If the expecting parents know the gender of their impending offspring you can always make something to suit a boy or a girl. This can be achieved with colors - the usual pink for a girl and blue for a boy.

Or maybe you want to try a character from a story book or a cartoon.

Or simply a ‘fluffy’ yellow duck or teddy bear.

If the shower has a theme, be it color, gender or otherwise that makes it easy to tie a cake in.

Happy decorating!

From castle cakes to diaper cakes to towering stacks on cake, there is a specialty cake to suit every occasion.

Happy decorating!

Creating a duck shape out of cake and decorating it in yellow buttercream icing is a popular creative cake for baby showers or kids birthdays.

How about trying your hand at a castle cake? Castle cakes must be the ‘big daddy’ of creative cakes. It will take lots of time, patience and icing but the end result is stunning.

Let your imagination run wild with the ideas given in this great article.

Happy decorating!

Though some people are under the impression that designing a wedding cake is hard, it need not be difficult at all.

Be sure to ask the bride what theme the wedding is following. What colors is she having? Is it a traditional wedding or a more casual beach wedding?

Getting to know the wedding that you are making the cake for is the easiest way to come up some great ideas.

Happy decorating!

There are the obvious occasions- birthdays and weddings. But have you ever thought about a graduation cake or a duck shaped cake for a baby shower?

The cake need not be as elaborate as a traditional wedding cake. You can certainly use fruit or sprinkles or edible glitter to create something special.

Happy decorating!

So if you’re stumped for cake decoration ideas, here are some easy ways to jump start your creativity.

- Check out images of cakes that others have created. Whether online or in your local cake shop.

- Think of the theme of the celebration that the cake is for.

- Leaf through some books for inspiration.

Continue reading this article for more cake decorating ideas.

Happy decorating!

Designs for cakes vary wildly depending if it’s a birthday or a wedding or a christening.

Once you know what the cake is celebrating I recommend reading his article which has some great tips on finding cake designs.

Happy decorating!

Whether you’re after an idea for a 1st birthday cake or a theme cake there are always lots of new and exciting childrens birthday cakes to be found.

Cake decorating is a lot of fun. So don’t be scared, this article gives you some great ways to find more ideas then you’ll ever need.

Happy decorating!

To start with you should look at the child you are creating the cake for.

What age are they?

What are their interests?

Are they a boy or girl?

Just by answering these few questions you will start to generate more ideas then you will know what to do with.

Check out this article on kids birthday cakes for some simple yet very effective ideas sure to please.

Happy decorating!

Some simple questions to help you come up with more ideas then you poke a stick are:

Is there a theme to the birthday? This will more then likely determine what the design of the cake you will create.

Is it an ‘age’ birthday? For example a 1st birthday or a 50th? Using numbers is a classic and easy design.

Check out this article for some more quick and easy birthday cake designs.

Happy decorating!

It really isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Cake decorating is essentially a 3-dimensional art form which makes use of cake, fondant, icing and other yummy ingredients.

From simple slab cakes to exotic beach wedding style wedding cakes, if you can imagine it, it can be a cake decorating masterpiece!

Here is an easy to understand and informative article on cake decorating which will provide you with some background on this yummy art.

Happy decorating!

One way that professional and hobbyist cake decorators conjure their ideas is to take part in cake decoration forums or join membership sites where they can ask for and give cake ideas.

Professional cake decorators also frequent Google Images, which is the quickest way to find a fantastic cake idea. In fact, here, you really can find killer cake ideas in less 60 seconds – or less!

If you haven’t discovered this tool, here’s how it works. Go to www.google.com and click on “Images.” Then search for cakes by type, occasion, color - you name it. If the search returns you an overwhelmingly amount of images, then simply narrow the search by adding a word or two.

For example, we type in the search term “Birthday Cake” (no caps or quotes needed.) and hit the “Search” button. Wow. 265,000 results.

Let’s say we already know the birthday cake is for a girl who is crazy about horses. So we add “Girl” to the search term. And we get 2,840 results. Still a lot! Plus there’s some grown up birthday girl ones that have little do with cake. Oops.

So we exchange “Horse” for “Girl” since our bet is most horse themed cakes are for girls, and we don’t want images of girls. We want images of cakes. So we try “Birthday Cake Horse.” Bingo!

A little over 200 returns and lots of cakes with horses, some with what look like royal icing run out and buttercream transfers, others that are probably spray-painted inside stencils, and there are some really creative sculpted cakes.

And then there’s a pretty green one that captures the imagination. And we’re still on the first page!

This one’s for a 60-year-old birthday girl. It’s a 9-inch layer cake with a spring green background (spray painted with varying shades of green that add realism and artistic beauty). White icing fencing is piped around the sides. On top, two rather large horse figurines have been placed above the birthday message.

This cake sparks an idea!

