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Saturday, March 6, 2010
Kid Birthday Cake Idea Collection - Cake Decorating Without Fear
By Patricia Jensen





Our kid birthday cake idea collection makes cake decorating fun and fearless. You don't have to be a pastry chef to create a professional quality cake for your child's birthday or other special event. Learn unique and easy cake decorating ideas to make spectacular homemade cakes.

PARTY CAKE CONCEPT AND DESIGN

The most important kid birthday cake idea is choosing a cake concept which fits with your party theme. You can start with a simple sheet cake topped with small toys or figures, or piece the cake itself to form a unique design.

For example, a Construction Party cake could be topped with tiny toy dumptrucks and bulldozers pushing a chocolate chip mountain. Or, the cake itself could be cut, pieced and frosted to look like a dump truck.

For a Train Party, set a miniature choo-choo train on licorice tracks atop your cake, or line up several brightly colored frosted loaf cakes to form train cars.

For a Luau party, a simple round or sheet cake can be festooned with a silk flower lei, or form a string of cupcakes in a circle and adorn each one with silk or frosting flowers. Connect with a licorice string to make a cupcake "lei".

Baking cakes in an oven-safe glass bowl or in a special 3D sports ball pan is great for making any kind of perfectly round ball cake, or the dress part of a Barbie doll cake. A wonder mold cake pan makes small single serving doll cakes and other cute creations!

Think of the design you'd like to make and what shapes you need to make it - round, sheet, loaf, cupcakes, or a combination.

Peruse cake decorating books for a kid birthday cake idea which fits your needs. Many books provide templates forcutting and piecing cakes to create any number of popular designs. You decide just how simple or challenging your cake will be.

For a no-fuss kid birthday cake idea, apply an edible cake art image to the top of a frosted cake. Many popular themes and copyrighted images such as Disney are available to provide a professional looking cake design.

Themed cake pans are another popular cake decorating option. They provide the shape and visual design to follow for an impressive finished cake. Popular TV and cartoons characters are well represented in cake pans, as well as teddy bears, butterflies, pirates, Tigger,Mickey Mouse, and lots more.

FROSTING CHOICES

Homemade Frosting - Dig up that famous family recipe or check out one of the many online recipe sites and make your cake frosting from scratch. Be sure to plan ahead how much of each color will be needed for both basic foundation and decorative trim.

Canned and Tube Frostings - Easiest and quickest, prepared canned frostings are available in grocery stores in the baking aisle with the cake mixes. They generally come in white, chocolate, and a handful of other popular flavors. Keep a few ready-to-use tube frostings on hand in various basic colors to add the finishing touches.

Fondant Frosting - Gaining in popularity in this country in recent years, fondant frosting gives a beautiful smooth finish to your cake decorating creation. Fondant can be rolled out and draped over a cake, poured on as a glaze, or sculpted into shapes. It is easily tinted, and can be flavored as well. Ready-made fondant is available through party supply outlets. There are also many recipes online for homemade fondant.

CAKE DECORATING WITH CANDY AND SMALL TOYS

Cookies, candies, and other materials can be used for special and impressive effects. Frosted sugar cones can serve as the fins on a space ship cake or the turrets on a castle cake. Make a surprise cake filling with jello.

A wide variety of plastic stand-ups or cake toppers are available in craft stores. Or, simply use a toy which fits in with the party theme as a cake topper and give it to the party child when the party is over. Action figures, small dolls, animals and cartoon characters all make good choices.

Add cool candy accents with M & M's, licorice pieces, licorice whips, animal crackers, oreo cookies, paper umbrellas, pretzel sticks, tootsie rolls, jimmies, gummies such as worms, bears, etc, gumdrops, mini marshmallows, colored coconut, jellybeans.

THE LATEST CAKE DECORATING FADS!

There are many novel choices for placing the finishing touches on your party cake. Dress it up in style with one or more of these unique special effects:

Spray Color Mist - is a fun addition to your baking repertoire. Frost your cake white, then spray on edible color from an aerosol can. Available in many colors, it can be used with stencils to make unique designs, as a highlight to whipped topping - even on your child's mashed potatoes!

