Better Cake Part 3-Cake Decorating
Hello all,
Welcome to Part 3 of Better Cake. In this post we will discuss easy design ideas for decorating your cake! At this point your cake should be crumb coated, chilled in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes, and then removed to sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Now we are ready to go!
3 Easy Cake Decorating Ideas
1) Leave frosted OR add accents:
My first design idea is to leave the cake frosted smoothly (<— tutorial) . There is a wow factor to a perfectly leveled, and smoothly frosted cake. However, if you want to enhance the look of the frosted cake you can
a) Add sprinkles- There are soo many sprinkle mixes at your local stores (such as Stop&Shop or Walmart) and online. You’d be surprised about the variety out there for everyday decorating and holiday/season specific sprinkle mixes. You can add sprinkles to the bottom sides of the cake or in whichever style you wish.
b) Add acrylic decoration- there are a variety of acrylic cake toppers and acrylic cake decorations you can gently push into the top and/or side of your cake. These are very easy ways to add flare to your frosted cake without any additional piping.
2) Ombre Design:
What I love about an ombre design is you follow all the same steps linked above for frosting a cake smoothly. Instead of frosting & smoothing cake the cake with just 1 color, you tint your frosting 3 shades of the same color.
You apply one shade to the bottom, one to the middle, and one to the top of the cake. Then, smooth as directed using a bench scraper. The layers will merge into a very pretty ombre effect.
Alternatively, you can use the same technique with 3 completely different colors of frosting (for example red, white, and blue)
3) Rosettes:
Rosettes are a great way to decorate a cake if you’re nervous about frosting a completely smooth cake OR you want to try a fun design. To pipe rosettes, properly fit a 1M piping tip to a piping bag and fill with frosting. Pipe swirls of rosettes along the sides of your cake and the top. Tutorial here
Mix & Match
You can decorate your crumb coated cake using 1 design idea or mix and match. Here are some examples using the numbered ideas above
A) Smoothly frosted cake (1) plus rosettes piped on the top of the cake along the border (3)
B) Ombre Design (2) with sprinkles pressed into the bottom of the cake (1)
C) Ombre design (2) with piped rosettes on top of the cake along the border (3)
As you can see below, a recent engagement cake I made incorporates an
Ombre design (2) with acrylic accents and topper (1), sprinkles (1), and piped rosettes (3)
Engagement cake that incorporates ombre design (2) with acrylic accents and topper (1), sprinkles (1), and piped rosettes (3)
Thank you all for reading part 3 of my 3 part series for Better Cake. I hope it serves as an inspiration the next time you bake and decorate a cake and wow your guests. One book that I’ve been loving lately that goes into many of these concepts in detail is called Anyone Can Cake which I highly recommend!
I hope you do some fun baking this holiday season whether that be cake or otherwise.
Happy Baking!