Picture a quarter or half sheet cake, buttercream smooth frosting, with piped leaves of grass. Then we will build a corral (not sure how just yet, maybe with white frosted pretzels), and then add a few ceramic horses, including a mare and cold (the birthday girl will love adding these to her collection).

See how one idea sparked by an imaginative cake idea can quickly lead to another?

And, if you enjoy molding, you could sculpt figures, including water trough, hay bales, and all those details that add that “Wow” factor. These figures can be modeled or made in molds with marzipan or gum paste, such as detailed in “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” By the way, here’s what one reader has to say about our Video Books:

“…very informative and “filled in the blanks” from what I didn’t learn in other instruction.

Too, I enjoyed that you showed how to make a correction when one was needed. I would highly recommend your book and video reference to anyone interested in cake decorating, especially from the comfort from your own home….”

Helen D.
Philadelphia, PA

If we think about this some more, we’ll probably come up with an entire pasture and stable scene! Then it’s a matter of figuring out what’s realistic for your skill level, what you can do well to make this a great birthday cake. Ok, so this part does take longer than 60 seconds. But it did take less than 60 seconds to find the original idea and start building on it!

Here’s one more tip: Fantastic cake ideas alone doesn’t make fantastic cakes. Taste and texture count too! To learn more, check out our article on cake recipes.

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

You’ll want to make sure your cake doesn’t end up on YouTube, filed under “wedding cake bloopers.” With some planning you can avoid the plight of a friend who chose an elaborately decorated ice cream cake.

The cake was beautiful but what put it on my list of “most memorable wedding cakes” is the fact that no one remembered to remove the frozen-hard-as-a-rock cake from the freezer beforehand. The bride had to scout up an ice pick and a hammer to serve the guests in chunks instead of slices. Now that was memorable!

While you may not need to put quite as much thought into choosing your cake as choosing your groom, keep these things in mind:

How large should your cake be?

Can you picture a 300 pound wedding cake? That’s how much Britain’s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s cake weighed when they tied the knot. Although your cake probably won’t be that hefty, it’s good to know you can increase your tiers as you increase your guest list. The tiers signify prosperity – so the more the better!

Avoid weather-related cake disasters!

Will you have a summer wedding, a winter wedding or something in between?

Summer is a popular time to get married but soaring temperatures might make the aforementioned-mentioned ice cream impractical. Summer can also be hard on butter cream icing which tends to melt in summer heat. You don’t want your wedding cake to melt into a puddle of sweet goo!

A cake incorporating fresh fruit, like berries, is nice for a summer wedding, while the fall and winter months are a good time for carrot or spice cake with cream cheese filling.

Wedding Cake Decorations – From Trendy to Traditional

Traditional white icing symbolizes purity and is always a good choice. However, nowadays the choices are only limited by your imagination.

Are you a tomboy who hates pink and drives a big truck? Will your Irish Setters, Pixie and Dixie, be standing up with you? Maybe a traditional wedding is more your style and you’d like the cake to match your romantic Cinderella theme or the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses.

Consider also real flowers, which are popular, or silk flowers. Cake charms make lovely souvenirs of the day. Whether your choice is chic and sophisticated, or quirky and quaint, your cake can reflect your individual taste.

What about cost?

Every wedding has a budget and the cake can fit into any price range. One factor influencing the cost of your cake is the ingredients’ quality. Expect to pay more for a cake baked from scratch with fresh ingredients.

How labor-intensive is your design? That and size also affect cost. Usually price is based on the number of guests the cake will serve. You may pay from $8 to $10 a head for a high-end baker.

To avoid this high cost, you might want to make your own cake or have a friend or relative make one for you. A personalized, beautiful cake would make a wonderful gift for your special day.

A wedding cake has multiple tiers stacked on top of each other so if you decide to bake the cake yourself, choose a recipe that has the buoyancy and mass needed to support this. Here is one that fills the bill:

Classic White Cake

6 cups sifted cake flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine
3 cups sugar
2 cups milk
1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
12 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease bottom of pans and line them with waxed paper.

Sift flour and baking powder together and set aside. Cream butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy. Set aside. Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Set this aside.

Mix at slow speed, adding flour mixture to butter mixture, alternately with milk. Beat well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Fold egg whites gently into batter.

Pour into prepared pans, then bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Yield: 12 cups batter.

This luscious cake recipe comes from “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Here is what one reader had to say about our Video Books:

“Well worth the investment. A fabulous gathering of tips, techniques, and recipes that only experience can offer.”

I. Moser
Murrells Inlet, SC

Once upon a time, it was customary for the guests to throw pieces of the wedding cake at the bride, rather than eating it. Happily, those days are gone and now, the cake takes its place of honor in the festivities.

