Decorating Kids Birthday Cakes – The Basic Essentials

When I first started baking and decorating my kids birthday cakes, the variety of decorating tools I could buy seemed endless. And there was so much advice out there on cake decorating! It was a whole new world to me. Still, I reined in my impulsive nature to buy everything I thought I needed, and purchased some basic tools. It is these basics which have ‘stood by me’ in my quest for decorating those colourful creations my kids ask for each year on their birthdays.

In addition to these ideas, I’ve added some helpful suggestions for decorating your child’s next birthday cake – some of which were given to me freely from others whilst a few goodies were borne from my own mistakes…

Cake Decorating Equipment:

You don’t necessarily need elaborate equipment but you will need some basic supplies. You can purchase most of the following supplies at specialty baking shops or even your local supermarket. They are indispensable for baking and decorating any birthday cake your child might dream up.

Rubber Spatulas:

It’s good to have a set of assorted sizes that are made of flexible rubber. They’re the best tool for scraping frosting from the sides of bowls.

Metal Spatulas:

Have at least one large and one small angled spatula for spreading and smoothing frosting. Avoid your cake crumbling by using a small metal spatula to gently ice the cake with a very thin layer of frosting before adding the ‘real’ layer. This process is called ‘crumb coating’.

Piping Bags:

Reusable 8″, 12″ and 18″ bags with plastic coating on the inside for easy cleaning. Clear plastic disposable zip-lock bags are great for small jobs.

Coupling Nozzles:

These nozzles are essential because they allow you to change your tips according to the design. They can also act as a very large round writing tip for piping figures.

Gel, Powder or Paste Food colouring:

These are preferable to liquid food colouring because they are more concentrated and will not thin down the frosting.

Tips:

1. Have all ingredients at room temperature.

2. Use an electric mixer when beating the cake mixture. You’ve more chance of eliminating bumps in the pre-cooked cake mixture.

3. Wire Cake Racks are essential for cooling and inverting cakes.

4. Trim baked cake so it sits flat. Use the smooth base as the top of the finished cake and decorate with icing.

5. To stop crumbling, bake the cake the day before you need to decorate it and put it in the freezer.

6. Decorate while still cold.

7. Cake boards are quite cheap to pick up from cake decorating shops. Or you can cover a large piece of cardboard (cut from a box) with coloured foil.

8. Butter Cream Icing is great for decorating cakes. The only thing I have found with butter cream icing is that when you add colouring, a pastel colour is the only colour it will go to. This is because of the fat in the butter. If you want a darker colour, you have three options: Use plain icing sugar and water then add colouring; replace the butter in the butter cream icing recipe with vegetable shortening or; add black coloured powder to your icing mixture – it will deepen the colour.

9. Cut strips of waxed paper to slip underneath the edges of your unfrosted cake. When finished, you can pull them away and you won’t smear the cake board.

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Creative Cake Decorating For A Kids Birthday

Below are a few birthday cake decorating ideas that will help make your child’s birthday a very memorable occasion.

- Candy Land Cake: Make a standard sheet cake in your child’s favorite flavor, in a rectangular pan. When it is cool, frost it with buttercream frosting in your child’s favorite color. If you can get your hands on a Candy Land game board, you will be able to fashion the cake decorating to resemble the board. You can also go to Candyland.com to see a game board.

The Candy Land game features peppermints, iced gingerbread men, colored gumdrops, licorice sticks, chocolate candies, and circus peanuts. If you can’t find some of these items, You can use construction paper to make them, staple or tape them to a popsicle stick to stand it up in the cake.

- Race car cake: Bake two cakes, one in a loaf cake pan and one in a rectangular pan. Allow the cakes to cool thoroughly. Remove them from the pans, cut the loaf cake in an arch, like the shape of the top of the car. Frost the sheet cake and place the cut loaf cake in the middle, centered to give the cake balance.

Ice the car with a different color icing than you did the cake, red or blue are good racing colors. You should be able to find decorations in the store for this cake. Use your imagination, many times craft stores have some nice decorations. You can either use icing to outline the doors and windows, or string licorice works well for this. Small chocolate doughnuts make a good tires for your race car.

- The Doll Cake: This cake is very popular with young girls who still love to play with dolls. Bake a cake in a metal, oven safe, bowl. When the cake has cooled, turn the cake out, centered, onto a prepared cake board. The widest part of the cake should be on the board.

