My Chocolate Fantasy

Cake decorating Halloween themes can be a blast. The cake actually has become an essential part of our celebrations today. May that be a birthday, wedding, anniversary, homecoming party or a house warming ceremony, with the festive food you will find a decorated cake on the dining table. So when it is Halloween time you will find a cake to match the festivities.

The tradition of Halloween dates back thousands of years to Celtic rituals. People believed that on once a year the human world and the other dark world of the spirits and ghosts overlap. It is possible for the spirits to return to earth. The date was fixed as October 31.

In the olden days the Celts celebrated their new year on November 1. Which was a official day marked as the end of summer and beginning of cold and dark winter in Ireland.

Over the years two Roman traditions were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration. The first tradition was commemorating the dead and the second was to honor the Roman Goddess of fruit and trees called Pomona.

The modern day celebration of Halloween is the mixture of the ancient beliefs and now it is celebrated to have fun.

The surrounding imagery for Halloween is a mixture of old customs and traditions and of course American filmmakers and graphic artists. They have come up with amazing characters. The common theme is dark and mysterious. It also involves skeletons, ghosts, mythical monsters. Bats, Owls and crows along with haunted houses and pumpkin men, black cats are very common things that are associated with Halloween.

All of these things are to be found on a cake decorating for Halloween. The house is decorated to resemble to the haunted house or for Dracula’s castle and the cake is decorated with spiders, black cats or bats.

You can get cake toppings with figures associated with Halloween. The figures could be that of Grim Reaper, or Halloween witch. You can have fun with these cake toppers. Cake decorating Halloween can be a family fun activity. If your children can join to decorate the cake the entire family can have lots of fun.

You get many more things to decorate your Halloween cake in the market. Few of them are Halloween Skeleton and hands that you can stick on the cake. You get some spooky looking rings that can be placed on the cake to add to the spirit of the season.

3D Halloween Luminaries Picks can add another dimension to your cake. The predominant color of the season is orange and black. If you have black icing on the cake and it is a chocolate cake and if you stick orange illuminated sticks on the cake it will really blend in with the atmosphere of Halloween.

Cake decorating Halloween can be a fun filled activity for the entire family and it can be a very enriching experience for all the members of the family.

Halloween cake decorating is fun for all ages. Halloween is all about haunted houses, carved pumpkins, and edible eyeballs. The spirit to honor the dead and trying to make sense of life after death has found its way into the Halloween spirit.

The American film makers have helped the haunted spirit and spooky figures of the Halloween a lot. Bats, black cats, ghosts, spiders, crows, witches and ghouls, everything that is spooky can be an ides that find its way into the Halloween cake decorating.

Vampires, aliens, zombies, mummies, werewolves, demons and mystical monsters these are some of the popular Halloween characters. But the symbolism in the modern times is inspired by the classic American films. They deal with fictitious characters such as Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Mummy and the Wolf man.

When you are baking a cake for Halloween party you can be very creative. You can make the haunted house. If you are throwing a kiddy party then you can bake a chocolate cake. Cover the cake with black icing. You can pipe in white icing to make a spider web. If you can manage a big spider on the top, try or you can go in for artificial spider to complete the picture. The kids will live it.

Halloween cake decorating is fun if you are making a cake for elder children. You can be as graphic as you want. You can use different molds to bake the cake and make them look like human body parts. Use red, orange and black colors to decorate your cake. You can use readymade Halloween figures that are available in the market. Green monsters, spooky looking aliens can also make your Halloween cake decorating all the more spooky.

There are many superstitions in connection with Halloween. Bats and black cats are a major part of superstitions. One of the superstitions is if a bat comes in the house on the Halloween day that means that it is a sign. It is a sign of spirits and ghosts are near your house or they are already in your house and they let the bat come into the house.

If you spot a spider on Halloween it means a dead loved one is watching you.

All these superstitions will help you to Halloween cake decorating. You can cut a flat cake into a bat shape. Use black icing use red color for the eyes and paint white teeth. Put those on the cake.

Halloween cake decorating can be fun to do. There are lots of things particular to Halloween such as the carved pumpkin, lanterns and the popular ghost stories. You can pick up any idea. Bake the cake, at times two or three different cakes using different molds. And you can create the entire spirit of Halloween on the cake. Make use of readymade Halloween figures that you get in the market or just be creative and make some figures yourself. It does not matter they do not look perfect. All the aliens that we see in the cinema or read about in the books are never good looking. The messier the look the better, so just go for it.

Easy cake decorating tips are not too hard to find. When it comes to cake decoration, many find it a very difficult task indeed. To bake a cake is easier than to decorate it. If you are trying to bake a cake for your kid’s birthday or you want to show off your new home to your friends and you have invited them for tea and you want to impress them further by your culinary expertise what better thing to do than serve delightfully decorated cake with tea?