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

There’s something very basic, yet very wonderful behind the popularity of these miniature cakes. Thanks to their individual cups, one batch of cupcakes doesn’t mean just one flavor and color.

From lemon-coconut to double-chocolate espresso flavorings, from lovely lavenders with dainty blossoms to bright fuchsias and tangerines, there’s a cupcake for just about anyone’s taste. Maximizing on the potential for variety is doing for cupcake shops what 31 Flavors did for the ice-cream stand!

And like other cakes, you can fill them, sculpt them, and stack them. While gourmet cupcake boutiques boast ingredients like Madagascar Bourbon vanilla and French chocolate sprinkles, you don’t have to spend a fortune to create cupcakes fit for a wedding or fancy luncheon. Simply opt for recipes that use fresh and natural ingredients, such as butter and fresh fruit instead of margarine and frozen.

Cupcakes – How to Create Various Flavors and Colors in one Batch

Begin with white icing, such as snow-white buttercream or cream cheese.

Separate icing into as many dishes as flavors/colors you desire. Mix in a few drops of food coloring (gel or paste for red and dark colors) to each bowl of icing.

Cupcake Baking Tips

Before icing, brush off loose crumbs gently with your fingertips. Then working from center smooth icing on cupcake with short strokes, dipping knife in hot water if needed.

Depending on how you want to decorate, swirl frosting up into a peak or give a smooth finish.

Cupcake Decorations

Cupcakes can be frosted and decorated with the same confectionary delights you use on your cakes. Popular cupcake toppings include grated coconut, gum drops, whimsical figures created with candies/and or piping, shaved chocolate - and of course sprinkles.

How to Fill Cupcakes

Whittle out a cone from the top and fill the cavity with a teaspoon of filling (lemon curd in butter cake cupcakes is yummy). Before returning the top, snip off the cone (icing will hold it in place).

Cupcake Cakes

Cupcakes have come a long way since their literary debut in 1828 (E. Leslie’s “Receipts Cookbook”). And cupcake, or pull-apart, cakes are the latest and greatest cake sculpture cake idea for birthday parties and youth events. Each guest pulls off a cupcake, making serving and clean up a breeze.

The cupcake cake allows even beginning cake decorators to sculpt cakes into numerous shapes: numbers, sports equipment, team logos, birthday numbers, holiday figures, animals, hobby icons – you name it!

Here’s how it works:

1. Bake cupcakes in extra strong liners and cool.

2. Arrange and rearrange baked cupcakes on a covered, sturdy cake board until you achieve the shape you want. Stagger them as you do this, keeping them close together.

3. Apply a dab of icing to the bottom of each cupcake (liner), returning each one to its original position. Once dried, the icing will keep them from sliding.

4. Spread thinned icing over the tops of all the cupcakes, icing as one whole cake. Don’t worry if crumbs get in it. When the crumb coating is dry, the crumbs will be glued into place so they can’t get into your final icing. The cupcakes will also hold together better.

5. After the crumb coat dries, smooth buttercream icing over the entire cupcake cake.

6. Decorate with piped icing, sugarcraft or candies so that what may be a somewhat abstract shape comes into focus.

Tip: If you have extra cupcakes, decorate them to match the cake. For example, pipe whimsical Christmas trees on the extra cupcakes to accessorize a Santa cake.

To serve: Instruct guests to grab a single cupcake, pull up and forward. That’s it!

Many of these tips are from “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Here’s what one reader had to say about our Video Books:

“Anyone can learn to bake and decorate delicious and beautiful cakes by reading the material, viewing the videos, and practicing what is demonstrated in the videos.”

Cecile K.
Ocala, Florida

Cupcake Tier Cake

Prettily decorated cupcakes placed on tiered cupcake holders are becoming a common site at special occasions. Creative cake decorators take this to a level higher, and create tiered cupcake cakes.

This works well with wedding cake tiers, stacked straight up in graduating sizes. The flowery cupcake cake shown below is a vivid example:

Here’s a holiday idea. Create a cupcake Christmas tree. Arrange cupcakes, decorated as ornaments, on graduating tiers. Tuck evergreens (non-toxic, pesticide-free and sap free!) between them. Center a tree topper on the top tier and surround with more cupcake ornaments.

Check out how the cupcake craze started at a little eatery in Manhattan, the Magnolia Bakery.

Here’s one more cupcake tip: Store in airtight freezer bags, cupcakes keep well in the freezer for up two months. Bake various flavors, and then thaw and decorate as desired!

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

Finding fantastic cake recipes can be easy and fun. The key is knowing where to look and what you are looking for. Once you find a promising recipe, make sure you that you follow it to the ‘T.’ The sweet rewards of hearing all those “mmmm’s” and sighs from those you serve it to, is well worth the little extra time spent.

