Decorating Wedding Cakes: Pro Tips For Beginners

Decorating a wedding cake can be a fun activity, but it can also be stressful. Here are some tips to help you decorate a wedding cake like a professional.

First, consider the number of guests you are expecting. This will determine the size of your cake and the number of tiers and servings you will need. You can combine different-sized tiers in various ways to create the desired number of servings.

Next, pick an attainable cake design. While you may want a specific number of tiers or a particular design, it is important to choose something you feel confident in making and executing well. If you are unsure, it is a good idea to make a smaller practice cake beforehand.

When it comes to decorations, fresh flowers are a common and beautiful choice. You can also use sugar paste flowers or buttercream flowers, but these require more skill and practice. Another option is to use fondant, which can be moulded into various shapes and designs, such as sugar flowers or latticework.

Don't forget to consider the flavour of your cake. While this is a personal decision, it is generally recommended to stick to one or two flavours to keep things simple.

Finally, practice your piping skills if you want to add decorative borders or motifs to your cake. You can use different piping tips to create flowers, leaves, stars, and other designs.

Use real, fresh flowers to decorate

Using real, fresh flowers to decorate your wedding cake is a striking and easy way to add colour and shape to your cake. Fresh flowers are beautiful and smell incredible. They are also a low-cost option compared to other traditional decorations like sugar-paste flowers.

However, not all flowers are edible or safe to use. It's important to ensure that the flowers you choose are not toxic and have not been treated with harmful chemicals or pesticides. Flowers bought from a supermarket, garden centre, or florist, for example, are likely to have been sprayed with insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides that are unsafe to eat. If you want to use flowers from these sources, they must be thoroughly washed and dried before being placed on your cake. Even then, they should be marked as non-edible to your guests, and their stems should be wrapped to prevent any bitter-tasting fluids from leaking into the cake.

To avoid the risk of poisoning altogether, it's best to stick to edible flowers grown specifically for human consumption, with no toxic pesticides involved. Some flowers that can be safely used on your wedding cake include pansies, lavender, violas, roses, carnations, peonies, cornflowers, and sunflowers.

When preparing fresh flowers for your cake, let them hydrate overnight in clean water. Then, cut the stems to approximately 2-3 inches long and wrap them in floral tape to prevent any leakage onto the cake. If you want to avoid placing the flowers directly on the cake, you can place a frosting-covered board on top of the cake and adorn it with flowers. This can be easily removed when it's time to cut the cake.

Fresh flowers will typically last for eight hours in a fridge and a few hours outside of the refrigerator. To ensure they last as long as possible, keep them in water until the last minute and keep the cake in the fridge. If your wedding is taking place during warm weather, bring the cake out just before you plan to cut it, instead of leaving it out all day.

Make a statement with gilded accents

Gilded accents are a great way to make a statement at a glamorous wedding. Here are some tips to achieve this look:

Choose the Right Cake Stand

To showcase your gilded cake, select a metallic table or cake stand that will complement the gold accents. A round or rectangular metallic cake stand with a sleek design will make your cake stand out and give it the attention it deserves.

Use Gold Leaf or Gilded Embellishments

Decorate your cake with gold leaf or gilded embellishments to add a touch of glamour and elegance. You can either opt for a subtle accent by adding a few splashes of gold leaf or go bold by dousing your entire cake in it. Gold foil is another way to achieve a similar effect.

Combine with Other Decorations

Gilded accents pair well with fresh or sugar flowers. For a romantic touch, accent your cake with pink blossoms. You can also incorporate your joint initials in gold for a personalised touch. Fresh or sugar flowers in shades of pink, cream, fuchsia, or lavender will create a beautiful and romantic look.

Create a Focal Point

Your cake will be the centrepiece of your reception, so make sure it stands out. If your cake table is against a wall, showcase the design on the front of the cake so that it becomes the focal point of the room.

Get Creative with Tiers

If you opt for a tiered cake, you can decorate each tier with different gilded designs or patterns. You can also use gold leaf or foil on alternating tiers for a unique and modern look.