Luster Dusts - are an edible food safe "dust" which can be used on any frosting recipe that dries hard and firm to the touch. Brush it on white frosting for a metallic-like glossy sheen or layer it for interesting color effects.

Cake Stampers - can be used along with brush-on color for fondant icing. Simply stamp shapes and designs into the finished fondant and tint with brush-on color.

Cake Stencils - Place stencil on iced cake and sprinkle edible glitter, confetti sprinkles, or use spray-on color mist.

Edible Color Markers - These unique markers are used just like an ink marker. Draw fun designs on cakes, cookies, fondant frosting, even cheese, fruit slices and bread. Decorating marker kits are available for children.

Edible sugar-shape decorations,
decorative candles, themed cake picks and rings,and edible glitter are all fun tools in your cake baking arsenal.

Now you're armed with lots of great ideas for cake decorating success - without fear!

Go forth and create... and above all, have fun!

For more cake decorating information, check out our webpage: Kid Birthday Cake Idea Collection

Copyright 2005 Kids Party Paradise All Rights Reserved

Patricia B. Jensen is a mother of three and kids party enthusiast. She is the webmaster and owner of Kids-Party-Paradise.com - a complete resource for kids party ideas including invitations, cakes, decorations, games, costumes, favors, and food.

For all the latest party news, read her Kids Party Blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patricia_Jensen


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Thursday, March 4, 2010
Easy Cake Decorating Ideas For Beginners
By Ginger Parker



Beautiful cakes are not just for big bucks on extra-special occasions. You can learn easy cake decorating ideas that you can do yourself to make even an ordinary boxed cake mix look extraordinary. With a few simple tools and techniques and the easy cake decorating ideas in this article, you'll be able to make a beautiful cake yourself at home.

Icing The Cake

Most of the time, you'll want to start with smooth icing all over the cake. To get a smooth surface, make sure the cake is completely cooled and your frosting is not too thick. Thinner icing will spread more easily and end up with a smoother finish.

First, put a very thin layer of frosting all over the cake. This is called the crumb coat, and it will keep crumbs from getting mixed in with the frosting that you'll see on the finished cake. At this point, you can refrigerate the cake to set the crumb coat and make it easier to apply the top coat.

Next, use an icing spatula to put on the second coat of icing. Start with a large amount of icing in the middle of the top of the cake and spread it toward the edges. When the top of the cake is completely covered, cover the sides of the cake. To smooth the sides, hold the spatula straight up and down and hold the edge against the cake as you spin the plate.

For the best look, try to get the frosting as smooth as possible all over cake. For the top of the cake, hold the spatula perfectly horizontal. For the sides, hold it perfectly upright. Try dipping the spatula in hot water and drying it before gliding across the frosting for even smoother results.

Getting smooth, even icing on your cakes is probably the hardest part of cake decorating. Practice these techniques until you can get perfectly smooth frosting, and you might find that you don't even need any other cake decorating ideas for an elegant, beautiful cake.

Simple Cake Decorating Ideas

For a simply elegant cake with a really easy technique, dust your frosted cake with powdered sugar. Try using a stencil for a themed or geometric design on the top of the cake. Remember making paper snowflakes as a kid? Make one to fit the top of your cake and use it as a stencil for a one-of-a-kind powdered sugar design.

If you want a more detailed, three-dimensional design, you can buy ready-to-use decorations and cake toppers in just about any theme you can think of. Candy flowers and letters, sprinkles in special shapes, and even small toys can be used to top your cake.

For an especially tasty look, sprinkle the cake with candy, nuts, shredded coconut, or chocolate shavings. Or use fresh fruit, like a simple ring of strawberry slices or an elaborate pattern of a few kinds of fruits. For a different style, decorate only the sides of the cake and leave the top smooth, or surround a simply frosted cake with fresh fruit or flowers.

Another option is to use a decorating comb or decorating triangle to add texture to the frosting. A decorating comb is a simple piece of plastic or metal with a variety of shaped edges. You drag the comb along the frosting to leave a textured pattern in the frosting. This is a great option if you're having trouble getting your icing as smooth as you want it to be.

Anyone Can Master These Easy Cake Decorating Ideas

These easy cake decorating ideas will help you make all your cakes more beautiful and are easy enough for anyone to learn. Master these techniques, and then consider taking cake decorating classes locally or online to learn more advanced cake decorating ideas and techniques like piping with a pastry bag and using fondant.