So where to start on your quest for cake recipes that will have your friends and family begging for your “secret” recipe? Visit quality food sites that offer cake recipes or specialize in cakes, such as the Food Network.

A quick search for cake recipes or specific types of cakes will bring you lots from which to choose. Many of these sites include reviews of their cake recipes.

Until you’ve acquired enough knowledge of the chemistry of baking to easily discern a great recipe from a poor one, read those reviews. The more the better.

One thing that the best recipes have in common is that they all call for top quality ingredients.

By top quality we mean an ingredient that is the real thing, rather than a substitute. The ingredients below are all marks of a top-notch cake recipe verses a so-so or even poor cake recipe.

• Butter will be used instead of margarine
• If cream is called for, it will be whipping cream, not a fake whipped cream that comes out of a plastic tub.
• Flavorings, with a few exceptions, will be natural. Extract or zest, for example, will be called for instead of artificial flavoring. Exceptions would include clear vanilla and butter flavors used in Snow White Buttercream.

If you’re having trouble finding an ingredient, shop online at a site such as Wilton Cake Decorating.

Once you’ve found a cake recipe that is a good bet to be a winner, be sure to follow it carefully. If you’re not sure about a term or ingredient, look it up.

Here are a few cake making terms extracted and shortened from our “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Video Books. First, here’s what one reader had to say:

“If you are new to decorating or an old pro, you’ll learn something new and helpful from these books. They are WONDERFUL!!!”

Thelma G.
Tucson, Arizona

Blend: Combine ingredients until smooth. By hand, 100 strokes usually equals one minute of blending with an electric mixture.

Beat: This is almost the same as blending. The difference is the goal of beating is to aerate, which means vigorous mixing is called for.

Creaming: This step, often the first in a cake recipe, is very important to a cake’s tenderness and levity. It means to beat together ingredients (usually sugar and a fat, such as butter) until a fluffy mixture forms. This process aerates the mixture. How does this work? The sugar granules cut into the fat, which forms air bubbles!

Fold: Folding in a light ingredient such as whisked eggs whites into a heavier mixture is done by gently passing a spatula through the batter, rather than stirring.

Butter: Unless a cake recipe specifies differently allow the butter to reach about room temperature or 65 to 67°F before using. This takes about 15 to 30 minutes for a wrapped, stick of butter. The butter’s ready when gently pressing on the cube with your fingertips leaves imprints.

Most bakers agree the best choice of butter for cake recipes is sweet cream butter or unsalted butter. And never use whipped butter in a cake recipe that calls for butter because whipped butter doesn’t have enough fat.

Now that you’ve got a great start towards finding fantastic cake recipes, you can gather some tips on decorating those cakes from our article, Cake Decorating Ideas.

One more cake recipe tip: While most recipes won’t remind you of this, be sure to use the freshest of ingredients. Check the date on your eggs for example. Better yet, if you can, buy them fresh from an egg farm.

And when you have a choice between say a frozen or freshly picked fruit, opt for the fresh. Using fresh ingredients is a little more time consuming, but worth every extra minute! And they will add your personal signature to any cake recipe.

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

If you’re like me, you’re always on the lookout for new cake decorating ideas, especially ones that are a bit different than what everyone else is doing. It’s fun to hear others enviously ask, “Where do you come up with such unique ideas?”

Depending on who is asking, I may reply with “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve just always enjoyed being creative,” or I may reply with a more helpful answer, like the one I’m going to give you.

Cake decorating ideas can come from many places, mostly from other cake decorators. And then more often than not, your imagination will be jumpstarted and you will put your own spin on them.

But do you fret over how to decorate a cake when the vision of a blank buttercream canvas is inspiring nothing but a case of cake decorator’s block?

Well, you’re not alone! Many decorators have this experience. This used to happen to me all the time – but not anymore. A good cake decorating forum or membership site, as well as Google Images can be treasure troves of cake decorating ideas.

You will be amazed at the cake decorating ideas you will find here. You can search their forum, gleaning ideas from hobbyists and pros alike, and if you ask for specific cake decorating ideas (like when you have a cake order to fill for a purse cake and have no idea where to start), you’re most likely to receive them.

Here’s a rather unique cake decorating idea we found to which we’ve since added variations. Read through it, and maybe you’ll come up with even more variations! This is just one example of the unique cake decorating ideas you will find in forums on the Internet.

Cake Decorating Idea - Quick Cookie Cutter Patterns

The star shaped cooker cutter is used for an example. Maybe you’re making a Fourth of July cake, or a baby shower cake with a “Twinkle Little Star” nursery rhyme theme. Another cake that calls out for stars would be a “Congratulations” cake. But you can use a cookie cutter of any shape that fits your cake decorating theme and ideas. Here’s how it works.

