Cake and Cupcake Decorating - Basic Tips and Supplies for Beginners to Get Started

With all of the cake and cupcake shows on television now, more and more people are starting to learn how to decorate cakes and cupcakes. It can be intimidating for a first timer to walk into a cake decorating or craft store to buy tools. Where do you start? What do you buy first? That's where I can help you.

Cakes

To start baking cakes, purchase standard sized 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pans that are two inches high. They should be good quality for long term usage. I suggest purchasing 3 or 4 because there will be times when you need to make a three-layer cake and other times when you need to make two different flavor cakes at the same time.

Kitchen supplies needed for cake decorating include parchment paper to use as a liner for your cake pans and to use as disposable decorating bags. If you choose to use the disposable decorating bags, remember to purchase the couplers so that you can easily change the tips while decorating. A sharp knife allows you to trim the dome cleanly off your baked cake without tearing it. A spatula and small turntable allow you to ice your cakes like the professionals.

Cupcakes

To start baking cupcakes, purchase a standard sized cupcake pan and a miniature sized cupcake pan. Miniature sized cupcake pans are the perfect size for little kids and cuts down on the amount of cupcake wasted. The standard sized cupcake pans are perfect for adults. Invest in cookie scoops as well to make it easier for you to control portion size and ensure even baking.

Cupcake supplies are inexpensive. Small and regular sized paper liners are easy to find as well as sugar crystals and sanding sugar used to sprinkle over your frosting. To add a shimmery effect on your cakes and cupcakes, use white edible glitter.

Buttercream Decorating

Basic buttercream cake decorating tools to start with include tips 3 (writing), 12 (large round tip), 21 (star tip), 104 (petal), and 352 (leaf tip). There are other tips on the market but these are the ones you will use the most.

You can create beautiful designs using these tips. Tip 12 can be used to create swirls or a continuous large ball shaped border. Tip 21 can be used to create top and bottom border designs as well as a complete side border of zig zags. Tip 104 makes ruffles, roses, rosebuds, drapes and bows. Tip 352 makes an extremely easy leaf and continuous wave design.

Fondant Decorating

Fondant is the medium used to create designer looking cakes. It is actually easy to work with if you remember two things. First, after removing the fondant from its packaging, lightly coat your hands with shortening and knead the fondant smooth. You can then roll out to a 1/4-inch thickness on a non-stick mat. Second, if your fondant is too hard to knead, place it in the microwave at 5-10 second intervals on 50 percent power to soften it. Proceed to roll it out and use it to cover your cakes and cupcakes. For 8-inch round cakes, I roll out a 16" round circle using a 16-inch round cake board as a template. For 9-inch round cakes, I roll out an 18-inch circle using an 18-inch round cake board as a template. There are fondant tools - special mats, smoothers and other supplies to help you during the fondant covering process. I have found success using two fondant smoothers.

Cupcakes can be covered with 1-inch or 2-inch round disks of fondant that can be decorated with punch cutters. Punch cutters are used to cut out pieces of fondant and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. To start off you should purchase a set of daisy cutters, blossom cutters, and a standard sized leaf cutter. Wilton has a set of designer pattern presses that you should also check out. They can be used on both cakes and cupcakes and make beautiful designs. Just practice using them before actually decorating your cake so that you know how much pressure to use to get a perfect design.

With these tips and techniques, you will be off to a great start as a cake and cupcake decorator. Most of all, remember to have fun.

Debra J. Mosely is the author of The Cake & Cookie Closet: All Dolled Up in Sugar. She's out to teach the world how to "dream in sugar." Tell your family and friends about her. http://www.thecakeandcookiecloset.com/

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe for Children's Party

If you are planning to host a children's party, you need to think about food and fun. You can plan games and activities so that your party guests will enjoy the party. By preparing for some simple games like balloon games or activities like dancing and singing, you won't have to invite a clown to entertain the children. For food, you can prepare chocolate cupcakes since they are easy to make.

As one cupcake is meant to be served to only one person, it will be easy for you to estimate the cost. You can simply count the number of children invited and their companions like their mothers or fathers. Cupcakes are served in paper cupcake liners, so there's no need for additional eating wares such as plates and spoons. Therefore, you don't have to worry about some children dropping eating utensils while they are eating. Besides, cupcakes can be easily arranged in one table, thus giving the children more space to do their activities.

Cupcakes are easy to prepare and children will enjoy eating them. Chocolate cupcakes are popular among children. To make a dozen cupcakes, you need the following ingredients: 5 eggs, 150 grams of sugar, ? teaspoon of cake emulsifier, 140 grams of flour, 25 grams of cocoa powder, 100 grams of margarine, 200 ml of fresh milk, 100 grams of cooking chocolate and chocolate paste.

First, pre-heat oven to 175°C. Place paper cupcake liners in a muffin or cupcake pan, and keep aside. Fold eggs, then add sugar, emulsifier, flour and cocoa powder. Mix for seven minutes until fluffy. Add margarine, and mix well. Pour the batter into the paper liners and then bake for 20 minutes in the pre-heated oven. Remove the cupcakes from oven and let them cool for a while at room temperature.

For the frosting, mix cold fresh milk with chocolate paste. Put the frosting into a piping bag and decorate the top of the cupcakes. You can decorate the cakes with tiny flowers, balls, butterflies, or other attractive shapes children will like. Shave the cooking chocolate and sprinkle them on top of the frosting. Put cupcakes in refrigerator until they are ready to be served.

