Cake Decorating Design Ideas

Cake decorating design ideas give you the ability to turn an ordinary cake into an extraordinary cake. You can create a simple pastel flower or under the sea design or try for an elaborate three-dimensional penguin or dinosaur. When it comes to decorating a cake the possibilities are endless, giving you the opportunity to make a unique and unforgettable edible masterpiece.

Simple Cake Decorating Ideas

A common way to decorate a cake is to add small flowers made of colored gel to the edges by using a standard petal tip on the end of the icing bag. To make the flowers stand out there are cake decorating design ideas that can assist you in dressing up your canvas.

One such idea requires the use of only one tip, white butter cream icing, a flower cookie cutter and different gel colors. Simply put the butter cream icing on the cake, let it dry, and then gently press the flower cookie cutter into the icing. Use the gel to outline the flowers and different color creams to fill the insides as well as the yellow center. Add a few green lines for stems and leaves and you have a cake covered in pretty flowers.

Example of using cookie cutters for cake decorating technique:



If you feel up to doing something a little more different, you might try making flowers with fondant and sticking them on top of the butter cream or around the sides of the cake.



Other decorative cake ideas that are easy to make are bears, Elmo, a cross, or a house with the use of shaped cake pans and colorful icing.

See more easy cake decorating ideas.

Ornate Cake Decorating

Cake decorating design ideas with underwater themes are highly decorative, and might be easy or slightly challenging to create depending on your patience and culinary skills.

To make a cake adorned with fish and coral, you first need to roll out white and light blue fondant, knead them together to create a marbleized look, and place it over the butter cream onto the cake.

Next, melt some white candy and put it into the icing bag so that you can squeeze it out into coral shapes. Sprinkle nonpareils on top of the shapes and let them harden in the refrigerator before placing them around the sides of the cake.

Finally, form tropical fish by adding food color to the butter in the rice krispy treats recipe. Roll the rice cereal into a ball and mold fruit snacks and gum drops into the shapes of tails, fins, mouth and eyes. Sit the fish on top of the cake and it’s ready to serve.

Princess castles, baby carriages, cathedral Bundt cakes, and seashells are a few more ideas that you can nicely decorate.

Elaborate Cake Decorating

For the advanced culinary artist or those who don’t mind trying new things, there are many elaborate cake decorating design ideas, such as a three-dimensional wedding dress, penguin, hamburger or jungle scene.




Dinosaurs, jack-o-lanterns, and sports cakes also make for very detailed and challenging arrangements but the end result is a design that is sure to have guests talking.



Of these over-the-top designs, the sports cakes are the easiest to construct. For example, the golf cake is only two layers of cake placed on top of each other and covered with chocolate icing and cookie crumbs. Then you just melt some green candies and spread the paste onto wax paper so that a long, thick strip is created. Let the candy harden for about a half hour until you cut it into smaller pieces of various sizes. Place the “grass” on top of and around the cake, add a real golf ball or make an edible one and you’re done.

More Cake Decorating Design Ideas

Easy Cake Decorating Ideas
Cake Decorating Techniques
Fondant Cake Decorating
Cupcake Ideas
Using Cake Decorating Patterns

Learn Cake Decorating Ebook

Would you like an ebook to help you with your cake decorating? We have a 94 page ebook that is designed to help you with:

• decorating ideas
• Steps you should take before decorating your cake
• 10 simple cake ideas with photos
• 70 cake and frosting cake decorator tested recipes
• and much more cake decorating help

See more details on our Learn Cake Decorating Ebook.