When it comes to the cake decorating part the problem starts. If you are not very good with drawing then your problem is becomes all the more difficult. So what do you do in this situation? Well, here are few tricks of the trade.

It is easy to decorate a cake which has a flat surface. So make sure that the cake you bake, has a flat surface. In order to do that what you could do is after putting in the batter for the cake in the pan you should rap the pan on the counter for a few times. This will ensure that the air bubbles trapped in the batter are removed.

This will help to have a flat topped cake. But this is not enough. You have to make sure that the cake pan gets even heat. You could help your cake by rapping a wet and thick piece of a towel around it and join the ends together by a pin. As the oven starts heating the moist heat from the wet towel will help your cake to rise and bake the cake evenly. Once you achieve the flat top cake decorating it becomes all the more easy.

Now you can get icing kits in the market. You get different tips for the icing. So all you have to do is to follow the instructions on the pack of ready made icing pack and decorate your cake.

If you can make this into a family activity, your children will help you decorate the cake. This will help them feel great about themselves and even if the decoration is not perfect it will not matter!

Another attractive thing is the color combination of the cake. If you make a chocolate cake, decorate it with white color icing. Arrange some multicolored candies in any which way you want. Make arrows or just sprinkle them and you will be the greatest mummy in the world.

If you want to decorate cup cakes just a drop of mixed fruit jam will do the trick. Or you can place a slice of any fruit on the top. Here again if you pay attention to the color combination then you will have a winner on your hand.

You can go in the shop and look for some edible flowers and different things that are available in the market. Once you have that you can recreate many different designs by using those things. There are some books available in the market which tells you how to make those things step by step. Just follow the instructions and you can come up with some very fine looking cake decorations all by yourself.

Decorating a cake can be a blast. In fact, decorating a cake is an art. It is all about making the finished product look good and very interesting. If the cake is meant for the kids then it also should be inviting enough for the kids to make them taste it.

If the decorating of the cake is done properly half of the job of a successful event is done. Cake is universally liked thing to eat. It can be eaten as dessert or as an accompaniment with the afternoon tea of coffee or just as something to munch on. So decorating a cake is all the more important.

When you are thinking of decorating a cake first thing to think about is the end consumer of the product. If the cake is for the tiny tots then first thing to remember is the shape and theme of the party. The children are fond of their favorite cartoon character or they want their super hero of the time. If the cake is made of a known hero or a cartoon character then decorating the cake becomes that much easy. Correct color combination is required and bingo the character comes to life.

If it is a wedding cake then decorating a cake becomes a lot more intricate matter. The cake decorator can either match the decoration with the décor of the venue or with the dress of the bride, or the flowers she is going to carry. This is where the art part of the decorating the cake comes in. Not only the color combination comes into play but the flowers also play an important part in the decoration. It is once in a life time situation so everything should be just right. Each flower has to be perfect.

There is tremendous scope for imagination when it comes to decorating a cake. Icing sugar, candies, colored sugar particles, butter cream icing, marzipan, and flowers made from marzipan, these are some of the things used for decorating a cake. White or dark melted chocolate combined with heavy cream makes a velvety smooth icing. It is called Ganache. It gives a smooth backdrop to decorate the cake more attractively.

Decorating a cake holds immense attraction for the artists. Many artists from different medium have turned and tried their hand into decorating a cake. Some of the known decorators are Ron Ben of New York. He was a trained dancer. Colette Peters was a painter. Judy Uson of Philippines has a fine arts degree. Bonnie Gordon a Canadian was a student of art history.

Decorating a cake gives immense satisfaction to the creator. It is considered as a form of art. The only difference is the art creation of decorating a cake lasts only momentarily. As soon as the cake is cut the pictured is shattered but the delight on the face of the customer is award enough for the artists to try and find new ways and ideas for cake decorating.

Cake decorating ideas are plentiful on the web. In fact, after you have baked your cake, the next step is to decorate the cake to look more attractive. Cake decorating ideas are the most difficult part of the whole thing. This is more so if you are not an artist. Some people are naturally gifted, so for them decorating a cake is very easy. But for those who have no idea how things are done, cake decorating becomes a huge task. Baking a cake becomes very easy than to decorate it.

Cake decorating can be fun if some of the basic things are taken into consideration. For example if you are baking a cake for your child’s birth day then you can zero on the cake decorating ideas that are related to kids.

If the cake is baked for a tea party then the cake decorating idea should correspond to the ‘tea’ theme.

Likewise if it is a wedding cake then lots of thought process goes in to the final design on the wedding cake as it is the most significant occasion in one’s life. Everyone wants something very special for the wedding cake.

The cake should be decorated according to the occasion. If you are throwing a Valentine day party the decoration on the cake should reflect the spirit of valentine, so red roses are a must for the cake decoration.

