.
What’s a cooking party without just a hint of the lovable characters from Disney’s Ratatouille? This cake’s 12?, 8?, and 6? layers were deliberately stacked askew with alternating white and chocolate layers with vanilla and chocolate butter cream frostings accordingly. A small white plastic scalloped disk that was included with the plastic character cake toppers was added askew for more interest. I’ve never decorated a cake before and had certainly never used fondant, but I had a vision of what I thought the cake could look like. I’d seen amazing things done with fondant!
I researched fondant on the internet. After reading too many comments to count about fondant that looked beautiful, but tasted terrible, I searched the web for a solution. I didn’t want my guests to “eat around” the fun decorations. I found a delicious marshmallow fondant recipe that I followed to make the falling cheese slices, strawberries, and mushrooms. I used gel coloring in the fondant and in the butter cream frosting used for the strawberry vines. The fondant shapes were created using cookie cutters – the cheese was created using a solid candy corn cutter with different round cutters for the Swiss cheese holes. While the butter cream was still fresh and soft, I cut and arranged the fondant shapes to appear randomly “scattered” all over the cake.
The fondant adhered nicely to the fresh moist butter cream. Nestled amongst these rat delights are none other than the rat stars, Remy and Emile from the movie which featured memorable moments with cheese, strawberries and mushrooms.
Surrounded by kids at red/white checkered tables, in chef hats and aprons, with mixing bowls and measuring cups, under a huge backyard awning, the themed whimsy of this cake was enchanting.

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First Name: Terry
City-State: Long Beach, CA
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Kai-Lan Cake

I baked this cake for my daughter’s 4th birthday party. She wanted a Ni Hao, Kai-Lan themed party (it’s an educational cartoon on Nick Jr.) I made a two tiered vanilla cake…each tier has two layers with cream cheese frosting and fresh sliced strawberries.

I did a crumb coat of buttercream frosting and covered it in marshmallow fondant that I tinted light blue and rolled out with a Wilton fondant roller. I used a small pizza cutter to freehand cut out the cloud shapes. I used a paint brush dipped in water and brushed a bit on the back of the cloud sections and stuff that to
the blue fondant. I used Wilton cookie/fondant cutters in several different flower shapes to cut flowers out of fondant that I tinted with Wilton gel colors.

Before attaching them to the cake, I laid them gently in an egg crate to encourage them to bend a little bit as they dried (and hardened). Again, I brushed the backs of the flowers with water and gentle attached
them. The same goes for Mr. Sun. The characters on top of the cake are store bought toys.

To stack the cake, I carefully inserted dowels cut to the proper height into the bottom cake and gently stacked the top cake (which was on a cake board) on those for extra support.

First Name: Lacy
City-State: Dayton, Oregon

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Under the Sea Cake

This Under the Sea cake consists of a 10? Yellow double Layer cake and 12? Chocolate double Layer cake filled and covered with non-dairy whipped frosting. The fish, seashells, & starfish are all made with marshmallow fondant that I made at least a 3 days in advance.
The undersea grass, coral, boat, and water bubbles are made with royal frosting also made at least 4 days in advance so they can harden. To make sea grass, coral ,water bubbles and boat, I basically drawn the design on a piece of paper, place waxed paper on top, pipe royal frosting onto the waxed paper to trace your drawings. Then let sit for a few days to dry and harden. You can make twice as much as you think you need
to allow for breakage.
The sand is made with brown sugar. I frosted the board with a thin layer of frosting to help adhere the brown sugar to the board. I also striped the pastry bag for the “Water” borders by placing the white frosting in half the bag and very carefully filled the other half with the blue. Make a mark under your cake board where the “front” of the cake is and start piping your border in the back first so that if they don’t meet up perfectly, it won’t show as much.
Lastly, place the boat, coral, sea grass, fish, water bubbles, sea shells and star fish on the cake. If the boat is too top heavy, you can place extra “striped” frosting around the boat to secure it in the top. It would look nice too.

First Name: Celeste
City-State: Salem, MA
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Sushi Platter Cake

This is a birthday cake with a sushi theme. Everything was edible except the chopsticks. The cake was a 12? square, 2 layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and chocolate buttercream icing. The sides were combed to give a bamboo look and the edges were decorated with a basic border and leaves. The plate the sushi is on is made of solid chocolate. The “wasabi” was just a dollop of green buttercream icing, the “ginger” was made of gumpaste. The small white/orange chocolate bowl in front was filled with chocolate syrup after the cake was delivered to look like soy sauce.
The sushi was made with rice cereal treats, fruit leather, marshmallows and gummi candies. The “roe” on the sushi on the corners of the cake were cinnamon candies and the orange “tabiko” on the outside of the California Roll was orange sprinkles.