1. Gently press a star-shaped cookie cutter into the smooth (crusted) icing, creating an impression.
2. Fill your icing bag and fit with a round tip.
3. Trace, with your icing, the outline of each of the stars.
4. Finally, fill in your stars with one of the following:
a. Shimmering coloring dust to make the stars twinkle.
b. Icing gel.
c. Cake decorating silver beads.
d. Piped stars. For a Fourth of July Cake these could be piped in varying colors of red, white and blue.
e. Your turn!

You can find a wide variety of cookie cutters at large craft stores, such as Michael’s, online at baking supply sites such as Wilton’s, and in kitchen or baking specialty stores. Cookie cutters come in all shapes and sizes!

While you look for cake decorating ideas, also be thinking about your overall cake design ideas, which will often dictate what type of decorations you’ll want to use.

Here’s one more cake decorating idea, this is one from Vol. 1 of “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” By the way, here’s what one reader wrote about our Video Books:

“I sat glued to the computer watching the videos and reading as soon as I got it. It is wonderful!!!

I especially love the flower making and will be making cakes overflowing with flowers ASAP (its spring here in Australia so perfect timing!!!).Thank you again for a wonderful, informative, and affordable product.”

Fiona (Wagga Wagga, sunny Australia)

And here’s that cake decorating idea : Use a stencil or paper snowflake and some confectioners’ (powdered) sugar for an easy decoration on a dark cake, such as fruitcake, chocolate pound cake or gingerbread cake.

Stencils are fun for holidays and seasonal cakes – a ghost for Halloween, snowflake for winter, etc. Or for just an old-fashioned and pretty design, use a lacy (and clean) doily for your stencil.

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

But I never dreamed that cakes would reach the amazing level of art and fun that they have today. I still love a rose adorned birthday cake, but it’s always exciting to try out the latest cake design ideas!

Sculpted Cake Design Ideas

This cake design brings three-dimensional art to the cake plate! You’ll find some remarkable examples at Mike’s Amazing Cakes

Don’t let these intimidate you though because most sculpted cakes are much simpler, yet still a feast for the eyes.

An easy sculpted cake design idea is to bake a novelty cake in a mold pan, and then using icing as glue, adhere this to a regular shaped cake such as a sheet cake. The sheet cake is iced first.

Then perhaps you’ll want to paint a background with cake spray paint. Just be sure the background is outside of the area where the character or novelty cake will rest.

You can gently press the mold pan into the sheet cake’s buttercream (crusted) surface to create the outline to work around. Instead of spray painting the background you might want to decorate with piping or items you have in your kitchen or can easily pick up at a store.

For example, if you have a dinosaur cake, you could pipe volcanoes and ferns onto the background and/or add small, plastic dinosaur figurines and such. Be sure to add some icing just before placing the top so that will stick.

Many sculpted cakes require skill levels somewhere between these two. Whatever type of cake design ideas you use here, a pound cake is often your best bet because it is firm enough to hold up under all the trimming and patching together with icing you will do as you sculpt your cake into shape.

The Doll Cake is a beautiful – and popular - type of sculpted cake (Featured in Cake Decorating Made Easy! Volume 2) that is fun to make. And sculpted castle cakes are an increasingly rising cake design idea for special events.

Another magical cake decorating idea is to sculpt a cake from cupcakes. You set the cupcakes on a cake plate or board, arranging them in the shape of an object. Then you ice as one cake.

Stacked and Tiered Cakes

No longer, practically the exclusive domain of wedding cakes, we’re seeing cakes for all occasions climbing to new heights.

A popular cake design idea for a wedding or birthday features fondant covered square layers made to look like beautifully wrapped gift boxes. These usually have fondant bows and often gum paste flowers and are stacked in an offset manner. Variations of the gift cake include hatbox cakes and amazing topsy-turvy gift box cakes.

The gift box cake is one of the latest and greatest cake design ideas. Often made with squarecakes or a mix and match of round and square, the cakes are stacked and decorated to resemble a stack of wrapped gifts.

Topsy-turvy cakes are an amazing cake design idea ushered in by cake design diva
Colette Peters whose cake design ideas are often whimsical and fun, with layers appearing to teeter on the brink.

As seen in our “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Video Books this cake design idea brings an element of surprise and are perfect for any celebration. By the way here’s one reader says about our Video Books:

“If you are new to decorating or an old pro, you’ll learn something new and helpful from
these books. They are WONDERFUL!!!”

Thelma G.
Tucson, Arizona

Novelty & Character Cakes

Amazing cake design ideas are often found in this category whether created with mold cake pans, cake sculpture, or decorations on a traditional cake.

Traditional Cakes

The most traditional cake can be transformed into an unforgettable cake with create cake design ideas that use sugarcraft. For example:

• Model marzipan into miniature corn, squash and grapes that pour out of an icing Thanksgiving cornucopia.
• Model gum paste into people and other figures, which you use to create entire scenes.
• Use fondant cut-outs to add that special touch that turns a simply design into something amazing.

