Tips and Tools to Decorate a Children's Birthday Cake

Young children just love celebrating their birthday. They can't wait for it to come by. As a parent, we want to make the day special for them too. Apart from the birthday present, the birthday cake is the next most important thing in their birthday celebration. You can always place an order for a specially decorated cake, but they can be quite costly. Furthermore, if you have such a cake one year, you may feel obligated to have such a cake every year. Afterall, you don't want make your children feel that some birthdays are more special then others.

There's another way to add "specialness" to your children's birthday cake: bake and decorate it yourself. The effort and love you put into making the birthday cake will definitely give your children that special feeling. Also, it's more cost effective. It's one way to save money.

If you are new to cake decorating, here is a list of tools you should have to start off your new skill:

• Rubber spatulas These spatulas are flexible and are best used for scraping cake and frosting bowls.
• Metal spatulas Get one large metal spatula as well as a small angled one. They will help you to spread and smooth frosting on the cake. Use the small metal spatula to carefully spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake. This helps to keep the cake from crumbling. After that you can spread on a normal layer of frosting.
• Piping bags At the stores, you will find available reusable bags that come in 8 inches, 12 inches and 18 inches. You can also use disposable plastic bags and zip-lock bags.
• Couplers The icing tips in the piping bags are held by coupling nozzles. These nozzles allow you to switch to different types of tips for various decorating effects.
• Food coloring paste, gel, or powder Unlike liquid food coloring, these kinds of colorings are more concentrated. Plus they will not thin the icing.
• Turntable You could ice a cake without a turntable but it would be much easier if you had one. Even a lazy susan will work.

The following are cake decorating tips you should know:

• Have your ingredients at room temperature because they mix better.
• Invest in a good and reliable electric beater. Beating by hand, you may not get all the lumps out.
• Cool your cakes by inverting them onto a wire rack. Give time for the cake to completely cool down before you begin to decorate. You'll have problems if the cake is still warm. Your decoration may turn out horrible.
• Trim your cake flat then turn it upside down. Your cake will then sit flat. The bottom of the cake is smoother and therefore better used as the top of the cake to decorate with icing.
• Instead of buying a cake board, you can use a large piece of stiff cardboard and cover it with colored foil.
• Determine what kind of icing will suit your decoration best. Butter Cream is a great icing for decorating birthday cakes.
• To avoid smearing the cake board, place cut up strips of waxed paper under the cake. After you have finished with your decorating, just pull them out. They will come out easily and your cake board will be nice and clean.

You'll probably make mistakes and do a less then satisfactory job the first few tries at cake decorating. Do not be disheartened. Mistakes are just stepping stones to making a nicer cake next time.

Cake decorating can be fun and easy if you know how to do it right. With the right instructions, you too can create marvelous cake decorations, just like in the shops (or better). Click to discover the best way to learn how to decorate a cake.

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