Add Some Glamour with Gilded Details

If you want to go all out, combine your gilded cake with other glamorous decorations such as a vibrant flower wall or a sophisticated table setting. This will create a cohesive and elegant look for your wedding reception.

Create a work of art with a geode cake

Geode cakes are a unique and artistic way to decorate a wedding cake. The rock-like structure is created by carving out chunks of the cake and filling the cut-outs with edible "crystals" made from rock candy or isomalt shards. The crystals are then painted with food colouring to mimic the appearance of real geodes.

To create a geode cake, start by baking a delicious cake that will serve as the base. A good cake recipe should be tasty and quick to put together, as you will be spending a significant amount of time on assembling and decorating the cake. Once the cake has cooled, use a serrated knife to carefully carve out the desired cut-outs. There is no need to worry about the shape and size of the cut-outs, as you can do one large cut-out or multiple smaller ones, depending on your preference.

The next step is to cover the cut-outs with frosting. Set aside about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of frosting for this purpose. It is not necessary to perfectly smooth the frosting in the cut-outs, as they will be covered with rock candy. After frosting, use tweezers or your fingers to press the rock candy firmly into the cut-outs, ensuring that any cake crumbs are covered.

Now comes the fun part: painting the rock candy! Mix food colouring with a small amount of vodka to create your desired colours. Use a paintbrush to apply the darker colour to the centres of the rock candy-covered cut-outs, and then paint the outer edges with a lighter shade. This will create an ombre effect that mimics the natural colouring of geodes.

As a final touch, you can add some edible gold or silver leaf to your cake. Use tweezers to carefully place the gold or silver leaf onto the cake, creating a border around the cut-outs or placing it randomly throughout, depending on your preferred design.

Creating a geode cake can be a time-consuming process, but it is definitely achievable for amateur bakers. With some creativity and patience, you can make a stunning geode cake that will be a true work of art at your wedding.

Use chocolate to decorate

Chocolate is a great way to decorate a wedding cake. It looks fancy and tastes delicious. The trickiest part of working with chocolate is that it needs to be tempered so that you get a nice, shiny look. You can also use thin ganache or DIY magic shell for a similar look, but be careful if the cake has to stand for a long time as both are sensitive to heat.

One easy way to decorate a wedding cake with chocolate is to make big shards of thin chocolate to put around the whole outside of the cake. First, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and pour melted, tempered chocolate over it. Spread the chocolate into an even layer. No need to be too precise about smoothness, because the part touching the pan will be the visible surface. Let the chocolate set, then use a knife to cut score marks and break it into shards.

You can be precise by cutting the plaques to the exact height (or slightly taller) than your cake, or you can embrace randomness and break them all into different sizes and just build it until you like the look. I recommend wearing gloves when handling the chocolate, as your hands can leave smears and fingerprints. Finish the cake by arranging something inside the chocolate "walls", such as fresh fruit, flowers, or more chocolate. Alternatively, swirl or pipe more frosting onto the exposed surfaces for a more finished look.

If you want to use chocolate to decorate a wedding cake, you can also use chocolate truffles, chocolate-based desserts, or chocolate ganache. For a simple look, top a couple of tiers of cake with chocolate-textured frosting and add a few berries and blooms. For a drip cake, pair plenty of cake layers with a chocolate drip, gold detailing, and fresh figs and berries.

Embrace geometric details

If you're going for a modern wedding, geometric designs with straight lines and clean edges are a unique and statement-making way to decorate your wedding cake.

One way to achieve this look is by using fondant. Pressing a geometric pattern onto fondant is an out-of-the-box choice that plays with graphic design. For example, latticework in white and green transforms a four-tier white cake into a mid-century modern masterpiece.

Another way to incorporate geometric details into your wedding cake is by using triangles. A three-tier confection with triangle-shaped fondant panels is a unique and statement-making wedding cake look.

Chocolate is also a great way to decorate a cake and can be used to create geometric shapes. Thin, tempered chocolate can be used to make big shards of chocolate that are placed around the whole cake. This technique is easy to do and looks fancy.

Frequently asked questions