Cake decorating facts for kids
Cake decorating is a fun art form where people make cakes look amazing for special events. Think birthdays, weddings, or holidays! It's a type of sugar art that uses things like icing, fondant, and other yummy decorations. You might have even seen cake decorating on TV shows like Food Network or TLC. Cake decorators can make simple designs or even big, detailed 3D shapes. Chocolate is often used too, either melted into a ganache or dusted on top as cocoa powder.
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How Cake Decorating Started
Cake decorating first became popular in Europe in the 1600s. Back then, decorated cakes were a luxury, usually for special parties. Early cake decorators wanted to make wedding cakes look extra special. The long history of the wedding cake helped lead to the cake decorating we see today.
One of the first people to decorate a wedding cake was Elizabeth Raffald, a cookbook author from the 1700s. She was the first to cover a cake with almond icing. Christmas cakes also started being decorated in the 1700s and 1800s. These cakes were very rich and only expert bakers could decorate them with fancy designs.
In the 1840s, things got much easier for bakers. New ovens could control temperature better, and baking powder became available. This meant cakes were simpler to bake. As technology improved, people started focusing more on how cakes looked. Cakes began to have decorative shapes and were covered with more icing, shaped into patterns and flowers. Food coloring was also used to make frosting and cake layers more colorful.
Even though fewer people baked cakes from scratch in the late 1900s in the United States (because ready-made cakes and cake mixes became common), decorated cakes are still a big part of celebrations. They are popular for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and other special occasions.
Different Ways to Decorate Cakes
Cakes can be decorated in many ways. You can use small decorations placed on top or around the cake. Or, you can cover the cake with a type of icing or paste. These decorations can be made from edible materials or food-safe plastics.
Fondant Icing
Fondant is also called sugar paste. It's a soft, thick paste made from sugar, water, gelatin, and vegetable fat. You can often buy fondant in many colors. It's easy to work with and gives cakes a smooth, matte finish that isn't sticky.
To use fondant, you roll it out with cornstarch so it doesn't stick. Once it's thin and smooth, you can shape it into many things, like flowers or leaves. You can also cut out shapes and put them on the cake. Fondant is mostly used to cover cakes, but it can also be used to make decorations that don't have cake inside.
Fondant is heavier than regular frosting. If you use a lot of it, the cake might need a strong base to hold it up. Unlike some other icings, fondant stays soft after you sculpt it.
Royal Icing
Royal icing is a sweet white icing. It's made by mixing fresh egg whites (or powdered egg whites) with icing sugar. Royal icing makes very neat edges, especially when decorating cookies. It's perfect for piping detailed writing, borders, and lace designs on cakes. It dries very hard and can last a long time if kept in a cool, dry place. However, it can get soft in humid weather.
Marzipan
Marzipan is often used to make decorations for cakes. Sometimes it's used to cover cakes, but fondant is usually preferred for the outer layer.
Gum Paste
Gum paste, also known as florist paste, is an edible material that dries quickly. It becomes brittle when dry. You can sculpt it to make cake decorations like flowers or other molded designs.
Modeling Chocolate
Modeling chocolate is a chocolate paste. It's made by melting chocolate and mixing it with corn syrup or glucose syrup. You can shape modeling chocolate into many forms and structures. It's easier to work with for detailed shapes than softer materials like buttercream frosting, marzipan, or fondant. Modeling chocolate can be made from white, dark, or milk chocolate.
Edible Ink Printing
Edible ink printing is another way to decorate cakes. In the early 1990s, people found ways to make safe, non-toxic inks and printing materials. This made it possible to print pictures and photos onto edible sheets for cakes. This process uses images printed with edible food colors. These are then put onto treats like cookies, cakes, or pastries.
You can create designs with edible ink using a special printer. This printer transfers an image onto a thin, edible paper made of starches and sugars. At first, only bakeries offered this service. Now, people can do it at home with special paper, ink, and printers.
Cake Decorating Techniques
Decorating a cake usually means covering it with some kind of icing. Then, you add decorative sugar, candy, chocolate, or icing designs. But it can be as simple as sprinkling icing sugar on top. Or, you might drizzle a shiny glaze over the cake, like a mirror cake. A cake turntable (a spinning tray) can help make decorating easier.
You can make icing decorations by piping icing flowers and borders. Or, you can mold flowers and figures from sugar paste, fondant, or marzipan. An embossing mat is a tool that creates raised patterns on cakes or cupcakes. You press the mat into the cake dough or icing, and the pattern transfers to the cake. These mats are often made of silicone rubber.
Many icing designs can be made using different piping tips. These tips come in many shapes and sizes. There are often tutorials that show how to create different designs with different piping tips.
"Naked Cakes" are a popular style, especially around 2020. With these cakes, you use fillings between the cake layers, but the outside is left unfrosted or only lightly frosted. This way, you can still see much of the cake itself. Naked cakes are often decorated with icing sugar or fresh flowers on top. They are very popular for weddings and engagement parties.
For large cakes with many layers, you might need to secure the layers so they don't slide or fall. People often use wooden skewers, dowels, or plastic straws for this.
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You can make big and complex cake shapes by cutting pieces of cake and putting them together. Sometimes, non-edible supports are used to hold them. Special baking pans can also help create cakes in unusual shapes. While these pans are good for making many cakes of the same shape, they don't offer as much freedom as hand-cut cake pieces. You can also use fondant and marzipan to change the overall shape of a cake.
Cake Decorating as an Art Form
Cake decorating has truly become a unique art form. You can see examples ranging from simple single-layer cakes to very complex, multi-layered 3D creations with many edible decorations.
Cake Decorating in Pop Culture
- Food Network's Ace of Cakes features baker Duff Goldman and his shop, Charm City Cakes.
- WE's Amazing Wedding Cakes is a TV show that looks at different cake decorating companies across America and how they design cakes.
- Cake Wrecks is a fun website that shares pictures of cakes that went "unintentionally silly, sad, creepy or inappropriate."
- TLC's Cake Boss features baker Buddy Valastro and his shop, Carlo's Bake Shop.
- Netflix's Nailed It! is a competition show where amateur bakers try to decorate cakes.
Gallery
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A cake decorated to resemble a child's dress
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Lady's evening bag cake with edible frosting
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Cake with large cabbage roses
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Detail of hand-painted miniature cups in sugar with sugar lace tablecloth
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Tiered wedding cake with calla lilies
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Birthday cake for one-year-old
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Guitar cake with edible frosting
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Chocolate cake decorated with foliage and chocolate roses
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Science cake with Bakelite oven chocolate cake top
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Rooster cake in Chinatown, London, for Chinese New Year celebrations
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A Fourth of July cake decorated in red, white and blue
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An International Space Station-themed NASA slab cake for students at Kennedy Space Center
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A fondant-covered cake depicting a sewing kit
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Basket of kittens cake
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Birthday party birthday cake
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Chocolate cake with roses
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Advanced cake decorating techniques
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A cake sculpted to look like a cheeseburger with fries
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A cake decorated to look like a pumpkin with mice living in it
See also
In Spanish: Decoración de tartas para niños
