cake decorating tips

Cake Ideas – St. Patrick’s Day Cakes

Cake Ideas for St. Patrick's Day are generally geared towards something green. The cake itself can be made green by adding green food coloring to a white cake mix. When applying the icing, it can be frosted in green or frosted in white and then trimmed with green. Of course there are a few cake pans out there that can be used for the holiday theme. There is a Care Bear pan, a shamrock pan and a horseshoe pan, of which the latter can be turned the one way to look like a good luck Irish horseshoe and turned the other to make a rainbow where you can find the pot of gold. To accent the cake, gold, foil-wrapped coin candy can be scattered around the base of the cake to make it look like someone got into the pot of gold.

There are also gold sprinkles or shamrock confetti that can be added for a little glitter or glamour when decorating cakes.

Sometimes little trinkets for St. Patrick's Day can be found to add to the cake or placed on top of cupcakes that are baked in gold foil cupcake papers.

Maybe you are of primary Irish descent or at least can trace your lineage back to include some of it in your ancestry. Keep the Irish event as a tribute to your family history by celebrating this sometimes almost overlooked holiday. Have fun with it and even put up St. Patrick's Day party decorations. But most of all, remember to wear green so you don't get pinched!

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Cake Ideas – Decorating With Candy

Cake ideas can include candy such as plain old M&M's and Hershey's Kisses for decorating cakes. However, you can purchase these candies for those special occasions, and they will definately make a conversation piece. When my husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary, we ordered M&M's that said 'Daryl & Linda' on some and 'Happy 25th' on the others. We had chosen the colors of silver (or course) and light blue or light turquoise for our anniversary colors to work with for the celebration. (We also used gold and yellow M&M's for my parent's 50th Anniversary and purple and lavendar ones for our son's wedding.) Several months before our party, we had received an email advertising for personalized M&M's, and we thought that was just too unique of an idea to pass up. Checking the website now, they have more options available than they did almost 2 years ago – including 22 colors! Our anniversary is April 10, so I was able to start picking up Christmas decorations on clearance in the right colors (silver garland and bells and blue balls, etc.) that we wanted for decorating for the event. See some of the table decorations in the pictures below.

Another place that has some really cool ideas for candy that can be served with your decorated cake as a little garnish, or scattered on the tables as a colorful decoration, is a store called 'Candy Warehouse.' You deserve to check out this store. You can search for candy by the type, the occasion, and by color of it – or the wrapper. Another place you can shop for specialty candy and tons of party decorations is the Oriental Trading Company. They have all kinds of stuff that we used for our anniversary, including individually wrapped dinner mints in silver foil that had anniversary greetings printed on them and 25th anniversary balloons. And since Valentine's Day was only about two months prior to our anniversary, I was able to find the 'Love' tag Hershey's kisses. One thing the papers that came with the M & M's said was to not store them in a refrigerator, but rather keep them in a small styrofoam cooler, as getting chocolate cold makes it turn a whitish color – and then they wouldn't have been very pretty for the party and people would have thought we were serving them old candy 😉 . So as you can see, sometimes you can think 'outside the box' and come up with some really great options that will enhance or compliment your cake ideas.

Cake Ideas – New Years Cakes

Cake ideas for the new year can maybe be a little harder to come up with. If you have a New Year's Eve or New Year's Day party, you could make a decorated cake to bring in the new year that depicts an hour glass or a clock. With edible image frosting sheets, it's less difficult to go online and find a picture of "Father Time" or a party hat, horn, and confetti to put on a cake to create your masterpiece. If all else fails, one cake idea is that you can at least make an eggnog cake 😉 ! Here is a recipe to accomodate that:

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Eggnog Cream Cake

1 box French vanilla cake mix 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon rum extract (optional) ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg (divided) 1½ cups prepared eggnog 1 package (6 serving size) vanilla pudding and pie filling (NOT instant) 1 container (8oz.) frozen whipped topping, thawed Prepare cake mix according to package directions, adding extracts and ¼ teaspoon of the nutmeg to batter. Bake in 9 x 13 pan according to package directions. Cool completely in pan. In small saucepan over medium heat, cook eggnog, pudding mix, and remaining ¼ teaspoon nutmeg – stirring constantly until thickened, about 5 minutes. Cool slightly; place plastic wrap directly on pudding to prevent skin from forming.