And while you’re thinking about your next cake design idea, don’t forget the power of piping: icing basketweave for cakes that resemble baskets of flowers or Easter egg baskets; ruffle borders with swags for fancy birthday cakes, pretty messages - and all those beautiful pink and white, iced roses.

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

Hat Cake

Ingredients

2 baked round cakes (Mom’s favorite type) one 8-inch and one 9-inch

4 cups of buttercream icing (Mom’s favorite flavor)

1, 3-foot roll of strawberry fruit roll ribbon or 3 feet of ribbon made from fondant
(marshmallow is best)

Allow the cakes to cool, and then trim around the perimeter of the 8-inch layer until it is 6 inches in diameter (or, for a wider brim, trim this slightly smaller). Don’t level this layer because the mound will make a prettier hat, but do level the 9-inch, bottom layer.

Place the 9-inch layer on a 12-inch cake plate. Frost or fill. Then place the 6-inch layer on top and finish frosting, smoothing the buttercream over the entire hat.

Then create a ribbon to wrap around your hat like a hatband. If using fondant (marshmallow’s the best tasting), create the ribbon and bow separately and attach with icing. A hat ribbon can also be created with the fruit roll ribbon. Or instead of the ribbon, pipe tiny flowers around the hat to make a floral band.

Finally, pipe your “Happy Mother’s Day” message on the top of the hat.

This Hat Cake (and our marshmallow fondant recipe) is from Volume 2 of our “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Video Books. Here’s what one reader had to say about them:

“If you are new to decorating or an old pro, you’ll learn something new and helpful from these books. They are WONDERFUL!!!”

T. Gonzales, Tucson, AZ

To learn how to make your Hat Cake’s frosting so smooth, others will think it’s fondant, check out our Perfectly Smooth Buttercream article HERE.

And, here are some more fun and unique ideas for a very special Mother’s Day cake:

“Eat Your Vegetables” Garden Cake

Whether Mom loves working in the garden or has worked hard to convince her children to eat their vegetables, this cake will bring a smile to her face. And if you enjoy playing with Play-Do, making this cake will bring a smile to yours!

Begin by modeling vegetables for the garden with gum paste or marzipan. Make enough to cover the cake with rows of carrot tops and such.

Cover your cake (sheet cake works best) with buttercream, and smooth. Add your rows of sugarcrafted veggies. Then attach a garden fence by placing “lady fingers” or similarly shaped cookies around the perimeter of the layers, adhering with dabs of icing. The fence shouldn’t extend up around the top of the cake, but just from bottom to top.

For a fun, final touch, add a miniature water can, etc. (found at a craft store or modeled).

No room for the “Happy Mother’s Day” greeting? No worries. You can add the greeting on garden signs created with paper glued to toothpicks. And since nurturing a garden is often used as a metaphor for nurturing children, you may want to create a Mother’s Day message that goes with the garden theme. Greeting cards will give you lots of ideas!

Flower Garden Cake

If Mom loves flowers, she’ll love this cake. Begin with a smooth buttercream covered cake. Add her favorite blooms. These may be piped with icing, molded with gumpaste, or cut out from rolled fondant. They could even be real flowers, but do be sure they are edible and pesticide free before you place them on the cake. Then pipe stems and leaves with green buttercream icing. Finally, all that’s left to do is pipe a pretty Mother’s Day message!

Photo Cakes for Mom

Picture cake tops printed with edible icing and paper are very popular, and a picture perfect cake for Mother’s Day would feature her children. This could be a single snapshot or even a collage of Kodak moments with Mom and her children that you’ve created on the computer or scanned from an album.

A picture (scanned or off the Internet) from a favorite storybook or nursery song that Mom especially loved sharing could be used to create a sentimental and charming cake. If you’re feeling really clever, you could tie in a line or verse with your Mother’s Day wishes on the cake.

When considering how you will make your Mother’s Day cake, remember the cake can be sentimental, whimsical, fancy, silly, elegant, or just plain fun. However you design your “Mother’s Day” cake, it’ll be perfect for your mom because you made it.

Happy Mother’s Day!

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

Lucky leprechauns, pots of gold and shamrocks are all part of the fun. And with the following ideas and your cake decorating skills, you’ll need a pin that reads “Kiss me, I’m the cake decorator!”

Leprechaun Hat Cake

Here’s how to make this lucky cake. (More St. Patrick’s Day cake ideas follow!)

Bake a dome cake and a single layer round cake. If you don’t have a dome cake mold, you can use an oven-proof glass bowl. If you’d like to fill the dome cake, use a serrated knife to carefully saw through the dome.

Ice the cakes with green tinted buttercream. First ice the bottom cake, and then place the dome on top and ice it.

