10 decorating tips for beginers

1.  Have a design

Take the time to think about what you want your novelty birthday cake to look like.  Use a photo or make a drawing to give you the basic idea of what your finished cake needs to look like.  This will help you to plan out everything that is required.  If you are just starting out with cake decorating and making novelty birthday cakes then using a recipe can be a good way to get going.

2.  Plan out your approach

If you do decide to go with using a recipe then this step is already completed for you, however, if you are coming up with your own design then you need to have a think and write down all of the ingredients you’ll need, all of the equipment you need and the order of steps that you will need to take.  Getting the order right is imperative to making a successful novelty birthday cake.

3.  Choose the right icing

Colour and consistency are the key here.  Some icings are best used if bright colours are required and others are better for softer colours.  Some icing dries very hard and can be good for ornate items and other icing dries softer.

4.  Have the right equipment

Decorating bags and tips are the key piece of kit here.  There are many different types of tips available that will give a different effect, depending on what you require.  A coupler is a handy little item that you can use with a decorating bag that allows you to use different tips with the same bag.  

5.  Have all of your equipment and ingredients at the ready before you start

This one is a must for a smooth project to decorate your novelty birthday cake.  There’s nothing worse that being in the middle of decorating your cake and finding that you are missing some key ingredient or piece of equipment and have to drop everything to go to a shop or search through your cupboards to find it!  Get everything you need ready and in close reach before you get started.

6.  Prepare your cake properly

This tips is a great one to give your cake that professional look.  Levelling the cake is a great idea and can be done with a knife or a special cutting wire called a cake leveler (now that’s original!).  Using a spatula to layer the base icing is a good idea, but the trick here is to make sure your spatula never actually touches the cake.  This is how you can keep crumbs out of the icing.  It takes a bit of practice but the idea here is to carefully use the spatula to guide the icing pushing the icing out over the cake and gradually increasing the icing coverage.

7.  Learn a few of the basic techniques

Get familiar with the different decorating tips and the effects that they produce.  Learn how to do a ‘swirl’, how to make flowers and shapes with harder icing – these will be key features of your novelty birthday cake.  Practice makes perfect here!  Get a feel for the icing consistency required to achieve the required effects.  Get creative!

8.  Create feature items seperately

You can create feature items for your cake, such as flowers or other shaps well in advance and just position them when it comes time to put the finished product together.  This is a good idea especially when starting out because if one of your feature items is a little less than perfect then you haven’t affected your cake in anyway and can just replace that item and continue your cake.

9.  Practice

Seems obvious doesn’t it!  The first one may be just ok, the second one better and the third one will be awesome!You will get better the more you practice so don’t just wait for a special occassion to make your masterpiece novelty birthday cake.  Find yourself or make yourself a design and go to it!

10. Enjoy yourself

This is what it’s all about, so get creative and just get in there and have a go and enjoy it.  If you’re making a novelty birthday cake for children, they will no doubt be oblivious to any imperfections and adults will just be amazed at the time and care you’ve taken to make such a masterpiece.  So be sure to have fun and enjoy yourself!

I love Cake decorating!!!