If you want to bake a cake for your loved one then a heart shaped cake decorated with some edible flowers in yellow and red colors look great on a white back ground.

The type of icing you choose to decorate your cake can also make it look different. The trick is to get a perfect icing. If you are confident about making the icing at home then go head otherwise you get ready made icings in the market. Make use of them as it becomes that much easier to put icing on the cake.

Cake decoration idea depends on the shape of the cake as well. If a cake is baked in a shape of a shell then all you have to do is to match the colors while decorating it. It could be a white chocolate cake with some filling like butter cream and the Fondant icing will cover it. Then you can paint the lines with coco powder.

If you want to bake a cake that looks like a favorite cartoon character then you have to look for the correct mould in which you will bake the cake and then use edible or food colors to make the character look real.

You can use candies of different colors and arrange them to form a flower. It looks fabulous. You can also take into consideration the theme of the party. Cake decorating ideas can flow once you know the theme of the party. If the party is to celebrate summer then you can decorate the cake with sunflowers.

You can use some external things to make the cake look yummy. Some beads, confetti etc can take cake decorating on the other level. In other words let your imagination run wild, visualize a scene and you can transfer it on the cake.

If you are new to cake decorating, then you can be confused by the many phrases for cake decorating.  While these phrases may be intimidating at first, if you take the time to get familiar with them, then you will approach them with sureness.  Presented below are many of the most common cake decorating terms, and their meanings.  After you master these terms you will likely be inspired with your own cake decorating ideas.

 

Airbrushing

Airbrushing a cake is a rapid method to add a picture or setting onto a cake’s surface with food coloring.  Airbrushing is accomplished with an artist’s paint gun that uses an compression air pump.

 

Border

The border of a cake is a constant thread of icing that ornaments the top, sides, and/or bottom edges of a cake.

 

Buttercream

Buttercream is a rich icing created by mixing either butter or shortening (or both) with icing sugar, and beaten until smooth. Buttercream is an all-purpose icing, easily made, that can be used to both decorate and cover a cake

 

Decorating Bags

Decorating bags are also known as icing bags, frosting bags, or pastry bags.  Decorating bags are small, triangular shaped bags that are made of parchment paper, cloth, or plastic.  The bags are equipped with embellishing tips and filled with frosting and used to pipe decorative items such as icing flowers, edges, scrollwork, and lacework patterns.

 

Decorating Tips

Decorating tips are sometimes called decorating nozzles. Decorating tips are used to produce decorative items such as basketweave patterns, icing roses, and shell borders. Tips come in varying shapes, and are used with an icing or pastry bag full of icing.  When the bag is squeezed, the frosting or cream is piped out in the shape of the tip.  Drop flowers are created with a single squeeze of the icing bag, while rose petals are made with masterful maneuvering of the tip and icing.

 

Flower Nail

A flower nail is shaped like a nail with an large, oversized head.  A flower head is used for piping royal icing and buttercream flowers that are transferred to a cake after drying.

 

Frosting

Frosting and icing are often substituted for each other.  Americans tend to use the phrase “frosting” for the creamy, sugary substance that covers a cake, while those in other English speaking countries tend to use the term “icing”. In the U.S.A., “frosting” typically refers to the icing that is spread over the cake, while “icing” normallyrefers to decorative icing, such as piped borders and icing roses.

 

Fondant

Fondant is also called sugar paste.  Fondant is an frosting sugar dough that can be manipulated in much the same way as pie dough.  Fondant can be rolled into smooth sheets, then draped over cakes, producing a smooth, perfect finish.

 

Ganache

Ganache is a velvety smooth icing.  It is prepared by melting either dark or white chocolate, then mixing it with heavy cream.

 

Gumpaste

Gumpaste is an eatable, clay-like dough.  It is prepared by blending glycerin, gum Arabic, and icing sugar.  Gumpaste is used to mold edible flowers and designs. Gum paste can also be rolled exceedingly thin and used to make intricate ribbons and lacework, as well as delicate flower petals.

 

Marzipan

Marzipan is a doughy almond substance.  It is made from the identical ingredients as almond paste, though marzipan has more sugar, less almonds, and has a smoother consistency.  Marzipan is frequently used for modeling cake decorations, and as a base covering underneath fondant.

 

Piping

Piping is a embellishing technique where a decorating bag or tube is filled with icing and outfitted with a decorating tip.  Piping takes place when the bag islightly squeezed to produce shaped dots and ribbons of icing toadorn cakes and other baked goods.

 

Royal Icing

Royal icing is a sweet white icing that is created by whipping icing sugar with either fresh egg whites or dried egg whites and meringue powder. Royal icing makes distinct icing borders.  It is ideal for piping complex writing, edges, scrollwork, and lacework on cakes. Royal icing dries very hard and preserves indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but is susceptible to softening and drooping in high humidity.