First Name: Gretchen
City-State: Milford, CT
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Flower Pot Cake

I love making special cakes for my family members! I enjoy coming up with an idea specifically for that person and then trying to turn it into a cake! I’m self taught, so it takes quite a bit of time, but if I can do it, anyone can do it.
I decided to make my mother a flower pot cake for her birthday. She’s the green thumb of the family and can make anything grow! I began by purchasing the Wilton Gum paste flower mold kit. It gives you a book that shows you all kinds of different flowers and leaves. I used a mixture of purchased fondant and gum paste, both were Satin Ice brand.
I spent about two weeks experimenting with different flowers. The book gives step by step instructions and is pretty easy to follow. I used flower wire to create the flowers and then dried them by sticking them into foam. The wire wasn’t very sturdy so I used flower tape to attach the flowers to skewer sticks after they were dry.
The base of the cake was a hexagon German chocolate cake covered with green tinted Satin Ice Fondant. I made little “peas” (as my mom named them!) to place around the bottom.
The flower pot is made from three small oval German chocolate cakes. It was then covered with fondant tinted to look like terra cotta. I used brown and red to make the terra cotta color and then added a bit of orange when it looked too pink. I added a two inch strip around the top to look like the top of the pot. Icing inside the top provided the base for crushed up Oreo cookie “dirt”. I finished the pot by putting a small rope of the terra cotta fondant around the bottom.
My next step was to place the flowers. I basically just started out with the three calla lilies and then added around them. Two of the lilies wouldn’t stay on the sticks, so I put them at the bottom.
I decided to add a little bit of whimsy with the insects. I made worms and snails out of brown fondant and lady bugs out of red fondant. I added the black to the lady bugs with edible marker.
My six year old twin daughters made flowers using the cut outs too and I added them into the pot as a special treat! They did a fantastic job and were so proud to see that I used them in the cake. Who would have thought cake decorating could be such a fun family activity!
My mother really enjoyed the cake and I really enjoyed making it for her! Thank you for looking!

First Name: Nickie
City-State: Greencastle, PA
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Cowgirl Boot Cake

My friend and I made this cake for her daughter’s best friend’s 22nd birthday. We started with two 9 x 13 – 2inch white cakes that’s been leveled and stacked. I used the cowgirl boot template I had made out of cardboard. I moved it very gently to my cardboard boot and put on a crumb coat of buttercream icing and put in the freezer for about 45 min.
I got my marshmallow fondant out that I had already prepared earlier and rolled ready to cover the boot. I removed the boot cake from the freezer and put my final coating of buttercream icing on the cake. I then covered it with the white fondant and mixed teal food coloring and alcohol to paint my boot. All of the tools I used were the Wilton Fondant Tools.
As the designs came to my mind, I incorporated them on the boot cake which I designed using fondant and buttercream icing. The black heel on the boot was also done with the fondant tools. The “C” on the buckle of the boot is the birthday girl’s initial. My friend made a horseshoe to go with it as well. We put the cake on a silver board and wrapped one end with a fuchsia pink bandana and laid the cowgirl boot cake on it with the horse shoe on the other end. We had fun doing this one, as well as all the other cakes we make for our friends.

First Name: Mandie
City-State: Powell, Tennessee
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Sunflower with Ladybug Cupcake

To be able to save some money and get away with your own design, why not try decorating your own cupcakes and cakes? It actually does not require any expertise but you need to have lots of practice and patience.

If you want your cupcakes to be a great hit, try making your own Sunflower with a Ladybug Cupcake. It is so easy to make even though the finished product looks extremely intricate. To begin, you’ll need regular sized cupcakes with three colored icing: green, yellow and orange. You’ll also need a pastry bags and a leaf tip. If you don’t own this particular tip or a pastry bag, you can use a Ziploc bag and cut a small triangle on one of its corners to create a leaf tip.

Start your decorating your cupcake with green icing and place an Oreo cookie in the center. Take your pastry bag with leaf tip and fill with yellow and orange icing. Make petal patterns starting from the base and all around the cookie. You can make as many layers of sunflower petals as you like. To make the lady bug, take a red candy coated chocolate and add some details to transform it into a ladybug. Then place the ladybug on top of one of the petals.

For a more realistic sunflower cupcake, add leaf details by cutting green Froot roll-ups. Stick this Froot roll-up leaves at the bottom petals for a wonderful effect.

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