Add a wide hatband. This can be created with chocolate buttercream or fondant. If using buttercream, you may want to take a strip of paper (the width you want the hat band) and gently press it against the cake so that it leaves an imprint. Then fill in the band with chocolate buttercream using a decorating bag fit with a star tip.

Now add a big shamrock to the hatband. The easiest way is to first make an imprint on the cake with a shamrock cookie cutter. Then fill in by piping dark green icing with the star tip.

Alternatively, pipe a gold buckle (with orange-yellow icing) onto the hatband. For a magical touch, apply edible gold glitter to the bucket. Finally, pipe the shamrock, offset and above the band.

To make sure your leprechaun’s hat is a perfect fit, watch this video on evenly-baked level cakes (it’s free):CLICK HERE

The above video is a sample from “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Volume 1.
Here’s what one reader had to say about our Video Books:

“Thanks for sharing all of your wonderful knowledge and techniques with us all..
I am thrilled to have this book and to tell everyone how important it is to me and my new hobby…
I have been told by friends how great my cakes are and they are passing the word on, and that’s keeping me very busy – and happy. Thanks again!”

Doreen Cuttriss,

St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Here are more original and enchanting St. Patrick’s day cake decorating ideas:

· Make a favorite character cake (you can find these at large craft stores and online), but modify the directions by adding a touch of the Irish. For example, pipe shamrocks on a cartoon characters’ pants.

· Decorate a sheet cake with a rainbow and pot of gold.

If you enjoy modeling with marzipan or sugarcraft, make the pot three-dimensional and fill with gold wrapped candies.

Or using dark chocolate buttercream, pipe a picture of a pot at the end of the rainbow, and then using yellow buttercream pipe gold nuggets and sprinkle with edible gold glitter.

Pipe a St. Patrick’s Day message, and highlight with the edible gold glitter. Complete the scene with leprechaun figurines, store bought or sugarcrafted.

· Fashion a cake after the pot of gold. Place a rainbow (you’ve crafted or purchased) over a round or upside down dome cake (that has been iced with a fitting color such as chocolate brown or yellow-gold) so that the ends of the rainbow set on top of the cake.

Add cloud-like freshly whipped cream, and sprinkle with bits of marzipan or pieces of tasty marshmallow fondant rolled into nugget shapes and covered with edible gold glitter. Sprinkle some of the glitter over the entire cake. Serve immediately.

· Bake an Irish Coffee cake and decorate with whipped cream, shamrock cake confetti and leprechaun party picks. Serve immediately (unless using stabilized whipped cream).

· Charm your cake with the luck of the Irish. Purchase St. Patrick’s Day good luck charms, one for each guest.

Bake an angel food or bundt cake. Ice or glaze. Thread each charm onto a clean ribbon.

Dangle the charms inside the center of the cake, allowing the ribbons to drape over the cake. Before slicing, each guest draws a charm.

Alternatively, charms can be added as they often were to Victorian wedding cakes. A round, torted cake could be made with the charms being placed between the layers when the cake is filled. Each guest pulls out a charm using the ribbon.

· Think green! Select cake recipe that can be tinted green. Use a pretty green filling such as pistachio pudding. Not nuts about pistachio? How about key lime? Or choose a filling you can tint green, or just one that goes with your green cake.

· Lucky Charms cupcakes are quick and easy to make. Remove the marshmallow charms from the cereal. After frosting with big swirls of green buttercream, decorate with the four leaf clovers, blue moons, shooting stars, and other charms.

Finally, here’s one more tip.

As you’ve noticed, edible gold glitter brings added magic to a St. Patrick’s Day cake. This non-metallic decoration isn’t cheap, but you can find an ounce for about $7 or a quarter ounce for about $3. Our favorite online cake decorating stores: CandlandCrafts.com, which sells it in 1/4 and 1-ounce bags. Large craft stores such as Michael’s may also carry this.

May the luck of the Irish be with you through all of your cake decorating endeavors!

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

If you’re a cake decorator who doesn’t have cable or satellite television, there is a very good reason to bring it into your home: the Food Network.

Here you will see incredibly beautiful and outrageous cakes, entertaining and highly skilled cake designers, fun cake competitions, and on their Website, recipes from the competitions (so you can make some of these delectable cakes in your own kitchen).

An American cable network, the Food Network is viewed in 80 million households by half a million people per day. From year to year, the Food Network gains subscribers faster than any other ad-supported cable network.

It airs in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Monaco, Andorra, France, the French-speaking territories in the Caribbean and Polynesia, and Canadians have their own version, Food Network Canada.