You can prepare this cupcakes earlier so that you will have more time to do other preparations. Since cupcakes are easy to make, you can also make some more as treats for your guests to take home. Even a small children's party can be memorable for parents and especially children.

5 Decorated Cupcake Ideas for Girls

Cupcakes are really flexible and you don't need a special occasion to make them. Recently, I've been more inspired than usual so I decided to try quite a few decorated cupcake ideas. I must say, they turned out pretty great! They're perfect for mums who want to surprise her kids with extra-specials treats in an ordinary day. You can make the cupcakes themselves in advance and the decorations can be put in place a couple of hours before you serve them.

Here are few decorated cupcake ideas you may want to try for yourself:

Fruit - Fresh fruit have been used to decorate cakes before, but you can also do the same to cupcakes. Pick your child's favorite fruit. Berries and even mangoes are a great choice, but whatever's in season will also work. To balance the taste, prepare your buttercream icing with cream cheese; smooth out a thick dollop with a spatula on top of the cupcake. Simply position your fruit choices on top of the icing so that it won't fall off.

Gummy Drops - You don't have to make everything from scratch when you are decorating your cupcakes. If you don't want to use too much icing but would still like to make it pop, you can use gummy drops instead. There's an assortment of designs and flavors to choose from. Don't forget to put a thin layer of buttercream icing at the bottom to hold them in place.

Glamorous Stars - Little girls need to feel like stars sometimes, and a star-designed personal cupcake may just do the job. Bake her favorite flavor using a foil liner. With a 1M decorating bag tip, pipe an icing swirl on top using buttercream icing in her favorite color. Sprinkle it with dark silver stars and 2mm cachous.

Cookie Flowers - Flowers are very basic among decorated cupcake ideas, but you may not want to use sugar flowers. Women and girls alike would enjoy a flower made from cookies. Just roll out a premade cookie dough and cut flower petals using a flower-shaped cookie cutter. After you've baked it well, outline and fill the top of the cookies using a thinned color flow icing. This would take hours to dry so you should make this a day in advance. Brush the surface with some pearl dust to make it shine.

Fairy Cakes - One of the things every mum should know is how to make fairy cupcakes for her girls. When making your cupcake base, be sure to fill only half of your baking mold with the batter. After it has thoroughly cooled off, ice the top with a fondant-style glaze. Before it could dry, put a small icing crown at the center. You can also put miniature edible flowers if you want.

These are only five of the many decorated cupcake ideas you can apply. There are many other ways to decorate a cupcake from simple icing sugar sprinkles to the most exotic intricate fondant models. A quick search through the internet will give you a heap more ideas. Good luck and have fun making your cupcakes!

Michelle Bloom is a writer for Cupcake City an Australian online e-store that sells a variety of cupcake products such as cupcake carriers and lovely cupcake liners, cupcake decorations and cupcake stands.

Perfect Cupcake Ideas

Want that perfect cupcake for your perfect party? Don't want to pay big bucks for them either? Make them yourself while saving money and getting the cupcake you want. You can use the whole cupcake as part of the decorations. Everything from the batter to the icing on top can match your theme.

To start you can color the batter before it's baked to match you party theme with food coloring. Light colored batters can be changed into almost any color. For a baby shower you could color the batter pink or blue. That would just be cute. You can even just swirl chocolate and white cake batter together to get a beautifully yummy cupcake that everyone would love.

The key to a perfect cupcake is the icing. It can be as simple as just the perfect color and cute sprinkles that matches your theme. If you want to get brave and use two colors of icings, it's very easy. You will need 3 piping bags and tips. Two of the bags will hold each color, one in each bag. Then the third to hold the two bags with color together to be used like it is just one bag. It makes a cute swirl pattern in the icing. Blue and white make a great cupcake for a water theme party; beach theme, pool party or ocean theme.

If you want to add more than just color to your cupcakes, you have many different decorating options. Fondant, candies, prints your own toppers, and even just the right icing tip can make some beautiful cupcakes.

Just about any cookie cutter can be used to cut shapes out of rolled out fondant. Hearts, stars, or just shapes make very beautiful cupcakes. If you are brave enough, fondant can even be molded into 3d shapes to match your theme. They also make all kinds of candies in cute fun shapes that could be added to the top of cupcakes. Gummy hamburgers are great for a barbecue party or gummy pizzas for a sleepover party. Take a quick walk down the candy isle at the grocery store to get lots of ideas. Many online sites offer a print your own cupcake toppers to match your theme. They can even personalize them with names or dates. There are sites that will do the design work for you for a fee and ones that offer you the free template you can design yourself.

Cute cupcakes can be made with the right icing tip. Wilton tip number 333 with multiple holes makes great grass. Wilton tip number 48 is a great tip to make the basket weave pattern. Wilton tip number 352 is perfect for leaves and flower petals. Layers of petals with tip number 352 would make a great cupcake flower.

Your next themed party can be perfect with a great cupcake you made. You can use a combination of ideas to make an outstanding cupcake. Colored batter, colored icing and the decoration on top will make your cupcakes a star of the party.

Find many more cupcake and cake tutorials on The Cake Class. They are sure to make your next party a hit, like these high heel cupcakes.