Cake Decorating Themes

There are some supplies that are essential when you are thinking about cake decorating. These are:

Aprofessional icing smoother or thin metal spatula. This tool will help you to cover your decorated cake with an even layer of icing, and to make the frosting very smooth so that it can be decorated. This will make the cake look as if a pro did it.

The use of decoration molds is a very easy way to make figures and objects to use in cake decorating. You will probably want to start with the basic shapes like circles, squares, or triangles, until you are sure of how to perfect the process. You can move from that to flowers, numbers, and characters. Some molds also have text so you can add a message.

Icing bags are an absolute essential if you want to do any type of cake decorating. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to use it as you would an ink pen, except it is held with both hands. One hand is used to apply steady pressure on the upper part of the bag, while the other guides the tip to make the decorations.

The use of frosting flowers that are already made for you is a less time consuming way to add beauty to your cake decorating.

Edible glitter and colorful sprinkles are a great way to spruce up your cake decorating design. These small additions could be just the thing to give your cake that finishing touch.

Edible color sprays are quite easy to use, especially when you are using a template. It can be the difference between a cake decoration that is blah, to one that has everyone complimenting you on your artistic ability.

You can also print out edible photographs of the graduate, that fish that almost got away, or a wedding photo of the bride and groom, the way they looked when they were married to place on their 50th anniversary cake. The paper these edible images are printed on is also edible, so you can place the whole thing on the cake.

A cake stand will make your creation stand out, especially a glass stand.

Fun and activity: These cakes are full of color and whimsical design. The use of different shapes including balloons, circles, stars, clouds, and other interesting designs will help to make your cake decorating the talk of the party. With the use of animal crackers, you could make a zoo or farm cake. Your imagination can take you anywhere.

Say it With Flowers: The use of floral patterns in soft shades, are perfect for cake decorating. The addition of a few green leaves make this type of cake decoration an excellent choice for any special occasion. Flowers are great on wedding cakes, birthday cakes, mothers day cakes, and for other happy celebrations.

A Little Romance: Romantic cake decorating is perfect for sweethearts day, valentines day, a birthday for a husband or wife, or a wedding anniversary. You can make the frosting any color, including the favorite of the person or people you are baking the cake for. You can add hearts, cupids, or anything that will remind the guests what the celebration is about. Get a heart shaped pan and make a heart shaped cake. Use your imagination and make it a little jazzy without going overboard. Just a bit of glitter or candies that sparkle should do the trick.

What's Up Doc: Younger children (and some that are over 90) love cartoon characters as much as they love cake. This is why it is a great idea to combine both when decorating a cake for the birthday of someone who loves these whimsical critters. You can either draw them in icing and color them in, or use molds and fondant to make the characters. After they are made, they can be colored before they are placed on the cake. So invite Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Taz, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Garfield, Donald Duck, or any of the many cartoon characters to the party.

Below are a few birthday cake decorating ideas that will help make your child's birthday a very memorable occasion.

Candy Land Cake: Make a standard sheet cake in your child's favorite flavor, in a rectangular pan. When it is cool, frost it with buttercream frosting in your child's favorite color. If you can get your hands on a Candy Land game board, you will be able to fashion the cake decoration to resemble the board. You can also go to Candyland.com to see a game board.
The Candy Land game features peppermints, iced gingerbread men, colored gumdrops, licorice sticks, chocolate candies, and circus peanuts. If you can't find some of these items, You can use construction paper to make them, staple or tape them to a popsicle stick to stand it up in the cake.

Race car cake: Bake two cakes, one in a loaf cake pan and one in a rectangular pan. Allow the cakes to cool thoroughly. Remove them from the pans, cut the loaf cake in an arch, like the shape of the top of the car. Frost the sheet cake and place the cut loaf cake in the middle, centered to give the cake balance.

Ice the car with a different color icing than you did the cake, red or blue are good racing colors. You should be able to find decorations in the store for this cake. Use your imagination, many times craft stores have some nice decorations. You can either use icing to outline the doors and windows, or string licorice works well for this. Small chocolate doughnuts make a good tires for your race car.

The Doll Cake: This cake is very popular with young girls who still love to play with dolls. Bake a cake in a metal, oven safe, bowl. When the cake has cooled, turn the cake out, centered, onto a prepared cake board. The widest part of the cake should be on the board.

