Your Beginner Cake Decorating Journey Starts Here

The first cake will never look how you pictured in your head. Your buttercream might not be smooth and your piping might not look perfect and that is totally fine.

However, everyone has to start somewhere. Cake decorating for beginners isn’t about learning everything at once. Instead, it’s about building confidence through learning one simple technique after another and seeing how your skills improve with each new cake.

With a few basic skills, the right cake decorating kit and a little bit of practice are all you need to do more than you ever thought possible. Once you get the right cake decorating supplies, you will start creating cakes that you are proud to show off to everyone.

Cake Words You Will Hear Again and Again

When reading a cake recipe or viewing videos on decorating cakes for the very first time, certain terms may be confusing. Once you have understood their meaning, everything will become clear.

The batter is referred to as the cake mixture before baking, while levelling is the process of trimming the surface of a baked cake to achieve an even surface. A crumb coat refers to the coating of frosting which makes it easy to hold the cake crumbs in place before applying the final frosting. Ganache is made through mixing cream and chocolate and it is mostly used for filling, drips or coating cakes. Modelling paste is used to make decorations that will get hard when dried. Sugarpaste or fondant icing is the covering for cakes and the means of making toppers. A turntable is the rotating stand used in the decoration process.

Start With the Right Tools

New decorators usually feel they require more decorating skills. In most cases, all they require is proper equipment.

The use of a cake turntable allows you to spin your cake rather than yourself. An offset spatula helps spread buttercream without getting your hands in the way, while a bench scraper gives the sides a smooth finish. If you plan to use fondant or marzipan on your cake, you should also consider having a rolling pin at hand. A cake board will allow you to carry and support your cake when decorating it. These cake decorating tools are among some of the baking essentials that help simplify your cake decorating process.

Start With Easy Bakes

You might also be thinking of decorating a big celebration cake, but it is recommended to start with simpler bakes in order to learn how to make them.

The classic sponge is the best option to start with because it can be used to make birthday, celebration, and even wedding cakes. After you get confident with this type of cake, go ahead and try baking cupcakes. It is a good idea because it gives you individual cupcakes to practice your piping skills, and any error made in piping will not ruin the entire batch. Cookies are great options too, since they teach you how to handle dough and allow you to decorate the flat surface using royal icing.

Level the Cake Before You Decorate

When looking at your cake right out of the oven, it is easy to think that you can skip this important step. But once you start with the decoration process, the round surface of the sponge will become an issue.

Using a domed sponge will cause your cake to be off balance while stacking the layers or frosting it with fondant. Using a cake leveller will give you a smooth and even working surface for your cake. This means that your layers will fit perfectly, and your crumb coat will be smooth.

How to crumb coat a cake?

You spread the buttercream and just as soon as you run the scraper along the sides of the cake, tiny pieces of crumbs fall all over the place. It happens to almost everybody for the first couple of times.

Apply a layer of buttercream on the cake and freeze the cake until the buttercream layer becomes firm. This layer holds all of the crumbs in place so they will not be mixed into the second layer. Then you apply the second layer of buttercream or fondant on top of the cake. For simple cake decoration ideas for beginners, you may simply apply the crumb coat itself, and top it with fruits or flowers. Make sure to use Cake smoothers and scrapers as it will make the edge smooth.

The Three Decorating Paths

Ask three cake decorators how they like to decorate a cake and you will probably get three different answers. There is no single right way. It depends on the style you enjoy making.

If you like soft swirls and simple textures, then try decorating your cake with buttercream. This frosting is spreadable and light in taste. If anything goes wrong, you can simply smooth out the icing and try once more. Buttercream is often a choice for cake decorating for beginners.

If smooth cakes with sharp edges appeal to you, then try fondant. Fondant, also known as sugarpaste, is rolled out and applied over a crumb-coated cake. Fondant is great for embossed designs, cut-out shapes and detailed toppers. Ready to use Sugarpaste and rolled icings are easy to use and save a lot of time.