Refrigerate to cool completely. Gently fold in whipped topping in 2 additions. Spread pudding mixture over the top of the cake. Cut into squares. Store in refrigerator.

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Since this cake is actually served in the pan, you could lay a couple of party horns close to the cake and sprinkle some 'incoming year' confetti on the table around the cake. Also have some glasses of punch or eggnog to serve with the cake. To get some ideas of what you can use for this type of party, just visit 'Celebrate Express' and 'The Party Works' banners on the right side of this page. They can accomodate all your party needs year-round, including that New Year's event.

Decorating cakes for different holidays can be challenging, but also very fun and exciting. Just let your imagination flow and you will come up with some New Year's cake ideas.

Cake Ideas – How Many Will The Cake Serve?

Cake Ideas many times revolve around how many people a cake will serve. Of course the biggest determiner to that question is how big the pieces are cut 🙂 . Generally, a cake mix box is going to say that a mix will make 12 servings. Those are pretty hefty portions if you are looking at it in a 9 x 13 pan. That means you would slice the cake in six rows the width of the cake and then cut it down the middle, making 12 pieces. We usually slice it in the six rows but cut it twice the other way for 3 rows to make 18 pieces, and these are still plenty big. It can just as easily be cut in 4 rows to produce 24 pieces. If you are serving other things like ice cream or nuts and mints, this is a nice-sized piece. Cake is usually served as a refreshment and not as a meal anyway 🙂 . Cakes done in the sheet pan (or cookie pan) that is about 11 x 17 can easily be cut to serve 28 people, and that is with just one cake mix. This is 4 rows of 7 pieces, as illustrated in the first picture below. The second picture shows individual pieces marked for a 12 x 18 cake that will serve 50 people. It uses 2 cake mixes.

Round, heart, and other miscellaneous shaped cakes are a little harder to figure for how many they will serve. It's best to keep in mind how thick the pieces will be. As in the two above pictures, the one is in the cake pan and is only about 1/2" to 3/4" thick. The second one is from a 2" deep pan. So even though the pieces in the second one are smaller in surface area, they are also at least twice at thick as the one in the pan. If the decorated cake is a layer cake, you have even more height so the pieces can be cut narrower for the same amount of serving size. As you can see, decorating cakes for that special occasion can be a little tricky in the planning when it comes to figuring how many it will serve. The shape of the pan and the height of the cake can account for several variables. But just as a basic guide, a good rule of thumb is to figure one mix will make anywhere from 18 to 24 pieces to serve the guests. Of course, the biggest thing to figure in would be the person cutting the cake. If they like hefty pieces on the plate, you may just come up short in the end. Guest will then either be receiving a 'sliver' of cake in order to make it stretch, or they will get not at all 🙁 . If unsure there will be enough to go around, take a stash of homemade chocolate chip cookies to serve to the end of the line if you do run out, and I'm sure they will be just as happy 🙂 .

Cake Ideas – Bright Ideas!

Cake ideas and cookie ideas are a couple of things that can be found online without much effort. There is actually a site called Bright Ideas – "a mecca for mingling with other creative friends and the perfect place for finding inspiration for ‘any day’ or ‘everyday’ celebrations. . . It's the perfect place for birthday and holiday ideas, but we think you'll find it's so packed with creative thinking that you’ll be inspired to make every day a special day." You can actually search for what you are interested in by activities, events & parties, holidays, ingredients, and difficulty. You can not only 'get ideas', but also 'give ideas' on this site. They have tons of recipes and a free newsletter you can subscribe to (Don't forget to subscribe to ours while you are here 🙂 ). There are some really clever ideas for treats for kids to take to school for different holidays, or to add a little festivity to the dining table for your family get-together. This is just a very fun site we wanted to share with our readers, even though it's not just limited to decorating cakes and cake ideas.