Use a butter knife to hollow out a spot in the top of the cake for the doll’s legs. Once the doll is inserted, the cake becomes a dress for the doll. Make sure the doll is clean and undressed. Wrap the legs in plastic wrap before placing the doll into the cake, up to her waist. Ice the cake and the top of the doll to make it appear that the doll is fully dressed. You can purchase accents at the supermarket to jazz up the dress.

These cakes are a great idea for children who love different themes, and you have a fondness for cake decorating, These are basic, simple ideas, for a children’s theme party too. You can use the doll cake and have a Barbie theme party, the race car cake to have a Car’s theme party, and of course, you can decorate for the Candy Land party with huge gumdrops and gingerbread men made of construction paper to hang or affix to the walls.

You may also want to include a pinata that goes along with the party theme.

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Let The Kids Make Their Own BirthdayCake

Children’s parties can take so much to organize. Try this time saving idea and create an original cake.

It’s birthday time. And it is time for you to arrange your child’s birthday party.

There is so much to think about and do.

Firstly you need to find some invitations and write on them. This is after arguing about how many can come and who to invite.

You will need to come up with a menu of food and then either buy it or make it.

There are the decorations. Balloons, streamers, table cloth, banners…

The party favors for all the guest to take home. Some food for the parents that stay. A party outfit for your child, something for you.

Argh! Does it ever stop.

And then, of course is the cake. Oh my the CAKE.

What to do? Well by this stage there is no budget left (that blew out at the invitation stage).

Do you make something?

You could.

But of course your child wants a cake that looks like a dalmatian puppy/palomino pony/tyrannosaurus/a transformer – that transforms/harry potter/hogwarts. (What ever happened to Humpty Dumpty?)

Too hard, too tiring and not enough time.

OK. Lets try something novel.

Why not make (or buy) enough cupcakes for each child to have one. Cover with plain frosting.

And then…

Let the Children decorate.

All you need do is to set out an array of candies, sprinkles and chocolates. And let each child decorate their own cupcake.

For smaller children just let them decorate which ever way they like.

But for older children, maybe you could set a theme. You could even go as far as to award prizes. Though, I do suggest enough prizes for each child. They could be awarded for the best use of candy, the most original, for thinking outside the square, most life like etc etc.

This not only solves the cake issue but keeps them occupied for ages.

And to cherish the moment, why not take a photo of each child’s completed cake.

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Cake Decorating – How About Birthday Cakes For Adults

Cake decorating for adults are a bit different than those you would do for a kids party. It doesn’t mean they need to be boring or ugly. Below are some great ideas for adult cakes that are fun to make and fun to eat.

Crunchie Rice Cake

In 2 square cake pans, make 2 batches of rice cereal treats according to the recipe found on the back of the box of cereal. When they have cooled, do not cut the treats, take them from the pans like they are.

Cover the top of the first layer with icing, and then a layer of chocolate chips, and a second layer of icing, and then a layer of multicolored sprinkles, and a third layer of icing. Place the second layer of the crunchie cake on top and frost the whole thing as you would a normal cake. Place a layer of colored chocolate candy on the top. You can even put the name of the recipient in candy. This is a whimsical cake that can be used for adults or children.

Over the Hill Graveyard Cake

Bake two cake mixes in a roasting pan. Make a gray icing with 2 drops of green and red food coloring and mixing it with white icing. Turn the cake out on a cake board ice the entire cake with this icing. Line a sidewalk with thin black licorice, and dot candy corn along the outside edges. Rectangular cookies can be iced with a darker gray icing. These can be used as gravestones.

You can find gummy skeletons at Halloween, or make your own out of toothpicks and use jelly beans for heads. Ghosts can be made from cotton balls, but you need to make sure no cotton gets in the icing you may want to make some out of construction paper and stick them on a popsicle stick. That might be a good idea for the skeletons too.

Ball and Chain Birthday cake

This is a great idea if commissioned by a husband or wife. Bake two round cakes and let them cool completely. Remove the cakes from the pans. Cover the top of one cake with the recipient’s favorite fruit pie filling. Place the second layer on top and ice the entire cake.

Buy a bag of small cake donuts and frost them the same as you did the cake. On the cake board place one of the doughnuts up against the bottom of the cake. Follow this with several other doughnuts to make a chain. You can add different decorations on the cake, or leave it plain, it’s up to you.

No matter what theme you choose, the cake decorating will be appreciated by the person having the birthday. Make sure you add candles and bring a cake server when you attend the party. Every time you make a cake and decorate it, you are honing your cake decorating skills and the more practice you get, the better you will be at cake decorating.

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