Decorating a biscuit cake at home: ideas with photos

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Those who rarely encounter cooking in everyday life, but on holidays want to surprise everyone with a masterpiece cooked at home, are lost: what decoration for a biscuit cake to make with their own hands? After all, the Internet is full of ideas, master classes and video tutorials. At such moments, it is important not to go on about good advertising and your feelings, but to build on your skills: choosing a complex recipe, hoping for “maybe it will work out” is not worth it. Therefore, below will be presented ideas that have passed the test of time among people with a small level of proficiency in confectionery art.

How to decorate a cake: basic ideas (photo)

Sponge cake decorations at home are conditionally divided into the following categories:

1. From the cream. The most commonly used are whipped cream (or sour cream) with sugar or buttercream based on condensed milk. Cream of whipped proteins is also popular.
2. Fruit. They can simply be laid out on top of the cake or filled with a layer of jelly.
3. One ofthe simplest decorations for a biscuit cake at home are chocolate icing. Simple but tasteful. This also includes chocolate chips.
4. Mastic. The popularity of this product has not subsided for several decades, because it can decorate a cake in almost any style.
5. Various small sweets: dragees, marzipan figurines, marmalade, marshmallows, marshmallows, small chocolates and other goodies.

Each option can be combined with several more - all the will of the creator and his inspiration. The only condition: a biscuit cake with decorations should not turn into a tasteless heap littered with all possible decorations, because sometimes minimalism is more attractive than illusory chic. At the same time, it is important not to forget that fixing a mistake in a cake is much more difficult, so its appearance should be thought out in advance, based on one of the ideas below.

Simple cream embellishments

Using sour cream to decorate a biscuit cake at home is one of the win-win options for those who have absolutely no imagination. With it, you can do:

• Fringe for the cake, leaving the center free. For various types of borders, replaceable nozzles in a pastry bag are used. Decide which tip to use for the different kinds of strips that can be placed on top of the cake in a wide variety of variations.
• Small flowers with leaves depicting a bouquet.
• Curls, curls and other smallornaments that fold into a certain pattern. It is very convenient to conditionally divide the cake into portioned pieces with such figures, so that later it would be convenient to cut it. These cakes look very presentable.
• It is very convenient to make various congratulatory inscriptions with butter or sour cream cream: if it is well whipped, it does not float at all, retaining its original shape.

In many photos of biscuit cakes, cream decorations look very respectable if you use rich chocolate cream, and set it off with silvery sugar beads for contrast. Simple curls of cream in this case appear in a winning light.

Cream Flowers

Despite the fact that cream roses have long been considered a relic of the past, for some people they are still desirable. In order for them to keep their shape well, it is necessary to use a well-prepared cream from butter, whipped proteins with gelatin or cream with sugar.

A simple cream recipe for decorating a biscuit cake looks like this: beat 120 grams of slightly softened butter into a fluffy foam with 4 tbsp. l. condensed milk. Also, instead of it, you can use 3 tbsp. l. powdered sugar. In the process of whipping, add a drop of vanilla extract for flavor and food coloring of the desired color to the cream.

To make a rose, you need to use a pastry bag or a syringe with a special nozzle, as well as a small piece of biscuit in the forma cone or sphere on which the cream will be applied in the form of flower petals. How to make this biscuit cake decoration? The photo above shows step-by-step instructions for making cream roses.

How to tint white cream in the right color?

When it comes time to decorate a cake with cream, you want to use as few synthetic products as possible, so natural dyes can come to the rescue. They can be taken from freshly squeezed juice of vegetables and fruits:

• Carrots will give orange color.
• Pink - beets. By adjusting the amount of juice, you can give the cream a shade from pale pink to deep cherry. You can also use raspberry, cherry or strawberry juice.
• Green color can be obtained from spinach juice.
• Chocolate color will give the cream cocoa powder or melted chocolate bar.
• Unfortunately, there is no blue color in vegetables, so you have to use indigo carmine to get it. This is a dye of natural origin.
• Yellow shade cream can give a few drops of water, dyed with saffron.

When the main cream for decorating the biscuit cake is ready, you can divide it into small portions and paint each with the desired color. You can also experiment by combining two different colors to get an unusual shade.

With fresh fruits and berries

In the summer, there is no desire to eat pastries with a fat cream, so it is better to use something lighter: berries, fruits, mousses and jelly from them. One of the easiest cake decorationsbiscuit cake in one layer (without impregnation with syrup or cream) can be considered fruit jelly, in which whole berries are frozen. When cut, such desserts look very profitable, and there is no question of how the top of the cake will look - the jelly is quite enough for this.

