Budget Cake Decorating for Non-Artists

With all the ready-made tubes of colored decorating icing and gel available in the grocery store’s birthday cakes section, you’d think it would be fast and easy to decorate a birthday cake yourself.  But what happens if you can’t draw?

It may be a great intention to make a frugal birthday or baby shower cake at home, that is- if the horses and flowers you draw on top of the cake really look like horses and flowers.  You want an inexpensive cake that agrees with your grocery budget, but that doesn’t look like your a school-aged child did the decorating!  If you are artistically challenged like me, but still don’t want to pay high prices for a bakery-decorated cake (bakery cakes can range from $12-$45- ouch!), this kitchen tip for decorating cakes is for you. 

Kitchen Tip: Use Cookie Cutters to Make Traceable Outlines

• Choose cookie cutters in the appropriate shape for your theme (baby items for a baby shower, crowns for a princess party, palm trees and stars for a Hawaiian luau, etc.).
• Bake and ice a cake as you normally would.
• Let the cake sit out uncovered for a few hours until the top layer of the icing starts to harden and form a light crust.
• Place the chosen cookie cutters on top of the icing and lightly press down about 1 1/2 centimeters, making an imprint of the shapes.
• Choose either a pastry tube with a decorating bag (shown at right) filled with colored icing, or different colors of store-bought icing gel (shown below) to decorate with.  

• Use the outlines you created from the cookie cutters to “trace the lines”.  Fill in the ridges of the outlines with colored icing or gel, then fill in the center of the shapes/animals with icing dyed with food coloring! 

Using the cookie cutters as “cheats” to create traceable outlines, cake decorating will be a snap – even if you’re not good at drawing.  Your shapes will come out perfect every time for a professional looking birthday, holiday, or baby shower cake on a budget!

Check out Tammy’s Recipes for more Kitchen Tip Tuesday tips!  Baby shower cake photo by yorkd.

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1. How to Make and Decorate a Flip Flops Cake (Video)