Use a butter knife to hollow out a spot in the top of the cake for the doll's legs. Once the doll is inserted, the cake becomes a dress for the doll. Make sure the doll is clean and undressed. Wrap the legs in plastic wrap before placing the doll into the cake, up to her waist. Ice the cake and the top of the doll to make it appear that the doll is fully dressed. You can purchase accents at the supermarket to jazz up the dress.

These are basic ideas for a children's theme party. You can use the doll cake and have a Barbie theme party, the race car cake to have a Car's theme party, and of course, you can decorate for the Candy Land party with huge gumdrops and gingerbread men made of construction paper to hang or affix to the walls.

Characters: There are hundreds of famous characters to use for cake decorating. You can make any cake special by drawing in Dora the Explorer, or Blues Clues. Or you may want to cut up the cake to make the entire cake into a favorite character.

Themes: Maybe you would like to go with a 50's theme, underwater adventure, sport theme, or a roaring 20's theme for your cake decorating. Use your creativity and find a theme that will thrill the person you are making the cake for. You may want to have a masquerade party in that theme. Whatever you decide, have fun.

Motor Cakes: Boys are usually crazy about trucks, cars, fire engines, boats, tractors, helicopters, or airplanes. Again you can use your cake decorating expertise to make a farm with a 3-D tractor, a racing strip, or a scene showing a fire being put out by firemen. Of course it all depends on the interest of the birthday boy.

Animals: You can also use an animal theme by cutting the cake to look like any animal, or draw in a scene using animals. It could be a zoo scene with several animals or choose one animal and decorate the cake with other decorations showing where it came from. Use your imagination.

Food: Maybe you are making a cake for the opening of an Italian restaurant. You could create a scene depicting the building, or if it is for a chef opening the restaurant, a scene of the kitchen with different Italian dishes would be fun. You can also cut the cake to look like a hamburger, hot dog, taco etc... The sky is the limit when it comes to cake decorating using a food theme.

Holiday Themes: I remember when bunny cakes became popular at Easter, Wilton has pans and decorating supplies for all holiday cake decorating designs. A heart cake on Valentine's day, or a 4 leaf clover cake on St. Patrick's day would be wonderful ways to celebrate the holiday.

Your Own Creation: If you have been involved in cake decorating for quite some time, or if you are a novice with an artistic flair, you can create your own cake based on the theme or the celebration.

Wedding cakes can have many themes as well. Most brides will choose colors for their wedding and have the cake decorated in that theme. This can be done by coloring the icing or fondant, or the icing can be white and the decorations done in the bride's chosen color scheme. There are so many possibilities here. You can use colorful flowers and green leaves made from icing. Another option is to use fresh flowers in the bride's colors. As a former florist, I have decorated many wedding cakes with fresh flowers and greens, and they do make the cake look elegant.

Beautiful ribbons can also accentuate the wedding cake theme. Ribbons that curl and cascade from top to bottom are pretty. If the wedding cake is iced in fondant, the ribbon can go around the base of the cake. Using ribbons gives you the ability to add a splash of color.

The theme of the wedding cake can be set by the cake topper that is chosen. A wedding cake top may be humorous, cute, whimisical or elegant depending on the tone of the wedding. Some wedding cake toppers are beautiful collectibles that can be passed down to the next generation. Among other things, the cake topper may be fresh or silk flowers, doves, or figurines of a bridal couple. It all depends on the tone that the bride wants to set.

Choosing a wedding cake is quite a task. Tradition calls for a white cake with white frosting for weddings. In this day and age, couples are choosing their favorite flavor. This has bakeries and cake decorators striving to offer a larger selection of cakes. Chocolate, yellow, pound, and marble are some of the cakes made for modern weddings. The bridal couple will choose a cake that fits the theme for their wedding. Is it a very formal and traditional wedding? Chances are that bride will want a traditional white wedding cake. If it is less formal or even casual, then the flavors and colors of the wedding cake may be less traditional.

Some wedding cakes offer a different flavor for each layer. White icing, while still ordered, has made way for a wider selection of frostings. Chocolate, mocha, lemon, and any other flavor you can imagine are used for wedding cake decorating. It is possible to customize your cake using all of your favorite flavors. How the wedding cake is decorated is a personal choice as well. You can have just about anything you can dream up put on a wedding cake including, fruit and even real edible flowers. Brides like to match the wedding cake theme to the theme of their wedding.