If you plan a cake with cream, but at the same time decorated with berries and fruits, then you can use these ideas for decoration:

1. Cocktail cherries. They pair perfectly with the whiteness of whipped cream, protein cream, and chocolate, while there is no need to worry about the berries getting too juiced or darkening from contact with air (like apples and bananas).
2. Fresh strawberries and raspberries, grapes are also good for decorating a sponge cake, as they hold their shape. With their help, you can decorate the edge of the product, laying them out in a circle, with flowers, finishing with almond petals or large chocolate chips.
3. Large fruits are not suitable for decoration, they will have to be cut, but remember that such cakes should be served immediately. Also, fruit slices on the cake can be covered with a layer of thick jelly using a silicone brush. This will enable the fruit to retain its natural color and appearance for a longer period of time.

Decoration of a biscuit cake with fruits looks very impressive in combination with chocolate icing, which is poured over the edge of the cake, creating drips of different lengths along the side. At the same time, the cake should be covered with a contrasting light cream, and the fruit should be thin slices.laid out in the form of a wreath around the perimeter. You can also use fresh mint leaves for extra color and volume.

Chocolate and glaze from it in the design of pastries

One of the favorite finishes is considered to be chocolate, especially glaze based on it. With its help, a perfectly smooth surface of the cake is created, which has a dark color, which gives a good contrast for further decorating the biscuit cake. Every housewife should have a recipe for chocolate icing, proven by multiple use in various desserts. One of the simple options is this: combine 160 ml of milk with 6 tbsp. l. cocoa powder and the same amount of sugar, mix thoroughly. Add 120 grams of butter. Put the mass on the fire and, stirring, bring to the first signs of boiling. Cool to room temperature and pour it over the finished cake, placing it on a wire rack to drip off the residue.

When the icing on the cake begins to harden, place on it other details of the decoration, conceived initially. Curls of white chocolate, butterflies and delicate openwork patterns look very impressive against such a background. They can be made by melting a bar of white chocolate in a steam bath (in hot, but not boiling water) and then using a piping bag and a thin round nozzle, apply to the parchment. On it, you first need to draw with a pencil the pattern that you want to make from chocolate. Various thin dark chocolate decorations are made in the same way: butterflies, antennae, flower leaves, etc.

How to decorateprotein cream cake?

Not everyone likes the taste of butter and sour cream - for some people it seems too fat, so in such cases you can use protein, because it is significantly lower in calories, and it does not create an unpleasant "slippery" sensation in the mouth.

Decorating biscuit cakes with protein cream is done in almost the same way as with butter cream, only it is important to prepare a high-quality cream that does not settle in two to three hours. To do this, resourceful confectioners use a weak solution of gelatin, which is mixed in during whipping proteins. Such a cream is more plastic, keeps its shape perfectly and allows you to form any figures: from inscriptions to flowers of various types. A few ideas for decorating a sponge cake with whipped egg white cream:

1. Cover the top and sides of the cake with cream, smoothing it thoroughly, and then using the notched nozzle of a pastry bag, make small curls along the top edge of the cake with the same cream. Next, use the smallest form of sugar dragee for sprinkling, trying to leave the center of the cake intact, decorating only the edge and sides with colored dots. After decoration, such a cake must be immediately put in the refrigerator so that the dragee does not float under the influence of cream and heat.
2. You can go the other way: decorate with large cream flowers not the top, but the side of the cake. Moreover, you can use both one or several contrasting shades in one product: children will like colorful and bright, and older people will like a cake with pastel colors.tones.
3. Protein cream is very convenient to cover cakes in the form of animals, cartoon characters, toys. Often this kind of decoration requires the creation of small, uniform details: hedgehog needles, a bear cub's coat or snowdrifts, and protein cream does an excellent job of this, keeping the desired shape well.

If there is excess protein cream (without gelatin), then they can be deposited on a baking sheet in small lumps and baked in the oven at a temperature of 110-130 degrees until a soft cream shade. You will get ordinary mini-meringues with which you can decorate a cake covered with icing. It is better not to put them on a soft cream - they can swell from moisture and lose their shape.

Mastic

This product is in second place (after the classic cream) among the ways to decorate a biscuit cake at home. Anything can be done from this plastic mass: completely cover the cake, creating a perfectly smooth surface, fashion flowers of various types and sizes, sometimes of completely bizarre shapes and colors, tinting the pieces of mastic in any shade.