The Food Network Challenge, which hosts the largest food competitions in the world, is so popular it has achieved franchise status. Here are a few examples of the competitions that appeal to cake decorators:

Wedding Cake Challenge – Teams vie for the $10,000 prize. The challenge? Create the world’s most spectacular wedding cake! Often the processes can be just as exciting as the final products. For example, Homaro Cantu’s cake decorating kit includes a Class IV laser that sears edibles at 2,800 degrees F.

Disney Dream Desserts – Student pastry chefs compete at the Happiest Place on Earth for a $14,000 scholarship and an internship in the Disney kitchens.

Mystery Birthday Cake – Five of the nation’s top cake designers must please a demanding client. They enter the competition not knowing the client’s identity or criteria. These are divulged only minutes before the clock begins.

Birthday Cake Competition – Prepare to be amazed. Outrageous cakes in this competition have included an edible, rotating Ferris wheel.

Not all of the competitions in the Food Network Challenge involve sugar, but many do, including Wedding Cake Classic, Fire and Ice (pastry and ice sculpture), Cookies, and Ultimate Wedding Cakes. Other challenges feature everything from cocktails to tailgate party foods.

With programs like this and given our inherent love of good food and entertainment, it’s no wonder the Food Network, created in 1993, is setting new viewing records in primetime, has a large daytime fan base, and enjoys bragging rights to one of the most popular food sites on the Web.

Celebrity chefs, including Wolfgang Puck and Emeril add to the entertaining/education recipe for success.

And under the spotlight of the Food Network, some of its personalities are now famous, including of course, the Network’s star, Rachael Ray of 30-Minute Meals.

Then there’s the host of the Food Network’s latest creation (as of January, 2007), Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman who brings drill saws and blowtorches to the kitchen.

His resume is just as colorful: graffiti artist, degrees in physics and philosophy (his wedding cake philosophy is "No Rules!"), studies at the Culinary Institute of America, and executive chef at Colorado’s Vail Cascade Hotel and Resort.

More so than a pastry chef and cake decorator, Goldman, with his black leather and dark shades, resembles a bass player in a hip band – and that he is!

He’s also one of the most esteemed cake decorators in the nation and owns and operates Charm City Cakes in Baltimore where his cakes have included a piece of rare black Wedgwood china (commissioned for Hillary Clinton), a slew of outrageous and beautiful wedding cakes, a pack of family dog tribute cakes and massive mechanized cakes with edible moving parts and $20,000 price tags.

Another popular Food Network cake designer with an unlikely background is Warren Brown, the host of Sugar Rush. A Washington D.C. lawyer, Brown had always enjoyed cooking, but he had a fear of baking.

When he overcame this fear, he discovered his true love and left the courtroom to open Cakelove, his specialty cake and pastry business where his cupcakes and three-layer buttercream with fresh strawberries preside.

Viewers of Sugar Rush enjoy following Brown to restaurants, pastry shops and bakeries around the country and then back to his kitchen where he makes a recipe learned along the way.

For program listings, visit www.FoodNetWork.com. You’ll also find here, the Food Network Newsletter, which delivers weekly updates on contests, recipes, food ideas to 2.5 million people who enjoy the fringe benefit of the opportunity to compete for their own food network series, The Next Food Network Star.

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

Finally, add a top to your Jack O’ Lantern. One way to do this is to pipe green buttercream leaves and add a stem modeled with rolled buttercream.

And what more fitting cake to sculpt your Jack o’ Lantern Halloween cake from than pumpkin?

Halloween or Harvest Pumpkin Cake

Note: This pumpkin cake makes a nice treat for the grown-up’s too, especially when covered with buttercream and chopped walnuts or pecans. And, it’s even better after mellowing overnight in the fridge.

Another variation for a Halloween party would be to bake this in a Halloween cake novelty pan and then decorate. Baked as a sheet cake, you can create a Halloween picture with stencils and confectioners sugar or cake spray paints.

4 cups canned pumpkin

6 cups sugar

2 cup vegetable oil

6 eggs

6 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease and flour 2 10-inch bundt pans. In a bowl, blend the pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs. In a separate bowl, sift the remaining ingredients. Gradually add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cake cool in pan for 5 minutes, and then release. Allow the cake to completely cool before decorating.

This recipe is adapted from our “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Video Books. Here’s what one reader had to say about them:

“If you are new to decorating or an old pro, you’ll learn something new and helpful from these books. They are WONDERFUL!!!”

Thelma Gonzales, Tucson, AZ

Thinking about Thanksgiving? Check out our Thanksgiving Cake Design Ideas!

Here’s a final, but important tip for your Halloween cakes: When mixing dark Halloween colors like black and brown, keep in mind that the amount of food coloring needed can bring a bitter taste to your icing. So here’s what you can do to battle the bitter:

Happy Halloween Cake Making!

Samantha Mitchel, Co-Author

Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”

—————————————————
Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

For fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets
of the pros, just enter your name & email address
above and click, “Send My Free Cake Tips!”