Want to learn more advanced cake decorating ideas and techniques? Try inexpensive and convenient cake decorating classes that you can take online.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ginger_Parker

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Cake Beautifying: How About Birthday Cakes For Grownups
Cake beautifying for grownups are a little opposed to those you'd make for a kids party. It does not mean they need to be boring or ugly. Below are more or less great ideas for grownup 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 harmonizing to the recipe found on the back of the box of cereal. When they have cooled, do not cut the treats, take it from the cooking pan like they are.

Cover the top of the first layer with icing, 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'd a normal cake. Place a layer of colored chocolate candy on the top. You can even arrange 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 blending it with white icing. Turn the cake away 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'll be able to find gummy skeletons at Halloween, or make your own out of toothpicks and use jelly beans for heads. Ghosts can be created 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 accredited by a husband or wife. Bake two round cakes and let them cool altogether. Remove the cakes from the cooking pan. Cover up the top of one cake with the recipient's favorite fruit pie filling. Place the second layer on top and ice the entire cake.

Purchase a bag of small cake donuts and frost them the same as you did the cake. On the cake board place one of the dounuts up against the bottom of the cake. Follow this with several other donuts to make a chain. You'll be able to add another decorations on the cake, or leave it plain, it's up to you.

No matter what theme you select, the cake beautifying will be appreciated by the individual having the birthday. Make a point you add up candles and bring a cake server when you go to the party. Every time you make a cake and decorate it, you are perfecting your cake beautifying skills and the more practice you get, the better you'll be at cake beautifying.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010
Cake Beautifying Societies
There's a wizard about a attractively beautified cake at a getting together. Whether it is a birthday cake or a quadruplet level wedding cake. A function of artistic creation inward confectionery comprises the centerpiece of any limited social occasion. While it is a long catch from opening canned icing on a piece of paper cake, to making a work of artistic creation that will stop the show, it's a amusing and rewarding experience to travel the road.

At that place are wise man* that give notice assistance you to attain the beauty of buttercream, because the freshly revitalization of interest group in cake beautifying. There are numerous cake beautifying societies. One of the oldest cake beautifying societies, The Fremont Frosters, to one of the newest , The Contra Costa Cake and Sugar Society.

The 40 year-old Frosters, have members from Santa Clara to San Leandro, California, apportion a long time of experience, points, and plays a trick on with other members of the society. They gather once a calendar month, they own a internet site, and a quarterly mailing list called up Sweet Graffiti, that is filled up with seasonal cake beautifying ideas and pictures. Each month a member contributes a demonstration on cake beautifying at the meeting. They find that all degrees of cake designers will find out something from each demonstration.

Sometime most of the members attend how a design or ornamentation is made, by breaking up the process, they learn how simple it is to determine the different artistic techniques. It is easy to see it wasn't a great mystery story afterward altogether and can be well-educated with practice session.

Cake beautifying classes are more popular than ever. Craftiness stores are met with information about classes, and instruments for cake beautifying. If you are not measured you'll be able to expend a lot of money on tools around to help with cake beautifying. Beginning, you don't require to have everything you will be able to get your hands on when it concerns Cake beautifying.

Altogether the beginning cake designer asks are tips to create leaves, borders, and swags, disposable icing bags, and couplings to attach the tips. An frosting pattern for smoothening the top of a cake is helpful, a paint edger from the local hardware store will work on for this.

There were many more cake beautifying societies inward the 1960's when womanhoods expended many clock time in the home, and comprised capable to absorb the artistic creation of cake baking and beautifying. As time went by and most of the women started out having jobs, most of them were dissolved.

A lot of womanhoods are checking fresh cable system TV food shows that are alluring home base bakers indorse into cake beautifying and studying European techniques such as applying rolled fondant. The interest in cake beautifying comprises immense and arising bigger every day. Enrollment in Wilton cake beautifying courses have grown over the past few years.

Numerous people believe cake beautifying is easy, because the TV pros, who have been cake beautifying for 30 years, get in look that way. They don't realize that it will take a good deal of practice to be able to get the same result as the pros do

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