For those who prefer working on fine details, royal icing can be used. This icing dries very hard, which means that it can be used for decorating cookies, and creating nice borders and designs. The more you practice decorating cakes, the better you will be able to find your own decorating style.

Piping Techniques for Beginners

A lot of people buy piping nozzles first and then they find out that they are aware about how to use it. Is this the case with you also? Start from the basics.

As far as piping techniques are concerned, one should start practicing on parchment paper before getting on a cake. First, make dots, then proceed to make shells and rosettes. Using these basic designs allows one to become comfortable with piping. Keep the piping bag at an angle of 45 degrees and be consistent while applying pressure. You should try 1M piping tip first, as it can be used to create swirls, shell borders, and rosettes. Once you start feeling more confident, you may try rose piping using a petal nozzle or Lambeth piping using a round tip. Having a set of Piping bags with different nozzles can give you the different option to work on different designs.

How to Decorate a Cake with Royal Icing for Beginners?

You may have noticed that cookies with perfectly sharp lines and colourful centers are usually not coated with buttercream. They are made with royal icing, which hardens after drying and preserves the shapes and details.

What should be understood first? The stiff consistency of royal icing is perfect for creating flowers and other elements that need to maintain their shapes. Medium consistency of royal icing works well for making outlines and borders. Flooding consistency of the icing will be easier to spread on cookies and plaques. You can add gel food colouring drops by drops to achieve a desired shade.

How to Melt Chocolate for Decorating?

When decorating a cake, many people find that melting chocolate is one of the easiest things to do, but it turns grainy, thick or solid before they begin decorating the cake.

If you have to learn how to melt chocolate, you need to use a bain-marie technique. That means that you should put a heat resistant bowl on a pan with simmering water, stirring the chocolate slowly without touching the water. Alternatively, you can melt chocolate in the microwave, putting it there for 20 seconds at a time and stirring after each round. Even the smallest amount of water can make the chocolate seize.

You can use melted chocolate in the silicone molds to create edible decoration and pour chocolate over a cold cake to create a dripping effect. Candy melts are also great when making cake pops, molds and decorative elements. Good quality chocolate supplies in callets or drops melt better than chocolate bars because of their smaller size.

Cake Lace and Modelling Paste

There are some types of cake decorations that you can actually make even before you begin decorating the cake. This helps save time and allow you to concentrate only on assembling all of the decorations.

Cake lace is prepared by applying the lace mixture into the silicone lace mat. After the mixture is dry, lift it up carefully and then apply it on fondant or buttercream. This kind of decoration is widely used for wedding or celebration cakes as it is very detailed but does not require to pipe it by hand. Another great product for cake decorating is modelling paste. You have to press it into silicone moulds and make various flowers or borders from it. When it hardens, it allows you to create it a few days ahead and attach with edible glue and a brush later.

The Finishing Touches That Complete Your Cake

You may have decorated your cake already, but adding a few essential finishing details can completely change the look of your cake with not too much work.

A layer of marzipan is commonly used in fruit cakes underneath the layer of fondant made from ground almonds and sugar. It is also firm enough to shape into fruits, flowers, and simple figures. If you want to finish your cake decorating, add a few sprinkle, edible cake decorations, brush a layer of edible lustre dust onto the cake, place a ribbon around the cake board, and put a cake topper on top. A few Edible cake decorations can be sufficient enough to provide your cake a unique look without making the overall design too heavily decorated.

Every Cake Teaches You Something

After cleaning the bowl and washing the utensils, we carefully store them away. Next, we automatically start thinking of a new cake design for next time. This is how most people start cake decorating.

The next time you bake, ensure that you level the sponge before you start decorating. Always apply the crumb coat before the frosting. Make sure you use a turntable while smoothing out the sides of the cake. Do some piping on the parchment paper before applying it on the actual cake. Melt the chocolate on low heat and always prefer gel food colours to the liquid colours. There is no need to learn all the techniques at once. Just make an effort to master a new skill with each cake you bake and very soon you will be amazed at how much you have progressed since your first attempt.