Figures of your favorite characters, animals, insects and birds, trees and household items - anything can be made from mastic if you have the desire and patience. Decorating a biscuit cake for a boy will no longer be a problem, since you can fashion Spider-Man, so loved by everyone, or Batman from soft mastic, or create a whole picture on a cake from colored pieces - for all the author's imagination. A few nuances at workwith this sweet mass you should know:

• Mastic hardens quickly, so after cooking it must be kept in polyethylene, taking out a small piece during the modeling process. In free air, the mass hardens, turning into a sugar figurine.
• Roll out a layer of mastic on a special silicone mat sprinkled with powdered sugar.
• Shapes that are too large and thick should not be used as they may crack. Preference should be given to small, small details, because it was for their manufacture that mastic was invented.

The finished mastic in the film can be in the refrigerator for about three months, so it is at hand at any time: ready to decorate sponge cake, cupcakes, pastries and other pastries.

Freedom for fantasy: a cake for a child

Children are the most scrupulous in choosing the appearance of a dessert. Often they don’t care about taste at all, but here’s a bright, colorful design, “so that no one else has this” - this is the main children's wish. Therefore, many mothers, in search of the perfect sponge cake decoration at home, use everything that the confectionery industry has to offer:

M&M's colored dragees are used to make rainbows, spiral patterns and various figurines, wrap them around the sides of the cake in a special way. You can also add colored sugar sprinkles for Easter cakes in the form of various shapes: flowers, stars and just beads

• From wafer rolls or thin chocolate plates make a picket fence along the edge of the cake, and the middlefilled with small treats: the child's favorite cookies, candied fruits or marshmallows, chocolate coins, nuts, etc.
• Decorating abundantly the sides of the cake, leave the top untouched, in which they put sticks with balloons, flags and ribbons, flowers and lollipops. The fancier the cake seems, the more the child will like it - this scheme works flawlessly.
• If the baby is allergic to synthetic products, then for him you can decorate the cake with whipped proteins and fresh berries, as well as pieces of colored jelly made from natural juices.
• Option for the most desperate: buy or order in a special department a waffle plate with an image printed on it. It can be a photo of a birthday boy, a scene from your favorite cartoon or movie, whatever. This product is absolutely harmless, but it looks very impressive. Put it on the smooth top of the cake as follows: put the waffle pattern face down on the table, carefully spread the wrong side with honey or sugar syrup, transfer to the cake, face up and press lightly. Smooth the surface with a napkin so that there are no waves and decorate the joint with a creamy border.

If the cake is large, then you can make a whole Candy-land from everything that is at hand: make a small gingerbread house out of cookies and cream, decorating it with small colored sweets. Make Christmas trees from ice cream cones, turn them upside down, draw needles with green cream. From marmalade or square-shaped pieces of jelly to makea path to the house, on which to place a figure of a person (or several) made of mastic. You can add a figurine of animals to it: a dog or a cat, a horse - whatever comes to mind. Make flowers from small round caramels, you can also draw them with cream using a pastry syringe and curly nozzles. If desired, add a candy cane to which you can tie a thread with a balloon on which a congratulation for the child is written.

Curly cakes

Cakes in the form of various objects are also in demand among homemade pastries:

• Heart-shaped cake for Valentine's Day. In its design, it is important to use white and pink colors, fresh strawberries and curls of dark chocolate, because all these details have long become common names for romantic feelings.
• Cake in the form of a car or an animal head, a cartoon character for a children's party. This also includes biscuit cakes decorated with dolls, popular unicorns, Smurfs and others.
• The cake is a flower exquisitely decorated with cream.
• Numbers, sometimes two side by side on a dish, symbolizing the date of the anniversary. They are richly decorated in a variety of ways: buttercream flowers, fresh berries, small colored dragees, cookies, sugar tubes and other sweets.

For an example: a butterfly cake is very easy to make from a round biscuit by cutting and shaping it, as seen in the photo. You can decorate not only with mastic, because not everyone likes its sugary taste, but simply with cream in combination withberries or pieces of marmalade.

It makes no sense to list further possible options for decorating cakes, since there are as many of them as there are opinions. Each creator brings something of his own to the general design rules, sometimes inventing amazing things. There is no need to be shy and give up new attempts at the first failure, because only in patient diligence and the development of skills is the true skill of any creator born: be it a confectioner or a carpenter.